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Want to work as a downhill guide in the biggest and best bike park in the world?! We have partnered with Whistler Blackcomb Bike Park School to develop and train guides/coaches for the upcoming season in Whistler Bike Park. The camp will start very early in the summer season before things get busy and the tourist start arriving. This gives us a window to train you to be locked and loaded with the know-how needed to guide this season.
The camp will be a priority hiring course for Whistler Blackcomb and provide the majority of new-hire guides for the mountain! This high level of certification will take you beyond coaching beginners on cruisy greens and blues, and into more advanced sessions. Push yourself and your clients on the runs you’ve been dreaming of, for a whole summer!
You’ll be trained in every aspect needed to be a strong and confident guide for Whistler Blackcomb. The course is designed and built to give you the skills and knowledge needed to guide and instruct in the Whistler Blackcomb Bike Park and take to employers all over the world in the future. Your riding will develop throughout, progressing to new levels of awesome.
The course covers:
Lesson planning, learning styles, teaching styles, skill break downs and progressions, manuever breakdowns (XC & DH), assessment techniques, correction techniques, group dynamics, group management, guiding techniques (backcountry, Bike Park), tour setup, navigation/ route planning, communicating with guests, risk management/ emergency planning.
Our coaches know Whistler like the back of their hand, and will show you what it takes to guide clients in any situation here. They are highly qualified and experienced coaches, and know the technical side of downhill biking and the Whistler Bike Park inside-out. These are the guys who built the park and decide on who gets to work there. They also have exclusive access to terrain on the mountain where the public are not allowed. These are the guys that you want to be riding with and learning from!
Check out the Qualifications page to check out what’s on store week to week.
As well as the Bike Park qualifications, you will spend a couple of sessions looking at more general XC guiding situations, developing your skills in order to guide in Whistler Valley and elsewhere with a group of riders. This will allow you to get beyond the confines of the Bike Park and broaden your guiding horizons.
Requirements-
If you are planning to stay on to work for Whistler Blackcomb, your job for the season will be still be dependent on talking with the head supervisor of the Bike Park. Because of this we can’t “guarantee” a position but as long as you have what it takes you will be offered a job.
If you are wanting to spend more time purely on developing your own riding, or would like a job with Whistler Blackcomb the following summer, then consider our later Coaches Camp also.
You will also need to have a valid work permit in order to work for Whistler Blackcomb. If you aren’t Canadian, this will usually be arranged through obtaining a Working Holiday Visa for Canada. Depending on where you are from, these can sometimes be limited and take time to arrange so it’s best to get ahead of the game! See the Qualifications page for more details.
If your goal is to find work as a bike guide elsewhere in the world in the future, we have connections available for this possibility also, and may even be able to provide an interview time during the course for other American and Canadian resorts.
Check out all the other details pages, and contact the office for anything you’d like to find out. The PHOTO GALLERY and BLOG are also great ways to check out what’s in store.
Check out the video below of some of the last days ripping in the park.
Hope to see you there for summer!
We have partnered with BearBack Biking for this intensive course, to provide a complete package of food and accommodation while you are there. This will allow us plenty of time to train on the mountain and be completely set-up, comfortable and sorted when at home.
We are staying with BearBack Biking, in a custom mountain bike Chalet. The Chalet is fully set up and pimped out for bikers. Rooms will be mostly twin share, with occasional huge 3-share rooms.
There is a huge double garage that is both secure bike storage and a complete workshop. We'll be running through all the basics of bike maintenance and repair from this super lush workshop, and helping out anyone every in need of some tech know-how.
[This photo is of half the garage, stage right is bike storage also!]
There will be tasty home-cooked dinner 6 nights a week for you and breakfast every day! (6 full cooked and 1 continental).
During and after the course we can work with you to arrange accommodation for the rest of the season. Whistler Blackcomb staff housing is one option where we have places available. Getting a privately rented property around Whistler with some other people on the course can be a great way to go also.
Whistler needs no intro. Every style of mountain biking in Whistler is catered for and the trails are constantly updated and improved. The trails are colour coded depending on their level of difficulty, just like ski runs. They range from green beginner runs to double black diamond trails. Tight technical single track to fast jump trails, steep roots and rocks, to North Shore obstacles and World Cup standard downhill. There is something to challenge everyone and your riding will progress at an unimaginable rate! There are also the progressive skills centres, including drop progressions to hone your skills, and the Boneyard Slopestyle Park with a massive array of features to take on. The mountain is open from 10am till 5pm early season, and then 10am until 8pm when the days get longer!
The network of so-called XC trails around Whistler is second to none and these are often just "out of resort" trails rather than too much of a grind. Here is a little taste of what they could squeeze into this map, but this is just a fraction of what is out there!
On days off or long late summer afternoons where you feel like a change there is loads to do – like a barbeque then heading to Lost Lake to swim. If you fancy a few more shots of adrenaline off of the hill check out Zip-lining or bungee jumping. Meadow Park Sport's Center is a 5 min bus ride from the Village center. Disc golf has to be the best free thing to do in Whistler if you feel like a different challenge for a lazy hot afternoon. Not as geeky as it sounds, it's a pretty extreme disc golf course. The River of Golden Dreams is another must-do way to spend an afternoon.
Bear, Bears , Bears. One of the greatest things about has to that you are surrounded by bears! They are all over the Park and the valley, and aren't too bothered by bikes flying past all around them. A decent distance away and there can be plenty of photo ops.
During the 3 weeks Coaches Camp you'll gain the IDP (Instructor Development Program) Level 2. This is a complete and world class program for descent-orientated riding. Whistler Mountain Biking Coaching Camp enable you to be qualified to work in the Whistler Bike Park and demonstrate your skills to show growing parks and companies around the world.
[2009 crew on their last day. Stoked.]
Here is an example of day to day and week to week on the mountain.
Week 1
- basic manouvers
- teaching, safety
- communicatin
- bike maintenance, client bike fit
- terrain selection
- assessment/development
- rental/equipment intro
- basic riding demonstrations
Week 2
- wheelies/manuals
- other low speed manoeuvres/tricks
- jumps/drops
- XC guiding , XC vs Downhill
- guiding tools and equipment
- emergency procedures and scenarios
- advanced trail selection
- sales and client building
- using video analysis
Week 3
- high speed cornering/manoeuvres
- jumps/drops, teaching and demo-ing
- skills centre vs trails teaching
- teaching on black/double black terrain
- season survival
You'll also be completing a 2 day first aid course. This is an internationally recognised certificate, and also includes an OFA (Occupational First Aid) module, which is required for guide work.
WORKING
If you are wanting to work in Canada you will need a valid working visa if you are not Canadian. These can be arranged for most countries and you'll need to meet the criteria and apply by starting at the relevant website. Visas are easy to apply for yourself, and a third-party isn't necessary just to help with a couple of forms. But saying this, make sure you do them right! The application is usually sent straight back if there is a single ommision, no matter how relevant that hasn't been included, causing a delay.
Visa applications often "fill-up" at certain times of the year and they may stop issuing them for a time. If this is the case then you will need to contact the Canadian Government to find when they will be re-issued. Often a large new "batch" will be released from late in the year into the early months of the next year. From the time your application is processed you usually have 1 year to enter Canada to activate it (though this may vary also).
Here are a couple of places to start if this is your home country, but you will need to make sure it is the right way for yourself.
If you are wanting to do this course with a view to working in future summers in Whistler or elsewhere as a guide/coach, rather than 2012, then consider our mid summer Coaches Course. This is a longer course and includes Crankworx and also the UK based CTC Trail Mtb Leader qualification. It also is kicks-off at a later time of the season.
