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Whistler freeride camp
By ruth | January 25, 2008
Last weekend Dave and I signed up for the Quiksilver freeride/ freestyle camp. (It’s only called Quiksilver because they sponsor it and you get a free T shirt.) It was $140 each for the two days of the camp (because it’s Discover Whistler 40% off at the moment), which is a pretty good deal already. We weren’t sure what we were expecting, except to explore the mountain and maybe work on our technique some more, and hopefully meet some new people.
It turned out to be even more of a bargain, because only four people had signed up for the camp; one of them wanted to do freestyle; and one of them was a different level of riding ability. So Dave and I ended up with an instructor to ourselves, which, given that a private lesson will set you back over $400 a day, is not bad going at all. (As part of the camp, we also got free beer and pizza on the Saturday evening.)
We started off the day with Tyler, but he’s a freestyle man so he took the park lesson, and handed us over to Ross. Ross gave us some initial instruction, then took us to a steep bumpy area; and quickly decided that what we needed was some more challenging terrain. I have to admit I was a little reticent, confidence not being my strong point, but I kept quiet and followed.
We spent the vast majority of the two days riding through trees, partly because the wind was high, the temperatures low, and the snow quality variable; and partly because riding through trees is fun and challenging. Some of the first runs we did were pretty mellow, with nicely spaced trees and easy gradients, but Ross clearly decided not to hold back, and took us to some more’ interesting’ locations. We often found ourselves above small cliffs and steep gullies, making use of the deep snow banks and trying to find flowing lines of our own through the obstacles.
He encouraged us to find out how it felt to jump off small drops and down sheer banks, and to find the balance between going all out for good speed, and holding back a little to see what’s coming and keep control.
I have to be honest - I didn’t enjoy a lot of it. I was being pushed very hard, and I’m not fit; plus I’m a big old scaredy-cat so it was mentally challenging to keep doing things I was nervous of. By lunchtime on the first day I was completely exhausted. It was quite hard to keep a positive mindset, being that tired, trying new things, falling over a lot and trying to be brave. I lost sight of the ‘fun’ part somewhere along the way.
Having said that, only two days later I realised that I’d now got a completely different idea of what I can and can’t do; I have lots of things to work on and play around with; and things I previously thought were hard seem much less so now. I’m glad Ross pushed us so hard, and I can’t wait to get out there again and have some fun.
Tags: snowboarding, whistler, trees, freeride, camp, lesson
Topics: /snow |