Welcome to Peak Leaders

Argentina – BASI in Bariloche
02/09/2010

We've come to the end of the 4 weeks training with the Argentinian instructors, and BASI level 1 training has started. I think we all feel like our riding has improved so much since the start of the course. Our Argentinian snowboard instructor Pety, has helped us sort out any major problems with our riding and now the BASI instructors are fine tuning things and guiding us through the level 1 course.

We've so far been perfecting basic exercises and improving the way we ride generally. I already feel more confident riding down steep and irregular terrain, and riding in different conditions such as powder (we've had some amazing powder days) and ice (which I used to hate as I'd always come home black and blue). So far, our training days have been really varied, and we've also been learning some tricks alongside the standard exercises which has been really fun. We're just about halfway through the training course, and I'm looking forward to improving my riding further by the end, and then looking back at the videos we took of us at the start (and laughing).

New Zealand – Helicopters and Hangovers
31/08/2010

A couple of weeks on and the guys have partied hard but skied and snowboarded even harder, in an effort to get themselves in-shape for the level 2. Training has been really intense and although Queenstown has an abundance of activities that trainees can take-part in on their days off, they've often chosen to kick-back and relax at the hotel. The weather here has been far more temperamental since I last  blogged; a number of storms have come-in from the Tasmin Sea and left us with powder and generally much better snow conditions. 

Only last weekend the trainees were being shuttled by helicopters to the top of the Harris Mountain range for a day of shredding untouched powder. Unfortunately the weather closed-in a bit but there were still some great stashes of powder to be ridden and the Helicopter pilot wasn't shy of showing-off his skills. 

So far this week all of the trainees have handed-in their ILM assignments and the skiers have begun their level 2 examination, with the snowboarders due to start on Friday. A special mention must go to Lettice and Fay who both passed their level 1 assessment last week, both girls showed a great deal of determination over the past few weeks and have really raised their game.

Tom

Argentina – ILM Course
26/08/2010

Here in Argentina it isn't just the ski & snowboard instructors license the trainees are working towards.

Some have signed onto the Institute of Leadership & Management course. This course offers accreditation through the experiential learning and day/evening lectures. In the UK, and abroad, the ILM Level 4 Certificate is highly regarded and a great addition to any CV. The course challenges the trainee to plan, organise and lead a group through a 2 hour experience.

For one trainee here in Argentina - Nichole - all her skills were put to the test!

With the preparatory lectures finished it was up to the trainees to decide on an "experience". Nichole decided on a "Full Moon BBQ" - no mean feat, catering for 35 hungry trainees and Argentine coaches. The date was set and the planning all done. Chefs were 'delegated', BBQ's all checked, a pit for a beach bonfire, an inside venue as well, monies collected, music sorted and all liased with the Hotel staff (they got a night off!). 

The day came (yesterday) for the BBQ and not a Full Moon in sight. In fact not even a sky! Snow and rain fell with abandon. So much abandon that Nichole's "contingency plans" soon came into effect. All of them! A tarp erected over the outside BBQ arrived first. Then the N. Americans got a lesson in starting a BBQ fire in the damp and cold. 

Everyone else swiftly moved inside and eagerly waited. 

A huge table greeted everyone with enough pre-dinner snacks to feed the whole of Bariloche. Music blared, ping pong was played and the rain continued to beat its way down. Soup arrived and salad, next came meat meat meat .. and more meat. The vegetarians were not forgotten, bbq veggies all deliciously cooked soon popped up too.

Suffice to say the "campers" were happy and the food all wolfed down - without even a single howl at the moon (not that it ever appeared?!).
Well done

Argentina – Birthday, Exam Results and POWDER!
23/08/2010

This week has been a busy one here in Argentina. The week started with Nicole's birthday. A low key affair with cake and candles blown out at the diner table. Snow was blowing in too. In the morning the skies were heavy with the first big storm. Up on the mountain the trainees were met with the chance of fresh tracks. Powder brought the smiles to those that can and covered those that can't. All good fun though whichever way up you finished your run!

 Another birthday was then on the cards. Tim hit 21 yrs old with style. His new friends making sure he made it out on the town. That was not looking likely when he stayed up to watch Tottenham - and got stuck at the resort. Eventually the taxis getting through the snow and back to the hotel.

More snow made mid-week madness! Riding in the trees and deep snow challenged everyone. The crew of top-notch Argentinian instructors making sure the groups kept the big smiles - even if they were covered with big snow.

Mid-week also brought exam result fever. Max, the Irish, was first in and first into university. A great result which he proudly and deservedly celebrated. Everyone else still had a day to wait till theirs were published.

 Day three of snow and changing conditions meant the groups were tiring. Some easier runs and well enjoyed coffee stops kept them all warm. The resort had changed into a Winter Wonderland and the lake side hotel into a sea of white. This is what winter is all about.

For the first time ever since we got here the breakfast room was buzzing early doors. Laptops were out and results were too. Nearly all got the hoped for marks they needed. Those unlucky few were consoled by the fact that winter in the N Hemisphere isn't too far away. Before breakfast was even finished they'd sent off their applications to ski schools. Seems a "Gap Year" means just that, not only 8 weeks in beautiful Bariloche.

Thursday on the hill brought blue skies and fresh snow. The sun was welcome and the groups made the best of the break in the weather. I snagged a point and shoot camera and followed the snowboarders. Check out the video for a chance to see what they get up to on a day on the hill.

 The weather closed in again on friday. With tired legs, from a long week skiing & riding, and the bday/exam fever - the group slowed the pace and kept the turns mellow. With thoughts turning to next week already and the arrival of the "Basi people". The hushed reverential tones letting the groups nervousness belie their normal relaxed nature.

Today - Saturday - the sky has again turned blue. A nice way to end the week for those deciding to ride on their day off. Plus a nice present to Jonny, who turns 18 yrs old and who will also be enjoying a slap up Argentine steak very soon ….

Argentina – Arrival time
23/08/2010

Already 3 weeks into the trip and still in need of a blog! It would be fair to say it is more from lack of time than lack of action and already there are a million stories we could all tell! The obvious place to start is the flight out, which after about an hour and a half of parcel taping skis to boot bags and a small argument with the airline staff later (don’t ask!) we were on our way. 24 hours later we arrived in the snow-covered mountains of the Andes very tired and doing our best to make friends despite the jetlag.

Day one involved a walk up to the slopes at Cerro Catedral and a nice lunch before we started the ski instructor training properly the following day. Most of the first week involved meeting our Argentinean instructors, remembering how skis and snowboards actually felt as well as the odd cerveza or two purely for group bonding reasons! The oddest experience for many though had to be the daily event of crossing a small river clinging to both your skis and your poles in order to make it to lunch. For anybody reading this, it probably sounds like the most ridiculous thing in the world but with the lack of snow at the bottom, it quickly became completely normal and added a bit of excitement to the day. After trying a bit of the local nightlife on the weekend and nursing the odd hangover here or there, we were quickly into week 2.

Week 2 started very differently to the first, descending back to beginners and learning the good old snow plough once again, unless you’re Tom who apparently never did learn this in the first place! After a week of one legged skiing, backward skiing and plenty of bunny runs we were soon ready for the more hardcore stuff!

