Red Mountain 11 Week Ski Instructor Course ‘07 – Week 1
by Carol Skolimowski
On Jan 5th 19 of us joined Al on the coach from Vancouver Airport to Rossland. The journey was interesting with heavy snow all the way. The driver did a sterling job, only to have a fallen tree hit the windscreen a few miles out of Rossland before getting stuck on the main hill in town. So at 4.30 am we unloaded and walked to our new homes for the season.
We woke to a beautiful sunny day and of course the heavy snowfall made for excellent skiing. We divided into three groups with instruction for the week focusing on stance as well as having our first lot of video analysis.
The weather has been a real mix with everything from white outs to -20C in the sun to freezing rain, perfect for testing the efficiency of all our new gear! Our helmets are coming in useful as we discover the delights of bopping through the trees.
We certainly aren’t going hungry, each evening we head for Clancy’s for fab food and Al’s daily updates and with Dan’s birthday this week we have all got to know each other pretty quickly.
The weekend found us doing Avalanche Safety training, which was excellent. Using our transceivers (beacons) we simulated a rescue and dug snow holes to understand the types and layers of snow before hiking uphill for our first experience of backcountry skiing.
