Alexa Loo - Snowboard Racer, Olympian

About Farnham

June Training on the Farnham Glacier in BC.

There is a dirt road just west of Radium Hot Springs, BC, that if you follow for 60km into the mountains, will take you to the Farnham Glacier. As a member of the Canadian Snowboard team, I had the good fortune to be able to train with my teammates on this beautiful glacier for 2 weeks this past July.

After driving most of the way up the bumpy, dusty dirt road, all of the athletes met the guide at a staging area. We unloaded the vans and loaded our gear into a trailer pulled by a big tractor. In order to minimize the impact on the environment and the wear and tear on the dirt road all of the athletes hiked the last 4 km up the dirt road to Camp Green. I think the hike was also a bit of a test – if you couldn’t make it to camp, you couldn’t go snowboarding.

The camp was located about 1 km below the foot of the glacier, just above the tree line, which gave us a fantastic view of the valley below. The camp was much more luxurious than I had imagined it would be; there were a number of modular tents set up for kitchen, bathroom, sleeping and recreation areas. We had heat, hot showers, satellite internet and TV as well as three great meals a day prepared by a chef!

Much better than tree planting camp ever was!

"Food o’clock" in the food tent

Every morning we got up at 5 am to eat breakfast and prepare for the day on the snow. By the time we had taken a tractor ride to the bottom of the glacier, hiked up in the snow to the snow cats, ridden the t-bar dragged behind the snow cat to the top of the piste, it would be nearly 7 am and the sun would be coming up over the ridge and illuminating the glacier in a gorgeous early morning glow. The guides, Safety Nate and Safety Jeremy, would give us the day’s safety speech: warning us of the crevasse dangers etc. and then it would be time to carve some turns!

The snow conditions were pretty good, especially early in the morning when it was still cold – around 1 – 4 degrees Centigrade. As the day warmed up though, the snow softened and the snow cats had some difficulty making it up the hill with all of the snowboarders in tow. Because of the soft snow, the cats could not operate with the tiller down. This meant that the snow behind the cat was really lumpy and difficult to ride. On more than one occasion someone would fall off of the t-bar and inevitably take a few people on the t-bars behind him/her out. Despite the potential for disaster, no one was seriously injured on any of the rides up.

Riding the t-bars behind the snow cat

The piste surrounded by pristine mountains

The alpine snowboarders trained gates while the snowboardcross team either shoveled or hit jumps in the snowboardcross course. We trained on the snow until noon, when the snow got too soft for effective training - and the cats couldn’t get us up the hill anymore - and then we headed down to camp for lunch.

After lunch and a short nap, we would join our physical trainer, Anthony Findlay, in the recreation tent for dryland. The sound of everyone’s feet on the plywood floor as we ran through our agility exercises sounded like a small thunderstorm rolling through camp!

Dinner was every day at 6pm and then it would be time to watch video and analyze our snowboarding from the day. Usually after the video session, there would be enough free time before bedtime to play a short round of Frisbee golf or cross-country bocce.

We left camp Green happy and tired after a very focused and efficient camp in beautiful BC.

Thanks to funding from CODA (Calgary Olympic Development Association) and the Green family, Canadian snowboarders and alpine skiers were able to enjoy world class training at home in Canada this past summer! Thank you!