Frequently Asked Questions

The one-week All-Mountain Snowboard Camps are aimed at novice, intermediate and advanced riders (depending on the camp).

Our two-week Terrain-Focused Snowboard Camps are for aimed at intermediate, advanced and expert riders (depending on the camp).

Snowboard Instructor Training camps are aimed at certified instructors, aiming towards their next level of certification, and has a minimum level of certification required to join.

All camps have an ability level indicator that shows what riding levels it caters for. These are described in more detail here, along with example videos.

Novice riders should be comfortable linking S-shaped turns on green runs, using both their toe edge and heel edge to control speed.

Intermediate riders should be comfortable linking smooth turns on all blue trails and can get down black groomed runs in control. This is similar to a Level One certified instructor.

Advanced riders can ride any groomed run on the mountain with confidence and style, and can tackle black off-piste terrain in control. Advanced riders should also be able to ride switch and be confident on small park features (boxes and jumps). This is similar to a Level Two instructor.

Expert riders should be ripping all over the mountain, including freestyle, freeride and carve; spinning off jumps, laying down big fast carves on black runs, riding moguls and navigating steep trees. This is similar to a Level Three instructor.

Jedis have their riding skills so well-honed that they barely need any coaching. They send it like Han Solo and spin like Yoda, both forwards and switch!

CAMP3 is focused on all-mountain freestyle, freeride and carve. Do everything, everywhere! That being said, we do have more specific camps that are focused more towards freeriding or freestyle. It is simply about helping you to get the most out of your snowboarding and expand your skills.

The one-week All-Mountain Snowboard Camps are designed to help you develop efficiency and flow in your riding, whilst building your technical skill base. They have a blend of both freestyle and freeride, and cater to your own individual goals.

Our two-week Terrain-Focused Snowboard Camps help you take big steps in your riding progression, in a super-positive group culture with other riders looking to push their abilities in specific terrain. You might be progressing on to bigger jumps in the park or working on airing out of the halfpipe. You might be learning to euro carve or get your powder slashes locked in. Your goals can be varied, but try to pick a camp that is focused on the environment you wish to progress in (e.g. steeps). A lot of Level One and Two certified instructors join these camps to help them progress to their next level of certification.

Snowboard Instructor Training camps are aimed at certified instructors, aiming towards their next level of certification. They are tailored specifically to high levels of certification and include a range of on and off-snow training opportunities. These camps develop all the necessary teaching, riding and analysis skills to focus on the next level of certification.

Our Level 3 training camps focus on multiple systems, including SBINZ, AASI and BASI. To join our main Level 3 training camp in NZ, we require a Level 2 certification from any of those countries (NZ, USA, UK).

If you have a CASI Level 2 certification, we encourage you to join a L3 Bridge the Gap camp first. The CASI L2 is equivalent to SBINZ 1.5 (i.e. it's right in between the SBINZ L1 and L2). This is because CASI L2 has no freestyle riding included, very limited off-piste riding, and no separate analysis component (all core elements of the SBINZ, AASI and BASI L2 certifications).

Our L3 Bridge the Gap camps are designed to do exactly that; bridge the gap between the Canadian L2 and other L3s. You can also use this camp as a way to get endorsed by an SBINZ examiner to go straight to the SBINZ L3 workshops.

As standard, we try to keep each group at a maximum of 6 people. The only exception to this is when a Camp Organiser joins as a rider in the camps (i.e. they are not a coach as well). The minimum numbers required depends on the costs to run the camp. Some camps will be 4 and others will be 5.

You will need the essentials; snowboard, bindings and boots, plus outerwear, goggles, gloves and a helmet. Most CAMP3 members have their own snowboard setup however it is possible to rent boards and bindings locally in either Wanaka (NZ) or Madarao (Japan). This can be useful for those travelling long distances, however we strongly recommend you have your own snowboard boots.

Some of our advanced and expert freeride camps require avalanche packs too (this will be specified on the camp listing), including transceiver, probe and shovel. At our Japan base in Clubhouse Madarao, we have a small number of these packs available to rent.

Yes, we have a small fleet of Jones Snowboards available at Clubhouse Madarao in Japan. These are available free of charge for members on camps to test out for a day. They are not available to rent for the entire camp however.

Japan camps have accommodation and passes included, as we now own a lodge in at Madarao Mountain Resort. These camps can be flexible enough to exclude lift passes, based on your needs however.

NZ camps have the option to add a discounted season pass covering both Treble Cone and Cardrona. Some of the NZ camps also have accommodation as an optional add-on too.

Every location that we run camps, we have permission to do so. Every resort is different in how this works. In New Zealand, we have an agreement with Real NZ (owners of Cardrona and Treble Cone) to run their advanced snowboarding camps. In this scenario, our coaches are also employed by the mountain, meaning we get access to the lift line priority lane also.

We will do our absolute best to get to the necessary terrain that the specific camp is focus on. All our camps have access to multiple resorts, so we can choose the best conditions on the day and offer alternatives should terrain closures occur for any reason. We do not have exclusive access to specific terrain such as the halfpipe and are at the mercy of the resort operations and snow fall here. We must work around maintenance, contests and national training teams to gain access to the Cardrona Superpipe specifically.

Lift and resort closures are out of our control. However, lift closures only happen on rare occasion in the resorts that we operate in. We will often use this closed day as a down day in the middle of a camp. For example, on our 3* and 4* camps, we usually run Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday. If we get a closed day on the Monday or Tuesday, we will ride on the Wednesday instead. If the weather forecast is looking extremely poor for Thursday or Friday, we will bring it forward a day and use the Wednesday. There is also opportunity to use the Saturday after the camp usually ends, if absolutely necessary. Basically, we'll do our best to make it happen.

In the highly unlikely event that the resort is closed for multiple days in a row and we cannot use an additional at the end of the camp to make up for it, we cannot provide "make up" days later in the season.