After a big dump of powder at the start of the third week, we quickly got our wish! Despite poor conditions, the whole group headed out and was greeted by about half a metre of fresh snow ready to be tracked. After a day in the powder we all came back and got ready before going out for Tim’s 21st birthday (I cannot ommit that it was also Nicole’s birthday on the Monday but we made it a joint celebration to try and make sure we made it through the week!). For the safety of Tim and the rest of the group, he decided it was best he kept off the slopes the next day, a decision agreed upon by many! Thursday was another big day of the week, with many of the group receiving A-level results and finding out if they would make it in to university. After a very early morning wake up due to the time difference, almost all of the news was good and we all went out and enjoyed a very cheery days skiing! For now, that brings you all up to date and I can inform you it is currently a Saturday afternoon and we have yet another birthday in the camp tomorrow (I know – it’s been a big week!) so we are off out to celebrate Johnny’s 18th tonight with a meal at a nice steak restaurant and quite possibly a few drinks afterwards. Hope this has just about filled you in on as much as I can manage in one go. Until next time – hasta luego!
 

Whistler Mountain Bike Instructor Development Camp – Level 2 exams, and Crankworx
16/08/2010

Well done to the crew for all passing the Level 2 of the course! A tough exam and a high level of riding and knowledge needed, from teaching drops and jumps, to high speed cornering. Nice one, Makes ya proud, brings a tear to the eye.

The last week has been a combination of epic riding down some out of the way trails from the Peak of Whistler, and checking out Crankworx, the biggest MTB event in the world and incredible to be around. Seb managed to get within a respectable 30 seconds racing in the Air DH. The final weekend of Crankworx brings the Slopestyle finals and the Canadian Open Downhill, and the riding was as usual being pushed to the limits.

The Peak Leaders Mountain Bike Course is coming to an end soon. The crew has been wicked this year, and I hope to see us coaching in the park next year! Here are some more photos of us, and some shots of the Crankworx comps (vids to come).

Dahj
 

New Zealand – Burton New Zealand Open 2010
14/08/2010

 It's not all work on the instructor course in New Zealand and as a self-confessed snowboard addict I was very keen to get the Snowboard trainees across to Cardrona for the final of the Burton New Zealand Open Halfpipe finals. Although Shaun White was absent this year we were treated to an unbelievable final with some of the Worlds top riders throwing-down tricks that I'd only ever seen on TV. Not only was the final spectacular but when we arrived there was 30cm of fresh powder covering the off-piste, so the guys had a lot fun slashing the morning away before spending 3 hours watching the action. It must be said that Cardrona is a wicked resort with a vast array of wide-open slopes and well worth the visit; all-in-all yesterday was one of the highlights of the season. Below are some of the photos that I took of the action:

(Hana and Fay watch as snowboarding legend JJ Thomas throws a 14ft high 1080 spin)

Argentina – Week 1 in Argentina is all wrapped up!
13/08/2010

The group were treated to an open air bbq on arrival to the instructor course running in Argentina. All welcomed that after the long long flight from the UK. Slept and refreshed, the week began with a stroll to the mountain of Catedral. The ski station was a surprise to all. Better equipped and bigger than expected the sight of snow soon had everyone eager to get onto the slopes. First though it was an introduction to the facilities and another open air lunch. None of us could quite work out the strange mixture at the slope side bar - Argentine people, Austrian apres-ski music and the loudspeaker calling out, "Peak Leaders one, goulishi". Until we picked up the first plates: goulash! And with the strong influence of the Austrian ski schools in the resort it all made sense, well, nearly.

The view from the group's hotel... El retorno

Mountain safety classes, First Aid and a talk from the Ski resort staff on safety followed in the week. This made sure all the trainee's were equipped to know the best places to go, the best avoided and what to do in case of an emergency. The weather mixed itself from blue skies to snow and back to blue again. Allowing a little exploring with the Mountain Guides into some fresh snow. Some found the "hike and ride" atmosphere a challenge but all survived to tell the tale. With any doubts washed away by the 18th birthday celebrations that evening!

The beautiful El Retorno!

Saturday was a well earned rest for all after a busy week. A few made it to the slopes. More decided that a lazy day was the best remedy from the party the night before. Those that were brave enough tripped into town to the Tango spectacular. Under the "strict" supervision of the dance teacher soon the group we're stepping in style to the music. A few potential dance superstars perhaps for the future?! Those left back at the beautiful El Retorno complex made sure the bbq was in full flow, with steaks and burgers sizzling on our return.

Today - Sunday - most of the group are up the mountain enjoying the fresh snow.

Tomorrow the fun begins again with the ski and snowboard coaches taking everyone back to basics .... more to follow!
 

New Zealand – Relentless
13/08/2010

Conditions at the moment are perfect; temperatures have fallen and the Queenstown area had 30cm of fresh snow at the end of last weekend, all of the guys have been feeling the benefits of these conditions and the groups’ confidence is high.

Whistler Mountain Bike Instructor Development Camp – A-Line Whistler video
28/07/2010

 If you've never experienced or watch the classic "A-Line" run on Whistler's Bike Park, here it is on video. It's one of Whistlers classic jump runs. The video is Seb filming and Mark in front. You could be doing this also on one of out MTB instructor courses.

New Zealand – .....worth the journey!
26/07/2010

Ever thought you’d travel for two days just to go skiing? Well in fairness I didn’t think I would either! Nevertheless, five films and six in-flight meals later I was descending rapidly into Queenstown Airport with my mouth wide open as I stared, in awe, at the jaw-dropping scenery. I won’t bore you by describing the scenery, as a picture paints a thousand words, but what I will say is this; ‘there was a reason why they filmed the Lord of the Rings Trilogy here!’

After a quick pass through Kiwi customs I was in a taxi and on my way to the Coronet Peak Hotel, which is to be the trainees accommodation for the next ten weeks. The hotel is one of Queenstown’s largest hotels but is a family-run affair with its own bar, bowling alley, sauna and hot-tub; which are luxuries that seasonaires very seldom have access to, with the exception of the bar! The food here is exceptional with a fried breakfast every morning, if you want it, afternoon tea and a big hearty meal for dinner……so there’s absolutely no danger of anyone starving.

Over the next few days the trainees began arriving and exploring Queenstown and the surrounding ski resorts where they’d be training for the next 10 weeks, the Remarkables and Coronet Peak. Even though resorts in the Southern Alps are comparatively small they have great terrain with some of the most awe-inspiring views on the planet. As Queenstown is in an area of New Zealand that gets very low amounts of precipitation and lots of high-pressure weather systems there aren’t many powder days but then again the sun is always shining. Nevertheless the Southern Alps do get the occasional epic powder day and the snow-making facilities are unparalleled meaning that the piste conditions are some of the best in the Southern Hemisphere.

For the snowboarders training began on Monday 5 July with an introduction to the basic principles of snowboarding: stance, balance, rotation, pressure, equipment, and movement. The next three weeks they worked tirelessly with their trainers, Karl and Ben, to reach the standard required for their level 1 examination. The skiers on the other hand began their training on Thursday 8 July after having a few more days to get-to-know the mountains and find their feet. Similarly to the snowboarders the next few weeks would be spent getting to know the fundamental principles of skiing and the basics of teaching somebody to learn their first turns. The trainers, Robin and Todd, have been a huge inspiration to the trainees and I’ve genuinely never met a keener bunch of trainees.

Apart from training on the mountain the trainees have been busy with other activities. After a couple of workshop sessions they all know how to wax a pair of ski’s or a snowboard. All of the trainees have been given tips on how to put together a decent CV and covering letter for instructor jobs, together with a tips sheet that advises them on resorts and work practices. Those trainees taking the ILM have completed the lectures and have had an assessment workshop; they’re currently planning their assessment. We’ve all taken advantage of the weekly bowling sessions with James, Toby C (aka Nick) and Jamie all vying for the ‘Best Bowler’ title, but none coming remotely close to Phil, the hotels Entertainment Manager.

