Peak Leaders Ski and Snowboard Course Week 5 Blog

The trainees in Sass Fee had an amazing week with perfect conditions as they continued training towards their Level 2. One of the ski groups were in for a treat, having a new Italian trainer Paolo. Most of the week we had blue skies, and quite a but of powder, which luckily fell over night for a couple of nights, and giving us hero conditions each day!

In training with Emma this week, the skiers were pulling off some nice powder turns while skiing for the camera! With a fresh dump of snow on Thursday, it gave the trainees their first real taster at some powder skiing, which they loved and was highly entertaining! At first they found it tough to control their turns, but after a few runs bashing through the snow they started to love it despite a few tumbles!

carving

The biggest highlight of the week was due to another Italian man, Marco, a freestyle coach who came across and introduced them to freestyle for the weekend! With some excited and some a bit nervous they were in great hands and had an awesome time. The first morning of the Freestyle weekend they began learning to ski switch, which is much harder than everyone thought it would actually be to do properly. They moved on fast before most people had fully managed switch skiing onto ‘helicoptering’ on flat ground, which we had all seen Pete doing a lot before, but not quite as well as Marco managed to pull it off. This is also where Taylor managed to pup out of his skis and fall straight into the ground, which was very funny to watch!

By the end of the day the group had accomplished Ollys, Nollys, skiing switch and when and how to pop so you can do jumps, as well as learning about and how to do a ballerina. To mix it up and to test the group, Marco taught them some grabs and a couple of 180 spins. Most people had managed to do a 180 off the very small jumps at the park and George being a park junkie naturally managed a 360 quite easily with James just getting one in. Macro also demonstrated his own skills with tricks like a 360 tail grab off some of the larger jumps on the park as well as a back flip, which was very inspirational to watch!

Pl 2

Going over the jumps was surprisingly easy once you knew what to expect, with maybe the exception of Sophie who went over the jump with her hand held over it and still screamed as she got in the air! But the half pipe certainly terrified almost everyone as they went through realising how steep the walls actually were.

lovin it

The highlight of the second day of Freestyle for the group was without a doubt Paolo’s wipeout! The group went off to find a bit of fresh powder and do a little jump off a ridge, which ended in Paolo face planting – always nice to see your trainer make a mistake too! The weekend finished in the skier cross, with everyone’s competitiveness coming to the surface!

A big thank you to Marco @FreeSkiCamps for coming to Saas Fee to teach all the guys Freestyle … an awesome weekend had by all!

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