Revelstoke Mountain Resort recently played host to the first-ever Elevate Snow Camp, created to introduce local youth to snowboarding.
Spearheaded by professional snowboarders and RMR pro-team members Al Clark and Seb Grondin, they along with a group of local snowboarders, donated two days over Christmas to hosting 15 youth on the mountain, most of whom had never snowboarded before.
Working with Revelstoke Secondary School, Community Connections and through social media, over a dozen youth signed up for the snow camp. The camp first met at Society Skate and Snow on Friday, December 19. There, introductions were made, expectations were set and each participant was fitted with a snowboard, outerwear, helmets and goggles as needed.
The next morning the camp met at the base of the gondola and was split up by ability.
“We were kind of nervous, but everybody was super stoked. By the end of the first day, my expectations were blown away by how fast some of these guys picked it up,” Pro Snowboarder Seb Grondin said in a statement about the event.
By the end of the second day every participant had graduated from the magic carpet and was able to ride at least from the mid-station Gondola to the base. Many chose to challenge themselves further and rode down the entire Last Spike – all 15.4 kms of it – at times even dipping into some blue runs. Lunches for both days were generously donated by La Baguette in the resort village.
“To really get a chance of picking up the sport, two days just isn’t enough. So we worked out with RMR that each kid would get a preloaded pass that would entitle them to 10 free days on the resort,” said Al Clark. “The Revelstoke Connection Shuttle, also donated 10 round trips to each participant. But best of all, each kid got to keep all the kit they were fitted with.”
Most of the gear was donated by people in Revelstoke while another large portion came from the members of the Columbia Valley Skateboard Association to which Society Skate and Snow owner Karl Jost belongs. Also donated was a spectacular supply of Mountain Man beef jerky. All boards were waxed with Board Butter Glide Wax by the tech room at Karl’s shop, and Trapper Snowboards donated one of their Howler boards.
Plans to run a second Elevate Snow Camp are in the works. If anybody wants to know more or is interested in donating or participating please visit Elevate’s Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/Elevatesnowcamps.
Here are a few photos from the event:
