There are some major differences between youth to adult camp, and plenty of worthwhile reasons why it costs a bit of extra money for a spot, but first a breakdown of your options... Adult camp offers a few different experiences; you can rent your own lodging or stay in High Cascade's adult lodging and opt for coaching or just cruise the camps private park on your own. Your choices will effect your cost, but for the purpose of this review I opted for High Cascade lodging with coaching.
As mentioned earlier, it costs just about $200 more for the adult coaching and lodging than the same amenities in youth camp, but the extra money goes right to your stomach; instead of the routine camp food (which is actually pretty good) you eat a fancy meal every night... we visited some seriously legit eateries. Eating wasn't the only thing that went down though, High Cascade set up activities galore to keep us insanely busy on and off the slope. From kickball to yoga to bowling there was never nothing to do. For transportation, High Cascade donated their sickest bus, the Boom Bus (lined with Kicker speakers and topped with Kicker subs), to the adult camp cause. Camp even closed off some of their real popular areas for various "adult only" activities. Private bowl session, anyone?
For housing, the camp set aside the entirety of one its lodges, Park Place; it is a four story lodge with an identical floor setup on each floor save the first, which was set aside for the ladies. Rooms are mainly single beds or bunk status with about four to each room. I've stayed in Park Place before and between the HDTV on every floor, the satellite cable and occasional access to one of the only working wireless networks, I like staying there just fine. I will say that last years adult camp were given private cabins much further from the youth campers, which I have also stayed in; the returning adult campers agreed that those were much nicer and better suited to the goings on of adult camp.
Adult camp coaches were hand selected and some of the best coaches that High Cascade has on their roster, and having attended the camp for a few years and getting to know many of the coaches I really do mean that. Our coaches were not only phenomenal riders and instructors but genuinely exceptional human beings; it's true that a day of snowboarding can only be as good as the company you ride with and I know my group was vibing every single day, breaking barriers and pushing limits... both on snow and at the pub.
Last but not least, the park. A quick backstory, Session 6 began after an intense heat wave that had Timberline losing around two feet of snow per day! Coming up on my first glimpse of the mountain I wasn't expecting much, and in true High Cascade fashion I was pleasantly surprised. Everything was still very much shredable, from the main park to the lap park there was still an abundance of kickers, jibs and pipes to get gnarly with. The big-toe (the camps private tow rope) was still up and running for quick laps through the main park, but equally awesome was still being able to lap both parks using the Palmer lift.
Unfortunately Mother Nature had a change of heart, and where it was 9o°F each day the week before, Session 6 found itself smack in the middle of a week of foul weather and two riding days were lost to visibility and miserable conditions (with temperatures as low as 37°F). Especially when so much money is involved, it is easy to get incredibly disappointed about losing any riding time to weather. This is part of our sport and completely out of anyone's control, but this particular occasion in late August is an excellent example of the unpredictability of mountain weather and why you should always prepare for anything. High Cascade was generous enough to refund photo and video session charges due to the poor conditions, and equally generous in finding and funding alternate activities throughout Oregon.
All in all, like I said, this was my best camp experience at High Cascade to date. In fact, I've already started saving for next year.
Looks sick man, glad you had a blast!
ReplyDeleteI've never been to the "youth" version of HCSC, but I went to the adult session 6 for the first time last year, and I agree about how awesome it is. We were lucky enough to be on snow every day too - one day we ended up going I'd say a half hour to an hour later than normal because it was looking sketchy, but it ended up clearing.
ReplyDeleteSo to anyone reading this wanting a second opinion, I say go! Best time you're ever going to have on the snow in the summer.