Although the trainees have been very focused on their training they’ve had some great nights in Queenstown; any town with over 50 bars and pubs within 400m² is always going to have a certain draw. Special mentions must go to Jamie and his ability to make a 3kg Fergburger disappear in seconds, Ewan and his remarkably bad chat-up-lines that seem to work, Joe and his severe intolerance to Alcohol…….and Lucy for her tolerance to Alcohol despite only turning 18 very recently. Nevertheless Queenstown has more to offer than just boozing; it’s actually the adventure sports capital of the world as Seamus, or Papa Smurf as he’s affectionately known, has found out. Not only has Seamus done the world’s third highest Bungee but he’s ridden the jet boat through the Shotover Canyon  and has a days heli-skiing and a skydive planned for future days off; it seems the Lord Of The Rings Tour didn’t really cut the mustard’.

Talking of Bungee jumps you’ll be pleased/shocked to hear that the vast majority of trainees did their first jump this past Saturday in celebration of Lucy’s 18^th Birthday…..I can reliably inform you that they all returned home in one piece. Not only did the trainees do the third highest Bungee jump in the World, I was nervous standing up there taking photos, but they also did the Worlds highest and largest swing, the Nevis Arc. Although the latter sounds like a walk in the park a drop of 150 metres with 70m freefall should not be snubbed. A special mention must go to Tommy who enjoyed the Bungee so much that he did it twice, on his second attempt he did a petrifying manoeuvre called ‘The Bullet’ which I can’t imagine he’ll be doing again! I was very proud of all the trainees as they all jumped at the count of three without a single tear or hissy fit……and Jaya even promised to return at the end of the trip and conquer her fear of the Bungee!

So, what’s next? Well the trainees have their level 1 examination this week so I’ll keep you all up-to-date with their progress and post another blog this time next week.

Tom

P.s Below is what some of the trainees, Lettice and Kate, have written about the first two weeks:

NEW ZEALAND – Week One and Two

Two weeks in and our whole team has arrived and settled in. The jet lag has subsided and everyone has got to know each other. Training for both skiers and snowboarders is well underway and has proved to be challenging at times.

Although we are still praying for a snowfall the conditions are still pretty sweet due to the snow cannons at Coronet Peak and the cold spell. We have been training at Coronet Peak but on our days off we have visited The Remarkables here we spend numerous hours in the snow park! Every day we are trying to improve our technique in preparation for our level one exam next week.

However, when we are not on the slopes we have the local cuisine to enjoy; primarily the legendary FERBURGER. The hotel food is also of an exceptional standard, with a buffet breakfast and a huge two-ourse dinner which is perfect for both before and after a hard day on the slopes! We have also sampled the Queenstown nightlife resulting in a series of fantastic nights and horrendous hangovers! During the days when we are not skiing or snowboarding we have decided to try some of the other extreme activities which the area is famous for. So far a few members of the group have sampled the Kawarau Jet boat and the majority of the group have signed up for the Nevis bungee and Nevis Arc Swing (supposedly the highest bungee in New Zealand and the highest swing in the world) for our youngest member, Lucy’s, Birthday.
Fingers crossed for the exams next week and for snow!

Lettice & Kate x

Whistler Mountain Bike Instructor Development Camp – IDP bike course under way in Whistler
19/07/2010

The IDP course is on its way here in Whistler! The first week has given us perfect Whistler weather and a chance to start to check out the trails and get our legs. Plenty of shredding and good times.

Mike is an uber-techy suspension and bike mechanic genius, and has help us fine tune our machines on the first couple of days. More to come too for sure.

Mike is also the head instructor for Whistler-Blackcomb, and because of that he can guide us with unprecedented access through some out-there trails that no-one else is allow to even ride on. A first taste of this little privilege was to get up to the top of the Alpine area of the “Peak Chair”, and then down some of the roads that are only ski/snowboarding runs in the summer. As you can see from the photos, we had a huge winter snowfall this year. 30 feet in November was a good start! The ride also included a MRA (Mike's Ridiculous Adventure), with some hike-a-bike into a trail down an old never used hiking trail, and up to a pretty nice little waterfall too.

The IDP Level 1 starts next week, as we learn the basics of teaching and guiding in a bike park.
 

Whistler – Bye to the crew!
16/05/2010

Unfortunately all things must end. The Spring Whistler Course has come to an end, and the crew has been great, a truely international bunch that got on like a house on fire, where ever they were. Loads of snow, lots of good nights out, and lots of skiing. Well done to everyone on the Level 2 exams. Totally awesome, you earned it!

I just love looking back on old video of the first week skiing, and then seeing the skills we bring to the table now, from piste to powder.

Some emotional goodbyes, and everyone has gone their separate ways. Stay tuned for a PL reunion sometime though for sure! Maybe in a neutral country? Party in Eastern Europe anyone?

Here are a few more photos from the course. Hope to catch you all really soon.

Dahj

Verbier – BASI 2 with a view
12/05/2010

 After a quick level 1 reassessment, for the three trainees that had previously just missed the grade, all that stood between all 25 trainees and becoming fully-fledged ski/snowboard instructors was the two-week BASI level 2 assessment.  Although the trainees were scheduled to take their level 2 examination very late in the season the snow lasted surprisingly well so conditions were in the trainees favour.

Fortunately the trainees were also gifted with three of the best BASI trainers in the business; Hugh Brown, Mo Duffy and Verbier’s very own Rob Norton. All the aforementioned trainers were very charismatic and inspirational and made a massive impact on the progression of the trainees. After two weeks of skiing the vast majority of trainees made massive improvements to their skiing; a special mention must go to Tabby who had struggled with her confidence throughout the course but had made countless changes to her skiing over the 10 weeks. Mo, who had taken Tabby for her level 1 examination back in February, said that he couldn’t even recognise Tabby on the slopes because of the vast improvement she’d made.

As the sun blazed the trainees worked tirelessly on their technique, skiing and snowboarding; bumps, steeps, variable snow conditions and carving. Within the BASI 2 syllabus trainees are expected to demonstrate and show an understanding of higher-end skiing and snowboarding, which is why these 5 strands are a key focus along with teaching and the central theme. Trainees are also required to show that they are far more adept at teaching a group of people, which is where the 70 hours of shadowing instructors on the hill becomes really useful. All of the trainees showed that they were comfortable teaching a group of people……which meant ensuring the groups safety, keeping the lesson fun and including key information and teaching techniques in teaching sessions.

At the end of the week 100% of the trainees passed the teaching side of their level 2; with 86% of the snowboarders passing the technical aspect of the course and 70% of skiers passing. These numbers obviously don’t take into consideration the huge changes that all the trainees have made to their skiing and snowboarding; a number of trainees had only done a couple of weeks skiing before they came on the course. Hats off to Jo B in particular, who had only started skiing the winter before with just two weeks on snow before arriving in Verbier.

On Thursday afternoon we were all fortunate enough to see the aerial fly-by which was carried-out by the Swiss Airforce's version of the Red Arrows, which takes place annually after the Patrouillle Des Glaciers......have a look at the photos below for an idea of how close they cam to the chalet. Anyway, after the final week of examinations had finished the prizes were awarded and we all headed to the Pergola, Verbier’s finest Pizza and Pasta restaurant, for dinner. Needless to say the next morning wasn’t much fun; Jake was still swigging on a half-drunk bottle of Vodka whilst preaching the benefits of ‘hair of the dog’ to the other trainees. Jez’s whole body shook while he half heatedly tried to cram his worldly belongings into an undersized suitcase and Gustav ended-up sitting in a chair at the front of the chalet with all his worldly belongings for the duration of the day. 

Prizes!!!!

