Skiing & snowman making on our Mentor snow camp

Skiing & snowman making on our Mentor snow camp

Snow camp is our toughest camp, physically and mentally draining on our Mentors. It builds great character and resilience but provides many challenges. One Mentor in particular battled with the mental side of the camp, she physically achieved everything she was asked to do, picking up the technique of skiing easily and pushed herself to the limit of exhaustion but she couldn’t take that next step mentally. The next step for her was to ride on the chairlift up to the top of the mountain and ski down Bourke Street. She was stuck in a mind set that she couldn’t do it, she couldn’t get on a chair lift. Every time the group went up she refused and kept shouting out she couldn’t do it. 

During our evening circle time, this Mentor set her goal to ride the chair lift the next day, she mentioned that the Cottage staff kept “nagging her” to push herself and get on the chair lift, we rephrased the word “nagging” to “encouraging her”, which she eventually agreed on. 

The last morning of camp during our last lesson with the instructor, she was still very hesitant to get onto the lifts, saying “I’m not doing it”. With a lot of encouragement from the camp leaders and the instructors we finally convinced her to ride the chairlift sitting between a leader and the instructor. It was a tense few minutes riding up the lift, we hit the top and raised the bar, all she had to do was point her skis straight and slide off. She was worried she would fall over, with no surprise to the leaders she did it perfectly and slide straight over to the group.  

Sean pulled her to aside and gave her massive praise and congratulated her on achieving her goal, but we both knew it wasn’t over yet, our next task was to ski all the way down the run. Looking straight down the slope she straight away said again “I can’t go down there” but we knew she could get down as this was only an extension of the magic carpet run she had been doing all week. Again, with a little pep talk to boost the confidence levels we were skiing all the way down the slope. 

Once we reached the bottom she turned around with the biggest smile on her face and she yelled out “I DID IT! I AM SO PROUD OF MYSELF!” This exact moment of achievement is what our camps are all about and these are the moments that we capture and will remember for years to come.