Fernie 11 Week Instructor Course 16/17 - Week 4

Powder. Powder. Powder. Lots of it. Over a metre of snow fell on Fernie this week and it sure had everyone in buzzing.

We had this message from one of our Fernie hosts, Matheson “I won’t rub it in too much but I don’t think I’ve had that much snow in one week in over a decade. This is why I disappoint my mother and am still a ski bum in my late 30s! Thigh deep or more for 6 solid days, ok I guess I am rubbing it in.”

This weekend it snowed hard for nearly 48 hours straight, so much that the highway that goes through town was closed in both directions, it was the most snow I’ve ever experienced in my life. At last we’d get to experience Fernie’s legendary powder!

Our instructor this week was Lucy, and like the rest of the instructors she was keen to get us up into the fresh snow. Since choosing to come to Fernie I’d been looking forward to this opportunity, I’ve only ever experienced tiny pockets of powder at the sides of runs in Europe where everything is pretty much groomed, and I’ve never done any sort of backcountry riding before so this was completely new.

Riding pow is hard: at least to begin with, for me anyway. I didn’t take to it naturally at all. This was more than a little disappointing after dreaming about Fernie pow for months, and I admit I got quite frustrated. The sheer amount and depth of the snow was intimidating and when I’d fall over it was nigh on impossible to right myself, there’s no base to push against, you just sink deeper and deeper. It’s exhausting work digging yourself out of the snow and after a morning of just tomahawking every twenty meters I had to call it a day. It was truly knackering.

Feeling slightly more rested and more mentally prepared, Tuesday brought even more snow. Lucy was adamant she’d get me riding powder properly by the afternoon and rode with me to try and correct my technique so I could gain more mileage. Getting used to the sensation of almost falling through the powder rather than sliding on a hard surface takes a bit of rewiring. We made our way down ‘Curry Glades’, a treed black run, and onto ‘Curry Powder’, a wide blue run that, as the name implies, gets absolutely stacked with snow. “Allow yourself to gain speed so you won’t get bogged down” – OK, that makes sense. “Shift your weight slightly so you’re over the back foot and allow the nose of your board to come up out of the snow” – Oh look, I can see my feet again. “Now just steer more with your back foot” – BOOM! It wasn’t perfect, or stylish, or very controlled but it felt class. I’m indebted to Lucy for those words of wisdom as that was probably the start of a wonderful addiction. We did the same run twice and it was awesome. A little bit of persistence pays off.

While riding the lifts you begin to get a sense of how the powder elevates everyone’s mood here. Hoots, hollers and encouraging yells of, ‘yeah, send it buddy!’ echo around the mountain. The whole resort goes into powder party mode, the excitement is palpable.

When you come back to riding regular terrain and conditions after something like powder which is more challenging, you’re overcome with a sense of ‘levelling-up’, and what would have intimidated you before isn’t so much of a big deal anymore. At no other time during my pursuit of snowboarding has my perception of progression been so clear than with Nonstop.

On Wednesday I completed the field component to my AST (Avalanche Safety Training) course. Our ski patroller guide Erich, got us familiar with the equipment: transceiver, probe and shovel, and we got to practice using them in a mock avalanche scenario. It was an eye-opening experience, certainly one I hope I never have to call upon in real life, but I now feel confident that I would be effective in such a situation.

As suddenly as all the powder fell at the beginning of the week, with rain falling on Friday conditions turned back to groomer days, but these were in fantastic shape It turned out not to be the worst situation as the groomed runs allowed us to practice our CASI Level 1 material for next week’s exams, which was really helpful. This weekend I’ve spent time studying and making sure I know as much of the teaching material as possible. At the beginning of this trip I was set on doing the ‘AMP’, All Mountain Pro course, but after seeing the progress I’m making on the Level 1 course, I think I’d like to try and achieve Level 2.

I really hope we get another chance to experience powder again this season - next time I’ll be ready!

The Fernie Factor

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