CAMP OF CHAMPS: Choose your own adventure
CLICK HERE FOR THE GALLERY
He may be a little loony, but in the smart way. The bleach-blond, camper-for-life, who runs Camp of Champions on Blackcomb's Hortsmans Glacier, can teach any wannabe freestyle skier how to jib with the best.
The bleach-blond Achenbach has been running the camp for 18 years and knows a thing or two about providing the best ski, snowboard, and mountain bike summer camp any kid (or adult) could want.
This is no boot camp, nor party playland, but a choose-your-own-adventure week that also offers wake boarding, swimming, zip-lining and a top-notch staff that can teach it all.
Achenbach said his camp is made up of friends and sometimes they get carried away with having too much fun–if that's possible. One year, Ken and company decided to "get" a lazy staffer by stuffing a snowblower with a surprise. When the machine turned on, the kid got packed with a disgusting puree.
"We roasted him with a shitload of luncheon meat, and we let it rot for three days so it was doubly gross," he said.
Ken likes the kids to have fun and doesn't like the idea of too much structure because he thinks campers get turned off of skiing and snowboarding that way. Over a bite to eat at 21 Steps in Whistler Plaza–where COC campers eat catered breakfast each morning–he said the camp isn’t a race camp where scared kids line up at 6:30 a.m. to be drill-sergeanted to death. It's laid back so campers feel more open to try something new if they want. Whether it's to learn a lincoln loop or a 360, the number one point for him is that they aren't forced to do it.
"The thing I like about our camp," he said, "is that it is less structured. It makes kids work for what they want and that always makes them better. We don't tell the kids to do anything. If you don't drink or do drugs, it's pretty hard to get in trouble."
Campers have an opportunity to learn whatever they want with a staff of professional skiers and snowboarders, a coach-to-camper ratio of 1-to-5, and the largest summer terrain park in North America.