The Camp

Your first "guest experience" at Murray Camp will typically be the Monday morning enrolment at the Roundhouse. If you are new to the program, you will be asked to sign a waiver (or get lost). Upon closer inspection you will notice that, by signing said waiver, you absolve Whistler-Blackcomb of any responsibility for what happens to you from this point forward and, in particular, what your coaches might do to you. Hopefully the alarm bells should already be ringing.

In addition to signing your life away, the Monday morning enrolment ostensibly serves another useful purpose - to allow you to get a first look at the coaches. In truth what it does is allow the coaches to get a first look at you. Even at this early point they are already on the lookout for signs of weakness, personal fears and insecurities that they can exploit later in the program. Armed with this knowledge they will be able to proceed with their initial slave trading while you go off to face the wand of death.

Having completed enrolment you will be instructed to meet up outside the Ski School building. Be aware that this is your last real chance to run away (after this point anyone caught running away will be considered to be a deserter and will be dealt with appropriately).

Here you will once more be met by the coaches who will subject you to your first dose of humiliation - the warm-up exercise. The warm up exercise is led by one of the coaches who has clearly suffered a major musculoskeletal injury in the past and is now able to assume positions not normally available to homo sapiens. Apart from the general infliction of pain, the coaches use the warm up exercise as a means of identifying any pre-existing injuries you might be carrying. This is useful information for when you meet the wand of death.

On completion of the warm up exercise, all Campers will be assembled and requested to propel themselves one-at-a-time towards the coaches waiting further down the hill. Generally this will take place just below the Ski School building; however, on certain occasions when the coaches feel in need of greater entertainment, somewhere far more "interesting" (like Wildcard) may be chosen.

The indication to commence your run is provided by the wand of death - a ski pole wielded by one of the coaches (typically Crusty). Upon receiving the go-ahead from the wand of death, your main aim should be to not fall over before reaching the coaches. This may be beyond your limited abilities; however try your best - a fall on the ski-off is considered to be a major sign of weakness and will be ruthlessly exploited by your coach later on.

Should you make it to the bottom with the majority of your equipment intact, the wand of death will then point you towards your designated coach who will beckon you over to join the other pathetic specimens already allocated to his or her group. In the event that you decide that your designated coach is not the one for you, you can try grovelling or pleading towards the wielder of the wand of death. This will do you no good, but the coaches generally appreciate that sort of thing.

Sometimes on Murray Camp you will see reference to ski ability levels - these being numbered from 4 to 6. 4 supposedly being the most pathetic and 6 supposedly being slightly less pathetic. This bizarre numbering system is used to imply that there are levels of (dis)ability that even Murray Camp will not touch. This is a lie - your average Murray Camp coach is not fussy about what they torture - women, children, small furry animals - they're all fair game.

In the event that you are required to categorise yourself, the golden rule is you are not a level 6. Level 6 is a device to sucker in the exceptionally stupid and also to identify any psychos (locals) who might have secretly infiltrated the Camp. You can generally identify these people by their wild staring eyes, facial tics and the way they salivate uncontrollably at the sight of a race course. They generally want to ski hard, want to go as fast as possible (if not faster) and will bombard the coach with questions about how they can achieve this (e.g. "do you think we should hose down the course to speed it up a bit?"). Stay well away from these people.

Those new to Murray Camp will often enter the camp with some expectation of receiving coaching in the use of correct ski technique. What they actually receive is generally a long way removed from any established definition of this term and will vary from coach to coach: for example, Dr Death will omit all pretence of coaching and will only provide any information if you are able to keep up and meet him for next chairlift ride whereas The Mad Professor will so overload you with conflicting information that your head will be in danger of exploding. In all cases however you can rest assured that you will learn nothing about correct ski technique on Murray Camp.

For the "lucky" few who survive through to the third day of Camp, the coaches have a special form of humiliation prepared. A timed GS race. Against the other Campers. This combination of timing and racing is a further ploy to increase the probability of serious injury - remember this is the final day of Camp and your coach needs to maximise his or her standing among the other coaches. Oh yes, and just to deter any would-be sandbaggers, any Camper seen not to be properly risking their life among the gates and associated gopher-traps, faces the risk of being chased down the course by a ski pole-wielding coach (skiing backwards in snowplough just to illustrate how pathetic Campers really are).

At the end of the day, any surviving Campers get to meet up at The Brewhouse for a free beer, snacks and to be presented with a free T-shirt (scant consolation one might think for a day of near-death experiences). While this is ostensibly an opportunity to unwind, congratulate fellow survivors on making it through a terrifying ordeal, the opportunity to imbibe dangerous amounts of alcohol is actually used by the coaches to try to persuade people to come back and do it all again. Incomprehensibly, many do.