Most improved skiers/snowboarder

Matt’s group: Annie

Sandy’s group: Kieran

Rob & Dave’s group: Cat

Most promising instructor

Matt’s group: Phil

Sandy’s group: Steve

Rob & Dave’s group: Chris

Best Freestyle skier: George & Jake

Best Freestyle Snowboarder: Tricky Dicky

Most helpful trainee: Dom & Jo B

Course Joker: Jez

Wooden Spoon: Callum

Course Hero: Gustav & Adrian

Whistler – Spring time in the Whizzle
28/04/2010

It's spring time, but someone forgot to tell Whistler. The fronts are still coming in, and the snow is still falling. Another surprise snow day, with 20cm falling overnight. The base is still sitting at 250 cms!

Saying that though, we've also had a load of really nice hot days. The days on the mountain have been a mix of sunny, slushy days, and powder days. Off the mountain we've also been BBQing some pretty mean steaks in true Aussie style, and getting out for some meals around the town too.

The Telus Ski Snowboard Festival has been on all this week. There has been constant free live music in the village square, lots of art exibitions and competions, and ski and snowboard comps too. Plenty of time spent hitting the bars and clubs too.

Amogst all that, we've been training hard! One more week before the Level 2! Good luck to everyone.

Verbier – Peak Leaders Spring Session 2010
16/04/2010

In the last blog I mentioned that we'd had a big air contest and picnic to finish off the training. Well, everybody survived due to the soft spring afternoon conditions and below are some of the photos from the event:

(The crowds gathered for the spectacle)

(Steve and Izzy dropped some tasty moves whilst wearing some tasty outfits)

(Tricky Dicky getting all tricky in the afternoon sun)

(George with the biggest air of the day)

(Callum showing us how to ruin a beautiful view)

Nick 'Stiff Leg' Renton proving he can actually bend his knees)

(Local hero and breakfast connisseur Sammy came purely to work on his tan and skull a few beers but ended-up busting the most stylish trick of the day)

(J-Bomb aka Crusher flexing his guns)

(Jake and his new tan line)

(Cat about to get a face full of snow......and Chris loving it!)

(Tricky Dicky with a bs180 method)

(Dave showing the trainees how to backflip)

(Jake's first attempt............fair play!!!)

(George stepped-up to the challenge)

(Chris finally grew a pair and stomped his second ever attempt......he even got a cheeky grab in there!)

In other news; the three trainees that had to retake their BASI level 1 all passed!!!!!! Well done guys!

Tom

Verbier – A few busy weeks
12/04/2010

So it’s been a few weeks since I last submitted a blog, really sorry about the delay. Anyway, enough of my shortcomings, I’m sure you want to know exactly what the guys have been up to so I’ll give it to you straight.

Since I last submitted a blog there isn’t much that the trainees haven’t been up to, over the past four weeks the trainees have completed; their BASI level 1, close to 80 hours of training, they’ve spent time shadowing other qualified instructors, had an introduction to freestyle skiing and a day of off-piste with a brief education on avalanche awareness and how to use a transceiver. Since the last blog the training has taken the trainees from confident recreational skiers/snowboarders to technically proficient instructors. A special mention must go to Tim and Annie who have come-on leaps and bounds since their first few days, where it was clear that they hadn’t spent as much time on skis as some of the others…….I’ve reliably been informed that they’re now up there with the best.

(Being introduced to using and avalanche transceiver)

Verbier has had so many different weather systems over the last month that the trainees have sunbathing one minute then waste-deep in powder the next. I’m not complaining though, just as we thought the season was over we’ve had a number of resort-saving snowfalls.

Anyway, you’ll be pleased to hear that the vast majority of trainees passed their level 1 exam and although there were a couple trainees that didn’t quite make the grade they were very close. Due to new BASI legislation the aforementioned trainees are sitting their level 1 re-sit today, which is a simple one day reassessment, so I’ll let you know how they’ve done this evening. As mentioned in previous blogs the level 1 is an introduction to BASI, the syllabus is concerned with educating wannabe instructors how to teach the basics of skiing and snowboarding; from introducing the equipment, though the basics of balance and stance, to starting and stopping and finally on to controlling direction and turning. Nevertheless, trainees must be able to demonstrate to the BASI trainer that they can carve proficiently and do short controlled turns down steep slopes. With a BASI level 1 qualification you can teach in some European countries in a mountain environment and you are insured by BASI to teach on indoor slopes and dryslopes across the UK.

After the level 1 examination all of the trainees returned to full training; the focus of the training therefore shifted from being focused on understanding, demonstrating and teaching the basics to being able to show an understanding, demo and teach higher-level skiing and snowboarding. Bumps, variable snow conditions, freestyle and high-level piste performance are all bought into the syllabus at this point in the course. If you’re thinking of taking the course then you shouldn’t worry too much because you’re not expected to ski or snowboard like Candide Thovex or Shaun White. On every course we give the trainee skiers a day with ES Freeski’s head freestyle coach Oli Corkhill who puts the trainees through their paces. For those brave-enough the course normally consists of teaching the trainees; how to jump, how to ski backwards, how to do a 180 and other flatland tricks. As usual there were a few minor casualties but nothing too serious; a few trainees, namely George and Gustav even managed throw a couple of 360’s into the mix.

Later that week the trainees were also introduced to mountain safety and off-piste touring by Martin Burrows-Smith a well-known guide in Chamonix and a BASI Mountain Safety examiner. Aided by his very dry sense of humour, Verbier’s magnificent terrain and a day of beautiful sunshine Martin introduced the trainees to using a transceiver, he gave them a quick education on snow conditions and avalanche awareness and then took the trainees to a couple of well-known off-piste spots, including the legendary ‘Stairway to Heaven’. All of the trainees really enjoyed the day and all agreed that even a days worth of knowledge would prove invaluable. Unfortunately the snow wasn’t great but you can’t have a week of sunshine without the snow suffering a bit!

(Digging a pit and looking at snow profiles)

Back in resort there have been a few notable developments; J-Bomb and Dom’s weekly quiz has become a fiercely fought contest between the great minds of the course. Alex, Adriano and Chris have all made notable contributions…….and Kieran and Gustav think they’ve made valuable contributions to the winning teams but clearly haven’t! In other news; after charming the women of Les Elfes Jezz still hasn’t kissed a girl, despite giving himself a nickname that would falsely encourage anybody to believe he’s a legend with the opposite sex.

Anyway, back to skiing and snowboarding. Following the freestyle training and the brief introduction to mountain safety the training resumed training, followed by 10 days of shadowing where the trainees followed instructors from Les Elfes and European Snowsport around. Shadowing is a mandatory requirement from BASI and is really helpful in building the trainees confidence, getting them comfortable at dealing with beginners in a lesson environment, dealing with difficult kids, and learning the tricks of the trade…….which for most instructors involves carrying a bag of sweets as a bribe! With 70 hours of shadowing signed-off it was back to training for the final week. During this time the trainers (Rob, Sandy and Matt) made a final push to get all the trainees to the level needed to pass their level 2 examination. During this week some Sandy’s group entered European Snowsport’s annual slalom competition. Out of Sandy’s group Jake was the fastest trainee through the course and Jezz was the slowest, which he won’t thank me for mentioning. Needless to say they were all beaten by a 12 year-old local girl who managed to beat half of the experienced instructors that entered!

To end the week we had a picnic and a kicker session up on the mountain, overlooking the Bagnes valley. The trainees, who were all wearing fancy dress, turned-up to the secret location after their final morning of training and the shenanigans began. After being pelted with snowballs for twenty minutes I eventually managed to finish sculpting the two kickers and after throwing a couple of backflips off the bigger of the two kickers the trainees decided the jump was safe and plucked up the courage to give the jumps a go. With the help of the one-legged wonder, Mr Jimbo Brockbanks, I went about taking photos of the trainees as they threw themselves into the abyss. Special mentions must go to George, jake and Chris who all threw backflips off the bigger kicker……Jake, who had been wearing a bra all day had a serious bikini tan, much to the amusement of the other trainees. Other mentions must go to Tricky Dicky, who in the process of doing a very stylish bs180 melon gave himself a bloody nose, and Nick ‘Stiff Leg’ Renton who stacked it more than everybody-else collectively…….in his defence Nick was adamant that he had landed his 180’s but had fallen-over immediately after because his ski’s weren’t twin-tips…….keep telling yourself that mate! Following a sun-kissed afternoon of jumps, beers and backflips we all hit the town for a final night of fun before the BASI trainers arrived. Photo’s of the afternoon will be posted in a couple of days time.
 

