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Snowboard Canada
March break Nikita snowboard camp
BY: ILISSA MAIATICO
Growing up as a kid every school year I eagerly awaited for March Break to arrive. Sure Christmas may be the best holiday of the year but by the time March came I knew I could start counting down days until school ended. While having a week off from class was great, I never really went anywhere special. My days off usually consisted of cruising the block on my bicycle while half of my classmates were soaking up the sun down south. To this day I’ve never even met Mickey Mouse or been to Myrtle Beach.
This year when March Break rolled around I knew it was time to have some fun. I took a day off to participate in a Nikita girls-only snowboard camp at Mount St. Louis Moonstone. The four-day long camp was held to teach girls how to develop and improve their park-riding skills. Having never really ridden rails or hit boxes before I thought the camp would be a great experience.
Upon my arrival at the mountain I was greeted to blue bird skies, a high of -6 C and the shortest lift lines I’ve ever seen. The riding conditions were perfect as a large snowstorm hit Ontario a few days earlier leaving some areas with as much as 25 cm of snow.
My coach for the day was the event organizer Amanda Boddington. The two of us rode with another camper named Jessica. We started the morning off by taking some runs at Mount St. Louis. From there we made our way over to Moonstone headed for the Outback terrain park. Over at the park the theme of the day seemed to be “go big or go home” as everyone—including the skiers and mini-shreds—were killing it.
On the first lap through the park Amanda and Jessica rode rails and boxes with ease. I, on the other hand, was still taking pointers on how to ride a press box. After a few tries I got it down pat except for the landing, which didn’t go so smooth. From there I moved onto riding jumps while the other girls consistently had heads turning. Even Chris Powling (the Ontario Salomon snowboards sales rep) put on a show for all the park rats and had me dropping my jaw several times. By mid-afternoon Jessica successfully mastered riding the teardrop rail at bottom of the park while I was having fun just playing around. Shortly after we decided to call it a day. While being a little sore from taking a few falls, I was stoked to have gotten some help on how to ride the park features.
While attending a snowboard camp may not compare to swimming seaside with dolphins, I got to ride with a group of girls in amazing conditions. Thanks to Amanda and the staff at Mount St. Louis Moonstone for hosting the camp and helping me have a great spring break.
