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Snowboard Canada
Long Weekend at Camp of Champions
Words and photos by Sara Tollestrup
JULY 1
I spent Canada Day at Camp of Champions to take part in what was dubbed “Child Support Week.” Not the kind of child support that comes two weeks too late in the form of a cheque, but the kind that shows up on the mountain with striped jerseys, long hair and baggy pants.
Child Support also happens to be the name of the Stepchild/Nomis film coming out this fall. Clever advertising tactic if you ask me. The crew was well represented up on the hill with the likes of Simon Chamberlain, Steve Cartwright and Raewyn Reid on the scene. Yes, the Nomis team and the company’s film project are part of the brand’s appeal, but they definitely got something else right when they designed Simon’s signature zip hoodie. I started to count how many I saw while waiting in the T-bar line but soon realized that my whole day could be spent calculating, and I had some shredding to do.
A day at COC always starts out with a solid breakfast at 21 Steps. And I mean really solid. Teenage boys have enough food on their plates to last the rest of us at least a week. Breakfast is more than chow time, it’s also a chance for pros, campers and staff to hang out and get to know everyone. One girl came up to Marie-France Roy and asked, “Marie, right? I met you at camp last year.” MFR started to respond, but it didn’t really come out properly so she just ended up saying, “Yeah and I still can’t speak English.”
The next step of the day is spent uploading on three chairlifts and then taking a bus over to the Horstman Glacier. Some might say that it’s a long haul, but if you keep your eyes peeled you’re likely to see a bear or two. What you thought was a boring commute might become something worthy of National Geographic.
Up on the Glacier I headed down to the bottom of the course where Spencer O’Brien and her crew of campers were sessioning a picnic table, and I was impressed with what I saw: girls working on Frontside Boardslides and Boardslides to 180 Outs. Not to take away from those still learning to link turns or are working on 50/50s, but I was really happy to see that women’s snowboarding is progressing in such a way that even girls at camp are stepping up to learn difficult tricks.
On my first lap of the insanely large COC lane, which has more than tripled in size, I had the pleasure of meeting Gabrielle “Iron” Maiden and riding the T-bar back up with her. Gabby is from Big Bear, California, and without any mention of the day coincidentally being Canada Day, she started shooting props to Canada. “I don’t know much about Canada, but I like it here. It’s the vibe—the vibe’s so cool.”
Later she went on to say how stoked she was when she first visited Canada because her and her friends could just pee in the woods. “You can’t do that in California?” I asked. “Not without getting charged with indecent exposure,” she said.
Good vibe and peeing, I’m glad she’s stoked. Gabby spent the morning hitting rail after rail and taking advantage of the really good flow of the COC park. She also had a good time dancing and tooting on the mini whistle that was attached to her necklace while we waited in the T-bar line.
After lunch I did some runs with Silvia Mittermuller. We checked out the course set up and talked about possible features to shoot photos on. We had to take into account that Silvia was rocking some beat-up old boots (her new ones were sitting in Canadian Customs), so she wanted to be pretty mellow. But Silvia’s mellow is not the average person’s mellow, as she hit both hips backside and frontside, a couple of rails and the Nomis box, plus she hiked every single one of them a few times. As Silvia was strapping in, I overheard a camper talking about a really sick girl that was killing it at camp, and then she pointed at Silvia. Silvia is a solid rider and super dedicated. I was really impressed by her work ethic. Maybe she had extra motivation to ride well because she was surrounded by the Isenseven crew, a group of German dudes that she grew up shredding with.
After Silvia killed everything she hit I went to meet up with Gabby again. Gabby “Iron” Maiden and I were both determined to get a shot of her on the double kink rail. Just as I rode up to her she pulled the smoothest boardslide I’d seen all day. We laughed all the way up the T-bar about how I missed the shot.
There is one way of knowing when it’s 2:50 pm on the Glacier, and it’s not looking at your cell phone. It’s when you are left with just 10 other people on the course. The day was so fun and went so fast that I hardly noticed that Spencer O’Brien and I were two of the 10 people still hanging out in the rail area. Reluctantly we caught one of the last crotch-bruising T-bars to the top.
Someone once wrote in an interview with Spencer about her passion for snowboarding by explaining that she’s usually on the mountain and burned a couple of laps by the time most people are ready to start their day. Camp is no exception. Though she’s still recovering from a shoulder injury, she’s up bright and early, and on the hill for as long as possible.
Before reaching the top of the glacier Spencer had to stop and get her backpack, apparently a brave move, which was punishable by death according to one mountain employee. I seriously thought that Spencer and this guy were going to have a fistfight, but I remained calm as I continued to the top of the mountain; I knew she could take him, bum shoulder and all.
Later that night I ran into Tenaya Nash, Stepchild/Nomis marketing and team Manager, and some of her crew at Sushi Village. Rumour has it a lot of sushi was had, some sake was drank, and back at the Nomis house a whole lot of Guitar Hero was played.
JULY 2
Breakfast was the same as yesterday’s—teenagers with towers of food. Today’s breakfast was extra special though because it was served with a side of Jeff Keenan’s advice: “Bringing your snowboard to breakfast is so last summer!” Jeff and all the other cool kids store their boards in a board check close to the Wizard chair, so if you want to prove that you are down with COC 2007, don’t get caught with your board at breakfast and get one of those crazy blue Zimtstern suits the coaches are rocking this year.
Spencer and her crew of girls were having another go at the picnic table when I got to the glacier. I was amazed because I noticed the girls had made progress with their tricks and their comfort level in just one day. Raewyn Reid, Bev Vuilleumier and Spencer O’Brien were playing PIG, or some version of the game. Raewyn was looking super solid and smooth which made Spencer wonder aloud why Raewyn is so much better than her. I think Raewyn’s pants sag a little more than Spencer’s, maybe that’s why.
After the picnic table session Raewyn and Bev were ready to hit some jumps. COC has such a sick jump setup this year, including one massive table that only two girls hit. A Japanese girl, whose name nobody seemed to know but probably should, stomped a really nice method over it. Jamie Anderson also hit it, but not before her “friends” heckled her a little bit and she had to yell at them to leave her alone because she was scared. The other jump is a gnarly step up/step over. Everyone was stoked when someone so much as cleared it—that’s how huge it is. Then there are two medium-sized jumps with nice flow. We had a lot of fun doing laps on those two jumps, and when Raewyn came up a bit short on the second jump (due to lack of speed), she laughed and busted out a tail block.
I was late for lunch, not a good idea unless you are into eating lettuce sandwiches. After a little chill out time and some serious re-hydration I headed over to the rails again with Gabby and Jamie. Jamie might’ve been scared when she hit the big table, but she clearly didn’t have a problem with the rails. Gabby and her self-tailored pants were doing pretty well too.
Later in the day I caught up with MFR who was taking some mellow laps with one of her campers, because she was in pain. Whenever Marie France is around you are guaranteed a laugh or two regardless of her physical state. I also watched Silvia and the German boys session some jumps. Silvia was still riding in her crappy boots and still killing it.
At 2:40 Gabby and I had a dance off in the T-bar line, and then she got hit on in what was perhaps the most tactful way in Whistler history. I hope she called that guy, seriously. Determined to get the kinked rail dialed Gabby took off down the course for one more lap. I took the road back to the chairlift and thought about how lucky we are to be snowboarding in July. Scratch the July part, we’re just lucky to be snowboarding.