Tom

Whistler – Good times, and Level 1 done!
28/03/2010

So It has been a few weeks since the last blog, and what a few weeks it has been!

Firstly and most importantly, we have just finished the Level 1, and everyone passed. Congrats to everybody, you earnt it! We're all now officially instructors.

We've been training hard, and, well, going pretty hard off the hill as well. The Olympics were an awesome time in town, and the village was a constant party. In typical Whistler style, we've had plenty of snow and powder days over the last few weeks too, and to top it off, the mountain was always super quiet! Amazing. The Para-lympics followed, and there were some pretty awesome skills on display also.

A Team Peak Leaders 5-a-side football team has been created for a local competion. Game 1 didn't quite go as planned. But, there has been plenty of driveway training since, and things are looking good.

After the results came in, we've had a good chance to relax, and take in some bars and clubs.

Back to it on Monday, with the Level 2 now in our sights. 15cms due over night. Yeooow!

Banff – WOW, What a Week! The Final Farewell :-(
27/03/2010

 With all the exams finished, it was time to have some serious FUN!!! We started the week on Tuesday  with a trip to Calgary to watch the NHL Calgary Flames vs Anaheim Ducks at the Saddledome. It was a very eventful trip with a few issues of getting lost on the highway :-P Also we stopped off at one of the largest shopping malls I've ever seen, Cross Irons Mills. Inside were some ridiculously cool shops, such as Outdoor World. Checkout the pictures below, it was awesome :-P

After yet another lost trip on the highway we made it to downtown Calgary and made it to the Saddledome!

Calgary Flames

The game was incredible, with a fight starting with in 2 minutes of the game starting. Everyone was cheering for the Flames and it worked as the final score was 3-1 to the Flames. GO FLAMES GO!!!

Kicking Horse

Wednesday we got up at 6am to get on the bus to go to Kicking Horse, one of the newest resorts in the world, it opened in 2000! We had an amazing day and with hardly anyone else at the resort it was like having our own resort for the day :-P

Delirium Dive

 Thursday was another hunt for powder but a little closer to Banff. We headed up to Delirium Dive, one of the best in bounds freeride areas in the world. It is considered an avalanche area, so transceivers were compulsory along with shovels and probes. Don't worry though, no avalanches were set off and we all went through uninjured.

End of Course Party

That night we had the end of course party, organised by Mal. We started off in the Elk and Oarsman for dinner and a few pitchers, then we went to the Rose and Crown for a pool competition, surprisingly won by Jamie. The next pub sport on the agenda was Foosball at The Devils Gap, won by myself, Sam (Ranked 270th in the UK at Foosball!) and Rob. The night ended with some darts at Tommy's. Although it was sad it was a brilliant night to end things on :-)

Sulphur Mountain

Friday was a day of recovery for some but for four of us we decided to go on a hike up Sulphur Mountain then dip in the hot springs afterwards. A 5.6km hike certainly cleared some heads after last night and the dip in the hot springs afterwards was very much welcome! Especially with some wearing the 1930s style swimming wear :-P

Departure Day

Saturday was departure day for the team. I very sad affair after 11 weeks of fantastic fun and magical moments that everyone will carry with them forever. I'd like to thank everyone involved; Kenji, Juan and the whole Sunshine Village Snowsports School for giving us top notch training; Irwins Mountain Inn for the great accommodation; all the restaurants for the fantastic food and finally the team. It's been a pleasure being your course leader for the past 11 weeks and I wish you all the best of luck in all your future endeavours. Have a safe journey home and make sure you go rip it up whenever you can :-P

All the best,

Your course leader,

Sam Feltham

P.S. Don't forget to checkout more pictures on the Facebook group!!!

Banff – Level 2 D-Day!!!
21/03/2010

 Well, it has been a fantastically sunny week and I couldn't help but post up some of the stunning views we've had this week at Sunshine Village.

Although the views have been stunning the team have had other things on their mind, the Level 2 exam!!! All week they have been studying, being assessed and making sure they get enough rest, even getting 40 winks in at lunch time.

After 5 days of assessment for the skiers and 4 days for the snowboarders the results were handed out and overall we managed to get a very respectable 77.7% pass rate :-) It is unfortunate for those that didn't make the grade but they'll be retesting in a week or two, so fingers crossed we'll be at 100% pass rate then!

We still have another week in Banff and with no exams or training to worry about it's going to be a fun filled week of an ice hockey trip, Kicking Horse trip and of course an end of course party.

Over and out,

Sam

P.S. Don't forget to checkout the facebook group for more pictures!!!

Banff – Double or Nothing!
11/03/2010

Apologies to everyone that has been expecting the blog to be put up on Sundays, but due to some laptop problems it has been delayed. So, for your pleasure below there are 2 blogs to peruse.

Freestyle & Lazy Days (22/02/10 - 28/02/10)

 Monday initiated an intense week of training with The Kenj for the skiers. A blast down Ectasy in the morning where a wild snowboarder appeared, left Law nursing his back all week and glad he was wearing a helmet! With Level 2 drawing ever closer, the skiers were worked hard till the last lift, to maximise training time. Monday Also meant the arrival of Law’s radios...Subsequently code names were needed for all...

Freestyle Tuesday!!! The group had a freestyle session with their instructors, the skiers were with Kyle, and the boarders had Juan as usual. Kyle is awesome in the park, even if he did manage to snap the heel piece of his binding on the first fun! We spent a day hitting kickers, hips and boxes as well as laying down some smooth 180’s, assorted grabs and finishing the day with a Ski ballet session.

Wednesday = Pain. Freestyle Tuesday had certainly taken its toll on some of the group, resulting in a cheeky much needed day off and a sandwich for some to nurse their wounds (much to Kenji’s disappointment – Sorry Kenji!). The others continued to work hard on their coiling in phase 3 up the mountain.

Thursday was back to business as usual, working more on skiing development and teaching – I’m sure the boarders did something useful as well. It marked the end of a tough training week, with everyone looking forward to eating at the Elk and Oarsman that evening (Woooo hooo Turkey Club).

Friday Finally arrived meaning a day off for the majority of the group having not had any time off last weekend with the avalanche training, a long lie in was much appreciated. After everyone had caught up on their beauty sleep, it was off to the pub to watch Canada secure their place in the Olympic final!

Saturday brought about a relaxed day for many with another lie in, followed by a chilled afternoon on the hill. Some hitting the park and some getting a taste for real teaching! Jamie did one run and then went home.

Sunday. Men’s ice hockey final day!! Canada won. Crazy happy riots in the streets of Banff with drunken Canadians filling the streets.

Much Love
Snow Fox and Snow Whale

P.S. Sorry Mrs Poole that this blog entry is late :-)

Lake Louise & A Sad Farewell (01/03/10 - 07/03/10)

This week saw an unusual absence from Kenji, but he had a pretty good excuse as he was doing his Level 4 exam (the top level of CSIA). You'll be happy to know that Kenji is now Level 4 :-) His replacement for the week was James, who the team had had before.

This week was not just a week with a new trainer but we had a new training location as well. On Thursday we took a trip to the self-claimed biggest resort in the Rockies, Lake Louise. The coach ride was about an hour so not too bad but we were welcomed by Mount Hector or if you look closely Snoopy the Dog lying on his back.

