BARILOCHE 2018 – WEEK 3
It’s already week 3 of the Peak Leaders ski instructor course in Argentina! The trainees have produced great improvements in the trainee’s skiing abilities and given them a chance to experience real lessons first hand. Plus the icing on the cake is that the slopes up top are once again in ideal condition for honing short and long turns. Check out this amazing photo of the perfectly groomed slopes.
On the Peak Leaders course we love to produce well rounded skiers, so this week was time to explore the off-piste in search of powder! The off-piste day was timed perfectly with the weather and snow conditions plus we had our local legend Ivan guiding us to the backcountry area.
Everyone is always very excited, especially after a new snowfall, to get to the fresh snow but always safety first … Ivan ensured everyone had the right avalanche equipment and understood how to use it.
After some demonstrations and practice tasks with our transceivers, he led the group round to the epic Laguna bowl. Once they had sorted out how to carry their skis like Pro Free riders they competitively boot packed up to get to the top of the mountain, with Callum leading the charge!
After a quick fuel stop at the top to eat and drink, Ivan gave us an avalanche talk and demonstration about the different layers of snow that had fallen. And then it was time to rip … skis on and ready to have a go at skiing the off-piste. There were a variety of entertaining comedy falls with different levels of success at navigating a route down! A great day out which everyone loved the adventure day out and many are planning a return trip very soon!
When training to become a ski instructor not only do you need to develop your own skiing but learn to improve other people’s skiing too … which is obviously a main part of a ski instructor job after all … as well as developing great chair lift chat!
The best way to improve this is by shadowing real life ski lessons and this week everyone has spent time with Argentinean instructors and their client groups to learn how to be awesome instructors … and hopefully they improved their Spanish too!
After skiing in the afternoons the team always have something on whether it is video analysis, Spanish lessons or fitness. Fitness is really important as it can make a real difference to the success of the trainees. Plus it’s always good to get outside and enjoy the outdoors. This week it was back to the favourite Waterfall to workout in the natural beauty of the outdoors!
By Sunday everyone was completely knackered so it was a compete rest day after an intense schedule of training, shadowing and skiing off-piste to prepare for the final week of training before the BASI exams start. After a nice chilled day everyone was excited about the Sunday delicious Asado BBQ by the lake in the evening! Perfectly fueled up for their final week of training with Jake and Martin before BASI Level 1 starting next Monday!
