The seasonnaires entered their level one exam week on the back of a Sunday spent in and around Panorama Mountain Resort. Ben, Jake, Nick and Pete decided to hit the kilometre long terrain park while another eight Powdertrippers spent the day dog sledding and snowmobiling in the backcountry.
Panorama Terrain Park and Pipe
The week has been a successful one for the snowboarders with most of them bagging their first rail, and opening the door towards becoming Park Instructors on top of their CASI certificates. Panorama provided an enormous terrain park to practice the skills they’d been working on this week. Nick joined the others as the token skier to prove that two planks fly just as well as one!
Dog sledding
The less park-orientated Powdertrippers were sliding on sleds rather than rails as they experienced driving packs of dogs on a more traditional snowy transport. About thirty dogs pulled three sleds through the spectacular alpine environment for the morning, showing that they were not only cute but also extremely strong and fast.
Snowmobiling
A BBQ lunch was welcome relief before the group upgraded their dogpower to horsepower in the form of snowmobiles. A safety brief and driving lesson taught them snowmobiling and backcountry skills. Then Inkeri, Jack, Chris, Karen, Andrew, Frankie, Lynne, Tigger and David were let loose and told to ‘go for it’ in a huge alpine bowl! Speeds of 50mph were reached as the group clung to their ‘sleds’ and became motor-heads for the afternoon. Andrew discovered that getting air on a snowmobile is just as scary as getting air on a snowboard, while a few people found out that falling off is pretty tough too!
Radium Hot Springs
All the group met at the end of the day to share stories and relax in the three pools at Radium Hot Springs. With temperatures plummeting as evening kicked in, the outdoor hot mineral water pools steamed as tired muscles recovered ready for another six days of intense skiing and boarding at Kicking Horse.
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