We met James and Juan and then hit the slopes. It was great to have a change of scenery, especially the view of the Fairmont Chateau at the edge of the Lake Louise. You can see the lake right next to Juan's, the instructor, pointing hand.

The day was full of exploring the vast expanse of Lake Louise and having plenty of fun :-)

Lunch time was a time for reminiscing as Jamie bought some chicken fingers and we couldn't help but think of Brett, who sadly left the course 5 weeks in. Hope you're doing well mate.

On Saturday we had another farewell to endure. Chris unfortunately left us to go back home and do some farming. Hope you had a safe journey home mate and that your combine harvesters haven't rusted over too badly :-P

Well that's it until Sunday, as long as we don't have any more "laptop problems"

Over and out,

Sam

P.S. Don't forget to click here to checkout more pictures on the Facebook group!!!

Zermatt – ....and the BASI Level 2 begins....
10/03/2010

The last week of preparation is over......and the time of the final assessment of BASI 2 has arrived! The last week has been busy with Brendon fine tuning everyones skiing and saying goodbye to the Schneewitchen parties for a few days. Theory-lessons instead of apreski and early days on the mountain with the BASI Trainer Ben are now on the agenda for the next two weeks!

Good Luck to everyone!

Kaspar Stettler - Group Leader

Verbier – KaPOW!
01/03/2010

February has not only bought a new intake of trainees but the biggest snowfall this season…..50cm in just 48 hours!!

It’s been a couple of weeks since the new trainees arrived and this year arrival day fell on the same day as hoards of British and French families arrived for the dreaded half-term week. Nevertheless, the weather was pretty good and the trainees, who are now quite used to worming their way through a queue of people, all made the most of the great snow and intense training.

The first week, although fairly intense, is seen by the trainers as an opportunity to ‘break the trainees in’ and get them back to match fitness. During this week there isn’t a great deal of feedback or focus on drills and exercises; the focus is more on getting fit and finding your feet. Sandy, Matt and Dave, the ISIA/ISTD trainers that run the course, are all very experienced at generating confidence and enthusiasm throughout the group. They’re also very good at whipping a bit of discipline into the trainees who, as you can imagine, find the temptation of Verbier’s après ski and vast array of expensive nightclubs all too much.

Despite a fairly relaxed first week the majority of trainees spent their first weekend at the mercy of Flora and Richie, our legendary first-aid guru’s who were flown-in especially from the UK to run the two-day course. I really don’t know how they manage to do it but they manage to make 16 hours of first-aid fly past…….well almost anyway. Unfortunately for Flora and Richie some of the guys had partied fairly hard on Friday night and by Saturday morning were feeling a little precious. Much to the amusement of the other trainees resident gangster and London hard man Jake ‘the snake’ Leefield had to leave the room when Flora started showing a few pictures of bloody injuries.

Anyway, after two days of First-Aid the guys were pretty keen to get back on the slopes and focus on their level 1 examination. As the trainers had been pretty lenient during the first week the second week was a bit of a wake-up call for most. Short-turns, carving and central theme were the main focuses and all of the trainees responded well to all of the exercises and feedback given. It’s amazing to witness the amount of improvement and progression that has happened in just one week! I have to say that after the past two weeks all of the trainees look strong enough to pass their level 1, if they can stay focused!

As a reward for all of their hard work the big man upstairs decided to give us 50cm dump of fresh snow over the weekend, and as you can imagine that meant lots of powder for those trainees that didn’t get too involved on Friday and Saturday night. Needless to say there were a lot of frowns on Saturday morning……but a lot of smiling faces that evening!

The trainees begin their BASI level 1 on Monday so make sure you stay tuned!

Tom

Zermatt – Busy times for the PL instructors!
26/02/2010

This past week has been quite an eventful one. Not only did we help out the ski school as part time employees, but our skiing also came together. Everyone’s carving looked very sharp and fundamentally sound. Kasper continues to make sure that our off-time is well spent.

For anyone serious about their skiing or about pursuing a snow sports career, Peak Leaders in Zermatt is a must.
Lukas

Whistler – We\'re here!!
26/02/2010

The crew have arrived here in Whistler, slap bang in the middle of the Olympics!

We spent a couple of days starting to figure our way around the village, getting our passes, and sorting out our gear. Town is going off at the moment, with music in every square nearly 24 hrs a day, theatre shows, and TV cameras everywhere.

We've had a couple of days on the mountains. ..1 on Whistler, 1 on Blackcomb, trying to make sense of the HUGE amount of terrain. Give it a few weeks and we might start to get to know some of the runs!  The snow just keeps coming too.

The weekend will be a welcome time to rest our legs, have some drinks in the hot tub, and explore a little of this amazing town.

Japan – Gone Fishing on Lake Nojiri
26/02/2010

If you look back through the blogs to some of the photos of the guys on the mountain, you'll see Lake Nojiri in the distance. We went fishing yesterday for smelt -tasty little fish, in an attempt to catch dinner. When I think of fishing, I think cold hands and wet feet and tight lines only being something to dream of. Not here. Arriving at the lake shore at 7.30am with visions of a little open fishing boat, we were met with a boat that really just looked like a floating sitting room.

Fishing in slippers, beside a heater. Lush.

Next question...how do you fish from here? The trap doors above are removed to then provide you with a little pool in which to drop your rod. Note the heater to the left of the photo. My kind of fishing. Civilised. Oh, did we mention the cooler full of soft drinks and beer, sushi rolls and coffee that we brought with us to keep our strength for the day ahead?!

Pool revealed and the group tying their lines. Bait? Live maggots.

First rods in. El Capitan on the right showing how it's done. Marty on the left pulling up catch #1 of the day. As soon as you see the tip of the rod wiggle, you have to flick the rod and start reeling in. Easy peasy.

How many of these tiny fish do you need to feed us all? A lot.

The boat was brilliantly designed. Glass sides so that you can take in the magnificant views of the surrounding mountains, all from the comfort of a mini arm chair in the warmth. Sara chilling in the background - she'd already cleared  the lake of fish. A hidden talent for fishing discovered in Japan!

Bill had clearly done this before - zen like concentration gave him a total of 13. Team USA (with the help of Sara, who was a close 2nd) cleaned up!

The lake stunning view. You can see the three ski resorts, Suginohara, Ikenotaira and Akakura Kanko.

The best bit below....We took the fish to be cooked tempura style at a tiny izakaya in Myoko called Sennin. Delicious!

Whistler – XC skiing and goodbyes!
22/02/2010

Well the end of the course has arrived :(

Its been an amazing few months....Loads of snow, good results, and plenty of good times.

In the last week we've had plenty of nights out and Olympic fun, another awesome freestyle day of cliff drops, and even a night of cross country skiing out to Lost Lake.

Thanks to everyone, the crew, the coaches, and Whistler!

Banff – Back to Training, Birthdays & Avalanche Awareness
22/02/2010

 This week the team have gone back to training. This time it's even more hardcore because Level 2 is only 3 weeks away!!! Training this week has been mostly focused on mileage. Kenji and Juan have been skiing and riding them hard.

On Sunday 14th February it was "Trapper" Jerry's birthday, although he is not part of the Peak Leaders team I thought he deserved a mention. He is a Sunshine Village legend who has been skiing the area since 1962 and has the Trapper Saloon named after him. This year was his 93rd birthday and to celebrate he always skis one of the many double black diamond runs here at Sunshine Village. That wasn't the only birthday this week though. It was Robbie's birthday on Friday and Mal's on Sunday 21st February. There were a few drinks on Friday night but with the avalanche awareness the next day the real celebrations shall be next Friday with a cartoon character themed fancy dress night, check next Sunday for the photos :-P

As I was saying with the weekend rolling round came the avalanche awareness weekend. Saturday was the classroom day which was presented by Abbey from Yamnuska Mountain Adventure, giving the team some great theory on avalanches. Ranging from the most likely degree slopes avalanches are most likely to occur on to all the different types of triggers of avalanches, 30 - 40 degrees is the most likely an avalanche occurs by the way. Sunday was when all the action happened though, as it was the field day. The day was filled with transceiver training and snow pack analysis. Everybody now has a greater knowledge on avalanches and are now a lot safer in the back country, something every keen skier and snowboarder should do.

