TYPICAL DAY

Here's one camper's description of his day and week

A message via the Camp of Champions website from Anonymous

You are at a world renowned snowboard and ski camp, with coaches in the Snowboarding hall of fame, a park to die for, and your on Whistler mountain. Seems surreal enough already.

You wake up in the morning and decide that today your gonna go up on the glacier. You get up, drag yourself into the shower after waking up your roommates, then hop in the shower to wake up. You already have your stuff together from last night cause your so stoked to get on the hill.

You grab your gear and tread down the hill for about 500 metres into Whistler village. The village is just waking up at 7 in the morning, so you are among the other campers heading down for breakfast at 21 Steps restaurant. You get down there and walk into the restaurant, noticing the many stores and restaurants that surround you as you walk the pedestrian-only brick paths that vein the gorgeous setting of Whistler village, already 15 degrees Celsius and rising, the sun peeking over the mountain tops. You get your lift ticket and eat breakfast with your newly-acquainted buddies, and you make sure to eat fast so you can shred any new powder on the glacier. Things are awesome so far, and you haven't even got on the hill yet.

Right when you sit on the first chair, your board on the rack behind you, your friends beside you, you have begun the 40 minute trek to the glacier. It may seem long, but requires hardly any walking and your totally up for it. You take two chairs up, a bus across and another lift up, all the while the temperature drops to a comfortable but brisk 5 degrees. You get off the last lift and grab your board off the rack and strap up at the chalet, ready to ride directly into the park to tear it up all day long.

Your first run you take easy, as you use it to scope out the terrain and features; the many boxes and sets of rails, the really big jumps to the right, the super pipe to the left. You are feeling uncomfortable getting this one trick, a simple 360. You just can't seem to grasp it. Just as you fall for the fifth time in a row, a red-jacketed coach asks if you want help learning the trick: a godsend! You quickly agree, and the coach devotes a good half hour to teaching you to huck 360's, while also giving you plenty of other pointers.

After a half hour devoted strictly to getting a 360 (which you have already successfully landed more than once thanks to your pro coaches help), lunch is being served at the top of the glacier; that's right, smorgasbord style lunch. You don't even have to leave the park, you just make a sandwich for yourself at the top of the hill. They even have plenty of vegetarian-friendly food prepared, just for you. You grab a sandwich and sit on your board to eat it at the top of the mountain, all the while admiring the spectacular view in front of you, like a landscape portrait. You take a 10 minute break and quickly get back to boarding.

After a good days ride, you feel extremely accomplished and successful; you landed your first 360, learned plenty more, and you feel satisfied, albeit quite sore. You take the t-bar lift to the very top of the glacier, take off your board and begin the 40 minute trek down the mountain back to the comfort of Whistler village. You finally get back to your room and you take off your gear--the incredible relief you feel when you take off your boots and snowpants and dry off is incredible and indescribably, but well worth it.

You finally get changed into more comfortable clothes. You feel like a whole day has gone by, but that was just half of it. Most of the camp is already at the game tent, either playing Rock Band, ping pong, skateboarding in the mini ramp or playing basketball. You head out there as well to see whats going on, and you remember that there are activities going on with the pro coaches that you can sign up for. Your coach is hittin the movies tonight, in Whistler village's movie theatre. The coach you met today is going paintballing and wants you to go. The really hot girl from the office is going ziplining, which sounds really fun. You decide tonight to go to a movie. While you're waiting, you play some Rock Band with friends.

Later that night, you meet with your coach and head down to the village to watch a movie. You get some food at the local pizza joint, 15% off just because you go to CoC. After eating, you go down to the theater and check out whats playing- you decide to see Hancock, which just came out. Good movie.

Afterwards, your free to do what you want around Whistler. You can walk around and enjoy the many comforts and surprises, go back to your room and chill, watch tv, go to the Game Tent, go to the Camp shop in your dorm building, or go to one of the many game rooms in your building to see whos there. The options are endless.

You decide to stay in town till late at night, and then go back to bed. As you are walking up from checking out the shops in Whistler, you turn around and glimpse at the village from above at dusk. The sky is orange in the background, bearing over the mountain tops, the lights of Whistler are on, glowing and seemingly entrancing. The stream is flowing smoothly and quietly underneath you, you hear a distant car, some very quiet chatter coming from both camp and the village; you smile, turn around, and head back to your dorm and go to bed.

Six days go by like this, and the days have flown by. You want to stay longer, learn more, see more, meet more people, but you know that you have stayed your five days and you have to back home now. You don't feel disappointed that it's over, you actually feel rather satisfied. You aren't thinking about what you're going to miss, whether or not your coming back, you are thinking only about how awesome your week was.

You wake up on the last day and look out the window to see the coach bus waiting outside, some kids already placing they're bags, snowboards, skis, and mountain bikes in the waiting bus. Rubbing your eyes and yawning, you wake up your roommates so they don't miss the bus as you jump in the shower. Quickly, so as not to be late, you rummage through your laundry pile and stuff it in one of your bags, making sure to leave room for the stuff you won, got and bought while you were there. Good thing one was a customized COC Dakine backpack!

You throw all your stuff together and struggle to carry it down a flight of stairs to the bus. You give your stuff to the packer, who puts it in the bus or in the cargo truck, and you jump on board the spacious and inviting Coach Canada bus. You grab a seat next to a friend, making sure to get the window seat. The bus leaves about 20 minutes later. You have your iPod on, playing your favorite music in your ears while the bus pulls out of COC and accelerates down the mountain.

As the bus continues, you look out the large window to see a massive, calm, reflective mountain lake; natures mirror. As the bus drives buy, you stare, gaze into nature's beauty. The bus is absolutely silent; perhaps everyone else is just as enticed as you are in this beautiful lake, reflecting the blue sky above. Your favorite song comes on at this moment, and time seems to slow down.

Everything seems perfect, and you seem to forget the unimportant things in life. You forget about that project you have to get in when you get back, you forget about work, you forget about that argument you had with your friend before you left, during this moment all that matters is what is in front of you. All that matters during this second is how gorgeous this scene is, how quiet the bus is, how perfect you feel, how amazing the song you're listening to matches what you see, and how purely divine and blissful this moment is; for this short time, life seems to make sense, it's crystal clear.

This lake goes on for miles and the whole time you are reflecting on your week and how amazing a time you had. Not only do you think about how much you learned, how many people you met, what you saw; you think about life. You think about how much you learned about life.

You learned that however short life may be, there is nothing larger than life. Life is immense and limitless, you have to explore, push your own boundaries and get out there. You also learned what you are capable of. You are completely capable of snowboarding/skiing, of making friends, and you are capable of understanding life in the same way as you are during this tranquil moment staring out onto a glassy, reflective lake beside a mountain - a mountain that taught you life.

The bus pulls away from the lake after several minutes, and you turn around to see what you are leaving behind - but more importantly, what you are keeping with you.