A Week With the Champs of Camp
by Shanti Sosienski
(July 8, 1997)

The only thing that can ever really make snowboard camp suck in the summer for everyone is bad weather. Snow and rain means campers aren't as smiley, coaches are forced to help encourage the campers to have a good time even though it's no fun for anyone, and then there are the diggers. The diggers are probably the hardest working group of people at camp. While everyone else is eating breakfast at 7:30 a.m. the diggers are on the early chairs up the mountain. They carve away at the pipe over and over again so that campers and show dog pros can have a good time. The funny thing is though, in spite of what it must feel like for them to constantly be working on the pipe, they all seem to love it and do it year after year.

SNOW, SNOW, SNOW
I opted to go lightweight clothing most of the days at Blackcomb, so I froze on a few of the mornings as I headed up, but once atop the glacier conditions seemed to lighten up. The first day I hit the slopes the sky looked fairly ominous from town as black clouds rolled through the valley, but surprisingly the mountain top was sunny. I actually was stripped down to my long sleeve t-shirt by mid-day. Diggers were fanned out in the pipe shirtless and stoked for the moment that there had been a break in the weather. They had just spent two days digging out the two feet of snow that had dumped on the mountain over the previous weekend. Snow is not a summer diggers friend. While there seems to be this romantic notion amongst people (especially to a fifteen-year-old boy) who have never held the position as a digger that it would be quite a groovy job. Wrong, it's actually one of the hardest camp jobs you can have. Then again no job at camp ever really seemed too easy. Fortunately everyone gets pipe time and gets to hang with their friends which makes it all worthwhile.

On Tuesday the Camp was going into the second day of its session and there was some sun throughout the day, which gave the diggers a chance to catch up with building the large pipe (some how they managed to dig out the small pipe in time for the campers). Then that evening the snow started again. Apparently this was not an uncommon summer weather pattern. Like I mentioned a second ago these diggers had spent the previous week working on the halfpipe so that the campers could ride it on their first day Blackcomb. Then it snowed. Now, you might be thinking, okay no big deal, what's a little summer snow? Well, the normal laws of seasons don't apply at the top of Blackcomb. Sure it was the end of June, but that didn't stop the clouds from depositing over two feet of snow on the glacier. I arrived on a Monday and all the coaches were raving about the fact that they rode powder in June. The head of the halfpipe-a thoroughly tattooed Canadian named Bruce was quietly grumbling to himself about the snow. But he still smiled when anyone looked his way.

Wednesday at the Camp of Champions was a true testament to the diligence of diggers. While the campers milled around the lobby of the hotel looking out at the thick wet fog, contemplating if they wanted to go up (me included), the diggers headed to the glacier which is at about 8,000 feet above sea level to once again dig out the dammage that Mother Nature had done.

SHREDDING THE PIPES
Blackcomb is home to a number of ski and snowboard camps every summer. All across the glacier visitors can see mogul skiers bump around on Volkswagen-sized snow mounds, those synchronized swimming type skiers whirling around like wind up toys, and on the riders left of the mountain there are halfpipes with snowboarders hucking in and out.

Campers arrived on the Glacier between nine and ten every morning just as the diggers were finishing the halfpipe preperations. Riding usually took place all morning and then lunch showed up at noon and the diggers jumped back into the pipes to clean them up for the afternoon.

Camp of Champions has two halfpipes side by side and a rope tow to haul our lazy butts up the mountain. I tried to hike whenever I could, but that rope tow was so tempting every time I reached the bottom of the pipe. The small halfpipe was being referred to by everyone as "the taco" because of it's quick transition. It seemed like before you even came down from one wall you were already at the other. And snow was fast. The combination of the tight tranny and slick snow made for some prize winning falls that left campers gasping on their backs when they failed to make the connection between their fantasy and reality in the pipe. I know I felt the bottom of that pipe more than once.

The bigger pipe seemed to be the pipe of choice for the pros and for those campers who were ready to graduate beyond the taco. A lot of people claimed the wider, longer pipe was easier, but I still found myself in the taco every run. Perhaps it was just a security thing.

THE LUNCH LADIES
Lunch at Camp of Champs was an amazing, almost miraculous thing. A large buffet style spread of sandwich goodies, cookies, and juice was hauled up from the base every morning by a few Japanese women and the lunch supervisor JD. This small group spent a good portion of the morning every day hauling everything up in plastic tubs, transferring the goods from one chair lift to another, and then snowboarding with the tubs in their arms. Have you ever tried snowboarding with a giant plastic tub filled with food? It's hard. I managed to help them with one tub (I think I had the lightest one) and nearly killed myself trying to negotiate the mountain with the large package in my arms. It's an especially unpleasant task when the wind is blowing and the snow is falling and getting to camp is taking twice the time it already takes. The trade-off these lunch ladies get-to shred the pipe all afternoon and they were definitely ripping it up.

PROTECTING THE WILDLIFE
The trip down the mountain every day was an interesting journey that reminded me of taking the sky ride at the San Diego zoo. Picture animals that you would normally see in a contained environment slowly meandering around the mountain. I saw these furry large rabbit-like creatures called marmots, black squirrels, bright red headed woodpeckers, and then there were the bears. Yes, real live bears freely roam the slopes at Whistler. I couldn't help but take the obligatory bear-under-the-chair photo that probably a million tourists have taken. It's hard to believe that they're really living so close to civiliation, but then again this is Cananda, eh.

Anyway, the wildlife provides an excellent addition to the lure of Blackcomb. Not only does it emphasize just how untainted this mountain is, but it also provides great entertainment for the locals. One afternoon I heard a voice on the chair behind me call down to a sporty Eddie Bauer clothed hiker who was hiking off of the trails, "Look out for those bears up ahead." The startled hiker looked up at the chair and I turned around to see a snickering Kevin Young, The Canadian pro from Shorty's coming down behind us. Mean joke, but at least he was helping keep the erosion down.

Canadians like their bears, and most of them have a good tourist and bear story to tell. If you ever go up there see which story they'll dish out to you. These stories are similar to the urban lore that is spread out over the internet, but has a more natural feel to them. One story I heard was about a kid (a skier of course) dropping a burning pack of matches on a bears back and that's why one of the bears that roams this area has a bald spot. Should we believe it?

AWARDS CEREMONY
In the traditional camp style the last night of Camp of Champions was a warm, cozy affair. A bar-b-que awards ceremony was held at Rainbow park, ten minutes down the road from Whistler Village. It was like the Brady Bunch picnic times 20, as coaches Megan Pischke, Josh Rosen, and Roberta Rodger took on the parental roll and whipped up hot dogs on the grill for a huge group of teenagers. The tramp was driven over from the parking garage of the hotel the campers were staying at and a huge box of prizes from snowboards to t-shirts sat waiting to be distributed. When the prizes were given away each coach took a minute to explain why the campers were given the prize. No one left empty handed.

In the days I was at Camp of Champions I never spotted the legendary bear with a burn mark, but I did see a lot of rockstar pros, as well as some incredibly ripping unknown Canadians. I watched the diggers dig, helped haul lunches in with the bad-ass Japanese girls, visited the infamous wind lip, rode a little pipe, and participated with a lot of campers in making a weeks worth of memories that will last a lifetime. It was hard to leave the camp after such a week. Nothing seemed to stop the fun, not the threatening weather, nor the hustle from the Canadian National Team trials. Camp has always been and seem like it will continue to be a fun, educational (we'll throw that word in there so you can show this to your parents) experience. What are you doing still reading this? Get on the next plane and go to camp now! There's still time left.

For more information about Camp of Champions call Ken and Tanya Achenbach at: (604) 938-9582