Promo 1:

Promo 2:

Soundtracks provided courtesy of Chris Outlaw and Mischa Weston-Green of the group “Gunslinga”.

Skiing:

CSIA Level 1 – 100% pass rate
CSIA Level 2 – 100% pass rate
CADS Level 1 – 100% pass rate

Snowboarding:

CASI Level 1 – 100% pass rate
CASI Level 2 – 100% pass rate
CASI Park Instructor – 100% pass rate

A big “Thank you” goes to everyone involved in making this season Powdertrip’s best so far. Role on 2009!

Over the season, the seasonnaires have been building a pair of skis and a snowboard, in a workshop just outside Golden. Carl, who sells the custom-made skis and boards he builds, started out by making skateboards as a hobby and now has a workshop next to his house. He passionately guides the seasonnaires though the construction process four evenings a week. One lucky skier and one lucky snowboarder will win the final products.

The skiers had a nervous wait before Shane pulled Caroline’s name out of a hat, giving her the choice of what skis the group would build for her to keep. The final decision was to construct some touring skis.

Alternatively, the snowboard group have decided to build a 159cm lightweight freestyle board to suit all of their needs and leave the draw until the board is completed. They’ve all contributed to the construction process and graphic designs. The completed snowboard is incredibly light, weighed less than a Burton Vapor!

So the process started with Carl meeting the whole group at Alpenrose and talking about construction materials and processes and negotiating how the project was to take place. Then he took Powdertrippers, four times a week out to his Nicholson workshop, starting by cutting templates and then leading them all the way through the building process to finally vacuum-pressing the skis and board.

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Despite the spring conditions this week, our guide Todd Craig still knew where to find some great ice climbing. Nick Rumbles, Nick Ward, Kyla and Pete joined him in Cedar Creek for a challenging day of ice climbing. After weeks of training on an indoor wall at the Dogtooth Climbing Gym, it was nice to be in the great outdoors. We drove out through the protected wetlands in the early hours before leaving Todd’s truck on the highway and hiking up into the forested Rocky Mountain foothills equipped with our climbing gear.

The two pitches we found in Cedar Creek were each fifty five metre climbs, formed where water froze as it trickled over rocks. This provides more stable ice to climb on than a frozen waterfall would. Todd ‘lead-climbed’ to the top, inserting ice screws on his way to hold the rope.

Then, after a brief lesson about belaying and the use of crampons, it was time to climb! Each pitch was the length of the rope and it seemed to take forever to climb and use every ounce of energy we had (to the point where Kyla actually fell asleep in the snow)!

Ice climbing is easier than it’s summer counterpart and this allows you to have the energy to climb for longer, especially once you get used to the technique and equipment.

After a very full day, we returned to Alpenrose just in time for the 6pm dinner and an early bedtime!

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Mr Awesome’s ‘Real Superbowl’ was pipped to the post by a comedy deer hunter film from Kicking Horse Resort. It featured two amazing skiers chasing each the mountain dressed as a hunter and a deer. Some amazing cliff drops and tricks were pulled considering the costumes the skiers were wearing and they used the terrain features really well to make the film interesting! Better luck next year Awesome!

 
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Ben, Jake, Andrew and Chris all took this weekend course to build on the freestyle skills that Chuck and Ryan have been teaching them in lessons and to be able to instruct freestyle skills in a safe and progressive manner. This is a really useful course for any snowboarder to have, with the huge growth and increase in popularity of terrain parks in modern resorts. Ryan Murray evaluated the course and led the group through a variety of manoeuvres and safety concerns specific to park riding and etiquette.

The course is divided into skills including straight airs, airs with rotation and riding rails and boxes using the SICK concept and the snowboard skills learnt on the level one course.

The Seasonnaires were all celebrating successfully passing the course with a BBQ at Alpenrose on the Sunday evening and getting ready to take their newly learned freestyle skills to the big mountain terrain that Kicking Horse offers.

See www.casi-acms.com for more details about the content of the course.

