Today I had the opportunity to hang out with an amazing group of instructors from the United States of America (I may be pronouncing it wrong).
Team America got to Bulgaria a few days earlier than everybody else. They unpacked their bags and headed into the small towns around the resort. Their purpose was to meet up with the children of the towns to get them started on their journey of snowboarding.
Burton’s Riglet program starts children off snowboarding in their school gym. The children then head out into the snow to the Riglet park.
Team America, along with the Bulgarian park crew set up an amazing Riglet park at the top of the mountain.
At 12:30 every day the local kids would come up to the top of the mountain and snowboard for two hours.
I had the pleasure of working with these children in the park, teaching them how to snowboard alongside the Americans.
I have heard of Riglet parks before. My home resort, Mt. Pakenham has small ‘Riglet boxes’. Pakenham has Riglet boards complete with reels and we teach the wee ones how to snowboard. We do it wrong!
This Riglet park was next level! It was about 10 meters by 20 meters. Their was a mini pipe, a snake bowl, four rollers and four boxes.
The Riglet boards had a handle bar attachment that mounted to the binding inserts. This allowed the children to play with minimal guidance from the instructors. When the children were ready, they transitioned into a board with bindings.
For two hours these children played in this park, progressing at an extremely fast rate. No English was spoken, only high fives were given. It was much more like a skate park than a ski hill.
I am very excited to bring this back to my home resort!
I have to hand it to the Americans. Not only are they participating at Intershred but they are giving back to the host community.
Breen Trott