Here is to another great week in the Canadian Rockies,

Hope all is well back in the UK,

Sam

Japan – Sundip\'s Week
22/02/2010

As mentioned in the previous blog, another day trip to Tokyo (or Toks as we now lovingly call it) was soon made....resulting in some of us coming back armed with new boards and new outfits, in an attempt to look as cool and colourful as our Japanese fellow boarders! Even though our Japanese wasn’t that great, the art of haggling is universal and we got some great deals on the latest gear....

(our Mancunian model displaying his new clobber!)

To celebrate our purchases we decided to hit one of the local sukiyaki joints (a dish where you cook you own selection of meats on your own personal bbq!), feasting on some great tucker and a few beers...

(The Shinkansen – Bullet Train)

It’s been a funny old week weather-wise.... loads of snow, to bluebird, to cloud, to rain, to fog, to more snow... Nature clearly enjoys keeping us on our toes out here! The last couple of weeks have focused more on perfecting the things we learned in Level 1 and focusing on Level 2 elements such as carving, moguls, off piste and freestyle; the last one being the one that we’re really all keen to perfect! So along with providing teaching sessions to each other and to some of our hotel staff, we’ve been having some great times in the immaculately groomed parks!

Knee deep powder on the piste!

(The heavy cloud cover at Sughinohara)

The level of progression on this course is really high and regular video feedback demonstrates this really well..... From not being able to land a jump to a 360 off a kicker in just 4 weeks?? .... It has been done! Awesome! And watching our trainer Rob in action really gives us that kick-up-the-backside to want to go faster, higher and give it more “wang” than before so everyone has really stepped up their game!
 

Zermatt – Red jackets and underpants....
18/02/2010

This week began with shadowing groups in the Swiss Ski School, our first experience of teaching a group. We all found it very useful as we hadn't had much of an idea of what to expect from groups of kids up to that point. We learnt lots of teaching styles and got lots of helpful advice from the insructors we met.

On Thursday we went back to training with Brendon, which we had all missed a lot during the last couple of weeks. Training has got slightly more intensive now that we're doing BASI 2, and we're all having to work much harder during our time on the mountain.

Thursday also saw the biggest night out so far in Zermatt...Super hero night at Schnee Wittchen. Much time was spent carefully selecting costumes, ending up with Superman, Batman, Captain underpants, and for some reason a couple of ipods.. And finally, training resumed on Friday and Saturday where we all made some more improvements to our technique.

Sunday was a day off, used for rest and recuperation :)
 

By Rosie

Verbier – Frontflips & Fiestas
17/02/2010

 In the last week of the BASI 2 examination all those trainees that were on the threshold of passing and failing made a massive effort. A big shout-out must go to Harry ‘Daffy’ Chapman who dug really deep in the last couple of days and silenced all his critics by acquiring his BASI level 2. Props must also go to Dara who really hadn’t done much skiing before and passed his level 2 teaching qualification. With a 96% pass rate for level 2 among 32 trainees this really has been one of the most successful courses that Peak Leaders have run in Verbier. One group in particular had skied so well for the past two weeks that their BASI trainer, the legendary Duncan Freshwater, took his foot of the gas a little and decided to spend an afternoon teaching his trainees how to frontflip on their ski’s. Although there were a few failed attempts the snow was deep and soft so everybody remained in one piece; I believe Jack, Ted, George O and Ella all stomped a frontflip cleanly and rode away…..much to Duncan’s dismay!

After the last day of training everybody was in very high spirits so we had a small award ceremony, in which myself and the trainers all got very emotional, then headed to Relais De Neige for a hearty meal and enough alcohol to pickle even the hardiest of livers. After a few hundred cocktail shakers and jagerbombs we were all dancing on tables and around poles until the early hours……the course definitely finished-off with one of the best nights the trainees have had in Verbier.

Awards:

Most improved skiers/snowboarders

Matt’s group: Camilla Delamere

Sandy’s group: Adam Nightingale

Roddy’s group: Harry

Rob & Dave’s group: Sarah & Chloe

Most promising instructors

Matt’s group: Ted Morrison

Sandy’s group: Alice Marigold

Roddy’s group: Drew Gibson

Rob & Dave’s group: Oscar Winberg

Best Freestyle skier: Andy Moss

Best Freestyle Snowboarder: Jamie Wise

Most enthusiastic trainees: Liz Brown, Alex Mayfield & Ella Hadsley-Chaplin

Most helpful trainee: Hayden (Spike) Sager

Course Joker: George Magill

Wooden Spoon: Charlie Fleming

Course Hero: Dara Whelan

So ten weeks of intense training and examinations has now finished and the trainees don’t really know what to do with themselves. A surprisingly large number of trainees have gained jobs with ski schools in Zermatt and Verbier and the remainder, that have stayed in resort, are spending their time showing-off their finely tuned skiing skills to the masses that have descended upon Verbier for half-term.

All-in-all this has been the most successful course that I’ve ever run and the trainees have all been a pleasure to live and work with…….the Mt Brule just won’t be the same without them!

Whistler – Everyone passed!!!!
15/02/2010

Its been a  tough and stressfull week of Level 2 exams, and has finished with everyone passsing! Yes, Level 2!! Well done to everyone, we've work hard and the results show.

The  night, no, weekend, was a huge celebration. It was also a chance to rest up a little, and get some more time on the mountain for plenty more fresh snow. The snow keeps on falling, with another 70cm in the last week.

The Olympics and here, and the town is going off! The buzz in town is amazing, and luckily the mountain is nice a quiet too! The snow is lasting and there is sooo much pow pow to track down.

This week is time to keep the party going, and get plenty of ride time too. We're spending some days freeriding, and will be getting some more freestyle coaching. Yes!

Banff – 100% Pass Rate & A Sad Farewell
15/02/2010

 This week has been exam week. The skier CSIA Level 1 started on Tuesday and the snowboarder CASI Level 1 on Wednesday. Although there were many butterflies in everyone's stomachs, with the great tuition from Kenji and Juan everybody felt well prepared and ready to impress the examiners.

After 4 days for the skiers and 3 days for the snowboarders of training and assessing by the examiners Friday rolled round and it was results day. At the snowboard results you could cut the tension with a knife! However that was short lived as we now have 5 out of 5 newly qualified Level 1 Snowboard Instructors :-)

After the snowboard results I had to rush up the gondola to see the skiers at the village lodge. It was a long 18 minutes but it turned out very well because as soon as I arrived all the trainees were receiving their results. After much rustling of envelopes, gleaming smiles and tears of joy I was able to find out that not only had we got 100% pass rate for the snowboarders but we have also got 100% pass rate for the skiers!!!

With this great result it is of course standard practice to get in a round of shots to celebrate as soon as possible :-P

Congratulations to everyone on passing, you have all put in the work and it has paid off. Don't get too complacent though Level 2 is only a month away. Although it has been a great week, with many smiles and laughs it is also a sad one. As one of our number is leaving us to go back to Scotland. Brett it has been a pleasure being your course leader these past 5 weeks and we will all miss your brilliantly silly comments and unobservant manner.

It has been an excellent 5 weeks and I'm sure the next 6 weeks will be equally excellent if not more so.

