Yesterday was a tense, tense day. We started the morning nervous as it was the last day of our three day exam!
We began by practising our intermediate parallel turns and then took it in turns teaching lessons on different skills. Once again we were facing -20 degree temperatures and lower, so every hour we went inside to warm our toes and fingers. Panicking and making sure I could do the best I could the whole way through the exam, I wasn’t concentrating on keeping warm and I’m pretty sure I lost circulation in my toes for a good hour!

The day finished at around 1pm and so we had a few hours to sit, wait and ponder whether we’ve passed or not. At 4 we met up with our groups (very nervously) to find out the results and thankfully… I PASSED!

After an evening of celebrations that we’re now qualified CASI ski instructors, we’re ready for bed preparing to wake up in 5 hours for fresh tracks!!!!

It’s going to be a good few last days (I think).

Today after getting up and checking the temperature on the whistlerblackcomb website we realised that the cold weather had reached a peak at minus twenty five!!
After putting on three pairs of thermal leggings, four thermal tops, a thin down coat, my ski jacket, ski pants, two pairs of gloves, hand warmers, a neck scarf, socks, ski boots, a helmet and zipping it all up right to the top (boiling right now inside the house) I was ready to face to cold outside.
After meeting my exam group at the top of Whistler, we head off to start day 2 of the casi level one.
After a couple of runs practising our pivoting skill, nearly all of us couldn’t feel our noses (or toeses) and so we headed inside for five minutes to warm up. After a few more skill runs and technical drills and then a long lunch consisting of taking our ski boots off to feel our toes again and eating hot chile, we spent the afternoon practising teaching each other. It’s strange teaching people who you know can ski to a high ability but pretending that they are nine year old beginners, however everyone got involved and made the most of it.
Tomorrow is our last day, a half day and then we’ll find out the results of our exam! Im so nervous, so wish me luck and fingers crossed…

day 1 level 1 casi ski instructor exam:
Minus 20, not a great day for level 1 exam consisting of standing around learning how to wear a ski boot and ski and then spending the rest of the day perfecting snow plough. Safe to say my toes basically fell off in the cold and I nearly got frost bite on my nose! However a quick hand warmer pressed to the nose quickly sorted that out.
The perfect snow plough is actually harder than it seems as automatically your body leans back when in a pizza position and so you have to make a conscious effort to make sure your base of support is centred. Next there’s pivoting (turning the leg within the hip socket without moving the hip), this causes separation. It comes quite naturally for advanced skiiers skiing parallel however is much harder in pizza!
Thanks to alltracks we’ve had a lot of practise on all the skills within our lessons and so we knew what to do and what the examiner was inspecting. Unlucky for those who haven’t been on alltracks. Moreover the examiner seemed to be happy with my pizza and chips (snow plough and parallel) and so I’m happy with day 1.
The ice that were my feet was melted when we had a whizz down to the bottom from blackcomb peak in order to get to the class room session on time.
The day couldn’t have been made any better by the fact that right now I am in my pajamas watching my favourite program in the world.. Super super shocked that canada airs it but YAY FOR FRIENDS!

Day 2 tomorrow and we’re working on our intermediate parallel and teaching skills, happy days!

(freaking out on a bridge!)

Today held another unforgettable experience while in whistler and another item on our to do list that we could cross off… We went BUNGEE JUMPING!
At midday 14 of us met at the Whistler Bungee hut, filled in wavers (signing our life away) and loaded the bus ready to travel to the bungee bridge.
Once we loaded the bridge and we’re harnessed off we took it in turns to jump off and plummet straight down towards the water before being jammed back up and then plummeting down once more.
The men decided that I should fall backwards with my head back as they said I seemed confident and this was the most exiting way to fall (die). Feeling quite confident I boarded the platform but then made the mistake of looking down. Once the man had counted down three, two, one, I grabbed him and swore I couldn’t do it. After what seemed like hours (maybe seconds) of begging him to let me not do it or go forward, he stayed firm, shaking his head and counting three, two.. Then I fell back, head back, lying back, everything back, falling down down until shooting back up and then falling back down again.
Obviously this doesn’t seem possible with a harness attached to your legs but we all decided on the body harness so that the boys could try out their snowboarding tricks.
There were three highlights (obviously from the three boarders).
The first ran and dived off the platform with his arms out flying but plummeting down.
The second stood backwards and then back flipped off the platform.
And the last did the most technically hilarious flip imaginable. He jumped up forwards but kicking his legs up did a backflip, and unfortunately the bungee chord got caught between his legs. After falling when the rope became tight, the chord pulled from between his legs making him flip forward so so so quickly!!
All captured on video and camera for all to see!
An amazing experience, an incredible day and the photos will be up soon.

Yesterday we faced the minus 12 temperatures, wrapped up in as many layers as would fit under our ski jackets and headed out to face the snow and to hit some big jumps. After skiing from Rendevous down to the glacier chair lift and travelling up to the glacier, we found our first jump. After side stepping up the cliff and jumping off (hopefully looking like pros) we took the cattrack over to Crystal. Here we found another great jump and after hiking up again and again in order to take the jump lots of times, we realised we’d been jumping and hiking for over two hours and so headed up to the crystal hut for some hot chocolate.

The jumping pictures are on a big photography camera so as soon as I get hold of them I will upload them!

At 4pm my time it was midnight in England which meant… CHARLIE’S 21st BIRTHDAY!!
A big big happy birthday Charlie, missing you lots!!!

After a dinner at El Fernies and an evening dancing at MoeJoes we headed back to mentally prepare for our bungee jump today!!!

Today we had a relaxing day up the mountain with some chilled skiing and a long lunch. Although the temperature has rapidly and randomly dropped to minus eleven (!!!) it was a beautiful bluebird day without a cloud in the sky. The wind chill was freezing but underneath my 4 layers, coat, balaclava and helmet, the sun made the day even more beautiful.
This evening after getting some pizza from Fat Joes, we walked to the base of Whistler to watch the Fire and Ice snow dedicated to Chinese New Year. (Another thing ticked off the whistler to do list!) The fire and ice show is a freestyle ski and snowboard show entailing a giant fire ring at the end of a big jump and as this was an especially special one, there were also fire dancers on the slope and a firework display at the end! A great end to the day.

Yesterday we had our last day of training before our exam! We spent the day doing an in depth and detailed analysis of the different components of skiing and practised teaching the fast track to parallel to each other.
Pretending to be beginners so our friends can teach us is actually harder than it seems and guiding each other in snow plough, although funny, proved difficult too! Thankfully we had the whole day to perfect our lesson and fingers crossed we’re all ready for the exam on Monday – off to practise my snow plough turns and stops now!

Temperatures have rapidly and randomly dropped and today we had to prepare for the cold!

Currently in chickpea hut warming up from our mornings training!