#BCBanff – Week 9

Another week has flown by in #BCBanff, and we find ourselves with almost no time left! Tuesday sees the start of Level Two exams in Lake Louise for the boarders and the skiers will start the final section of their exams on Thursday. Lessons all week have been focused on those final teaching and technical skills, a final opportunity for the trainers to assess and advise before the exam begins. Confidence is high from both the Basecampers and instructors heading into the final week. Everyone has worked hard and whether they pass or not, each individual can be proud of the effort they have put in. Myself and Andrew have throughly enjoyed keeping an eye on the Basecampers progress through this process and are looking forward to celebrating with them at the end of this week. Good luck to everyone!
Off the slopes the Basecampers had a rather busy week. On Friday, a Basecamp dodgeball team played fellow instructor course Non-Stop’s dodgeball team, in a friendly game to unwind and mingle before both parties took on the level two. Despite a valiant effort from the vastly outnumbered Basecamp team, Non-Stop took home this year’s trophy. However, more importantly, everyone had an awesome time and a few games of basketball and indoor football were organised (and even more importantly we’re winning it back next year!!). Over the weekend, the Basecampers headed into the Lake Louise backcountry to do their avalanche awareness course. One of the activity highlights, the Basecampers learnt the fundamentals of avalanche safety while burying each other neck deep in snow. They had a chance to practice with the transceiver, which are used to find people under avalanched snow, and dug more holes than any of them thought humanly possible. It’s not often you can have THIS much fun and also get a qualification out of it. A few people in the group are eyeing up buying their own shovals to go dig holes in the back country with their time off!
After this week the crew have one final week and qualification left. The majority will be doing the level one park course, an intensive park improvement and teaching course, which will qualify the Basecampers to instruct level one park classes. It’s always a fun wind down after the level two exams, and a great opportunity to perfect switch skiing, 360s and pull some of the more daunting moves with professional instruction! As usual, make sure you’re keeping an eye on the Basecamp Facebook page and follow along with the action on Twitter and Instagram with #BCBanff! Not long left now!