Blog #4

As a ski coach, I'm always skiing with kids that are 4 and 5 years old. Last year as I skied with the kids in my first year coaching I got to see all the excitement on each of their little faces everyday that we were on the hill, each day with a new reason for the incredible excitement. One day while we were skiing at Fernie, the other coach and I decided to play camouflage with the kids. Camouflage is when we yell ‘camouflage’ and the kids have to pop off their skis and run into the forest to hide, we then have to find them without going into the forest. Us being coaches meant that we had radios, so as the kids were hiding one of us watched the kids run into the knee-deep snow around the trees, then we just radioed each other pointing out where the kids were. As the kids eventually figured out how we were so amazing at the game they were fascinated by the radios, they could not figure out that in order for them to work they had to hold down the button while they were talking into the radio. We probably sat at the bottom of the hill for 30 minutes before one kid finally figured it and went around showing everyone how to do it. Once everyone knew how to do it they all had to try just to make sure that she wasn’t lying. After they all knew that it worked, they took every chance they could to radio every coach on the hill.

Blog #3

Standing at the top of the double black run off of curry bowl at Fernie, all eight of us just waiting to jump in. It was a powder day something all of us were not used to, being from the Nakiska ski team. Our coach wanted to do a few training runs, so he headed down first and began motioning for us to come down one at a time s he could give us feedback. As the group at the top began deteriorating it came closer and closer to the moment when I could rip down the hill to the rest of the group. Soon there were only four of us left, my friends Paige, Evan, Jackson and I. It was Jackson’s turn to go and we were all getting impatient, so as he was talking to us my friend Paige pushed him over the edge. All you could see was a ball of snow forming around Jackson and then a ski flying out of the ball of snow, then the other ski, poles, his goggles, and last but not least his helmet came flying off, on his trip down the hill. All of us were terrified that he had broken his arm, his leg or his neck. We all stood staring at Paige, as we waited for the cloud of snow to settle down. Then we looked back down the hill, he was sitting on the ground laughing, he popped up still laughing, gave us the thumbs up, and proceeding to pick up his gear. That is my most memorable snow moment.