Susan Hughes from CADS flew in from Vancouver to run the level 1 disabled ski course with members of the Powdertrip ski seasonaires. Wednesday evening was a theory session at Alpenrose, focussing on the ways disabled ski instructing is run across Canada and in British Columbia down to resort level. The main types of equipment were also introduced, along with an outline of the two days of practical sessions at Kicking Horse Resort.

The blind led the blind on Thursday morning… literally, starting in the Day Lodge, the group had to pair up and lead each other to the top of the Catamount Chair before skiing down again – all with one person’s eyes closed! The morning continued with more laps of the Catamount Chair, practicing instructing blind skiers. After lunch, eyes were opened but this time a ski was taken away to practice skiing with a single ski all afternoon, assisted by specially adapted poles called outriggers. The group became quite confident and they even mentioned joining the rest of the skiers on the race course! With rested eyes and a tired leg they got stuck into the paperwork homework that evening in anticipation of another challenging day ahead.

Friday started with some white-knuckled sit-skiing! Using one sit-ski, the group took it in turns to tether, guide and ski in the seated ski with outriggers. Apart from flying down the lower runs on a seat with a ski attached to the bottom, the scariest moment came when a snowboarder lost control and crashed into Nick, who was guiding the sit-ski. Carnage followed with Caroline in the sit-ski and Nick fortunately escaping uninjured! The snowboarder left after an ear bashing from Susan, in the false knowledge that he’d just knocked over a disabled skier! Friday afternoon was thankfully less eventful, and the group learnt about adaptive skiing before all being awarded their CADS level 1 certificates.

Thanks to Susan and CADS BC.

After two days of steady snow, the skies cleared to make way for a spectacular Sunday over the Selkirk Mountains. The group were gifted with dream conditions for their first heli experience and arrived at the Purcell operation with anticipation of an adrenaline fuelled day ahead. After comprehensive avalanche and helicopter safety talks, the time had come to step into our 5 star chairlift and head for powder covered peaks. Taking just 6 minutes from Golden to the first drop-off zone, the chopper is certainly the fastest and most exciting way to travel in this part of the world. Stunning views of Golden, Columbia Valley and Purcell, Selkirk and Rocky Mountain Ranges just made the trip seem even quicker.

And so began one of life’s unforgettable days. Most snowriders dream of at least one heli experience, and we certainly made the most of ours. Helicopters and powder are both magnetic entities so combining the two together with great weather led to an incredible day.

The first run was a mellow one; with the guides making sure we were all safe and competent in the conditions. After a fall here, and a forward roll there, the group were soon opening out their turns with whoops of joy at the feeling of flying down untracked snow and throwing up smoke clouds of dusty snow in their wake.

Two minutes later, we’d been whisked back to the top of the valley for a second run down a steeper gradient, finishing in a tree run before lunch next to the helicopter.

The afternoon opened with an increase in difficulty as Ryan and Don our guides saw that we could handle the deeper snow and bigger slopes. With only three runs being pre-booked, we quickly signed ourselves up for two more and were soon reaping the rewards of our easy decision! The fourth and fifth descents were in a different area, making the most of the mid afternoon sun. While heli-skiing is easily glorified, it’s important to remember that you’re in backcountry, unpatrolled terrain that constitutes avalanche country. The pitches are therefore equivalent to blue runs for everyone’s safety. This doesn’t take anything away from the experience, and the snow on these afternoon runs was perfect – champagne, dusty, untouched powder that hangs in the air around you as you fly down making any shape turn you want and just feeling glorious! With the group on a huge adrenaline high, the guides let us try some moderate drops from natural snow banks.

All too soon it was time to fly for the last time: six minutes from powder fields to the Purcell Lodge overlooking Golden. On the way down, we fly over Eagle’s Eye and screamed through Bowl Over in Kicking Horse Resort providing a unique view of the slopes we have been riding for the last 12 weeks.

The sense of achievement carried through to the week’s lessons, with all of us having completed one of our lifelong dreams.
You can’t help feeling richer at heart from the experience! Roll on more days like this one…

www.purcellhelicopterskiing.com