Your course leader,

Sam :-)

Zermatt – Avalanche training...freestyle... and POWDER!
12/02/2010

Last week on the Peak Leaders BASI Instructor course it was an eventful week for all.....we had just finished the BASI Level 1.

So, the week began with the group chilling and partying, to celebrate being qualified instructors! The group had a nice few days off at the beginning of the week to have relaxed skiing and nights out in Zermatt, enjoying the clubs. we were then shown on Wednesday a back-country and avalanche training day where we learnt about snow conditions, and when to expect the risk of avalanches. We had the chance to practice using some of the avalanche equipment, which meant the group was able to search for buried items under the snow using trackers and the correct techniques of shovelling, which is not to tiring. Our mountain guide demonstrated a compression test in the snow and showed us the layers that form from different snowfalls and showed us how easily sometimes snow can slide away from the underlying layers.

On Thursday the group was down to four people (some people had to go home for a bit)/  We had a freestyle day learning the basics in the park and what can be done on a piste like switch skiing, 180, 360 and air time jumps. In the park we did big kickers....we were able to attempt grab tricks and spins..... with variable degrees of success! Lastly we were shown rails and all of us attempted the rails and had some success in learning and being able to stay on them and landing off at the other end.

Finally on friday Zermatt showed us why it is an amazing resort.......we had about 40-50cm of snow and the whole of Zermatt was covered!Saturday was an amazing powder day and the group got to see the best bits of skiing in Zermatt with amazing knee deep powder skiing and variable lines across the mountain and a perfect day to have but not use the knowledge we had acquired from our back country and freestyle days. In conclusion another great week in Zermatt with lovely skiing, amazing scenery and exciting activities.

From Gus Persson
 

Banff – Sunny Days & Spilling Soup
09/02/2010

 Monday was really good for snowfall. Could do with a proper POW but there is plenty of time for that. Rob woke up for breakfast so he clearly had a good sleep. Furious James wore his ex serial killers jacket with ‘John’ stitched on the side which somehow got him four chicken fingers instead of three! I fell asleep on the slope for a couple of minutes and was abandoned by the group. Thanks guys! Later on after dinner some of the gang went to a sweet shop where we must have spent about half an hour gazing at colourful sweets. It must have brought back childhood memories as we couldn’t resist spending a couple of bucks on candy. As soon as we left the building what does Casey say? “It tastes like ill health”. Long live the Irish!

Tuesday was also really good for snowfall. The snowboarders were let off loose to tear up the slopes rather than teaching for a change. The skiers had more teaching today however they enjoy it so it's all good. English Rob had to teach without speaking which sounded like a laugh. Alec fell quite badly on his head. He got some TLC from the patrol guard women which obviously didn’t boost moral as we spotted a cute mouse later on and he about killed! Gee Alec! “Just Kiddin”. He’s safe and sound. The battle of the nations continue after dinner in FussBall and pool. Scotland and Ireland won their first game today in Fuss Ball! So the score stands at 8-1 to England L. However we smashed them in the pool with some skilful shots. Still the anger of FussBall lingered in me, so Rob and I played a quality game of shooting some big horn sheep, where I obliterated him, even in the bonus round. Oh well, better luck next week Rob.

Wednesday was a good day all round for the boarders and the skiers. Kenji jumped on Rob’s back in an extreme attempt for him to bend his knees. The skiers had a lesson in the trees held by Law. Hannay lost her students and as for the snowboarders...There were no lessons. Woohoo!

Thursday was interesting to say the least. The snowboarders were worn out by Juan and the skiers were driven into the trees again by bored out Law. The skiers were a bit more extreme today which ended in Law being trapped between two trees. Shameless looked like death at one point and then like he’d been slapped in the face with a wet fish the next! Casey thought she’d be extreme today but found it hard to stay on her feet. Not all was my fault but I did make her face plant a peach. She also mastered the triple back flip landing on her back? Ouch! Later on we ate dinner at the lovely Elk ‘n’ Oarsman where Sam ended up wearing the tasteful tomato soup. Luckily he hoovered the main course before it reached the table. Lessons learned all round! ... I hope.

Chicken finger Friday! It was a good day for learning for the snowboarders and a good day for skiing for the skiers. Casey’s lesson was the funniest ever. The class just couldn’t care less! It was the end of the day and we couldn’t stop laughing and lobbing snowballs at her. It also didn’t help when Juan started making himself a beard from the tree. Lunch came and a few more people indulged in some chicken fingers! Where John somehow got four again! I’m starting to think there’s something going on there. Later on the group went out to Mellissa’s for a few drinks which was short lived for myself and English Rob as we were eager to go clubbing. This was also short lived as I was chucked out for being a good sport and giving the club too much business. The rest of the group had a good time in Tommy’s where Casey got to grips with some basic slang. It was a good day all round. I learned some valuable lessons. Matt and Nick are par core geniuses and I’m not. “I get knocked down but I get up again!”

Saturday as per usual was a chilled out day. Some of the group went out later on to watch the new “From Paris with love” with bald head John Travolta! It was comically rubbish, making it a good laugh. It was a beautiful day with sunshine bursting from the sky all day round... Well that’s what the barwomen said anyway. Most of us where stuck to their beds most of the day and that’s how it should be.

Sunday was a fun-day! Chris, Matt and Nick made an early start to the day and went up the mountain for a nice wee session. While the rest of us chill in bed and woke up for breakfast when we nice a ready for it. The skiers came back and we all went to watch the rugby in the “Pump and Tap” which was a good laugh. After the game, English Rob, Chris, Law and I thought it would be a good idea to have a piggy back race. It was good fun! Until Law got crooked which resulted in us both smashing to the ground and grinding to a halt in the middle of the pavement. Shortly after, the group came together to sit in the lovely “Keg” where most had the steak and potato. I thought it was delicious however English Rob was little confused and ran away from the steak to go and fetch a sandwich. Which he never ate anyway? I’m thinking the crash was a little more serious than we initially thought... LOL. The next funny episode happened in the early hours of Monday so I’m out my bounds to laugh at the matter.

This is your host Brett Hillman... FAE SCOTLAND!!!

Zermatt – Goodbye Comfort.... hello BASI Level 1!
08/02/2010

Last week was the most serious week we’ve had so far, we had to say good bye to the comforting skiing compliments of Brenden and start are BASI Level 1 exams! Although, as with any exams, I didn’t find it the most exciting thing in the world, we all grew into the challenge and by Friday the hard work paid off and we had all passed.

The new Ski Instructors!!

Success on the slopes lead to success in the town – a two o’clock start to a two am finish in Zermatt’s diverse bars was a tremendous effort by anyone’s standards!

Our first aid course over the weekend had arrived just in time for some, and was actually much more fun than anyone expected. Flora, who took charge of us was really cool and managed to balance our jokey mood after Friday with some much more important life skills. All in all last week was a great week, and despite it being minus 30 at the top, we are all only warming to Zermatt more and more.

First Aid time

Jamie

Zermatt – SNOW & SAND
08/02/2010

Two weeks into the course and everyone is settled in and making massive improvements thanks to Brendan, our trainer. We are all looking forward to making our first serious step towards our final qualification with our BASI Level 1 assessment next week, starting tomorrow.

On Thursday we all took a leap into the unknown by attending a huge beach party at the local club - only 100m from our hotel! The club made a proper effort, bringing up 10 tonnes of actual sand to cover the floor. I went as a lifeguard, whilst Lukas (a fellow course
member) went in shorts and Ray Bans!

Today a few of us went to the newly finished jump park in Zermatt, with a huge halfpipe. We all tried grinding a couple of rails for the first time ever - all of us failing miserably! This evening, coming back from skiing, we were shown how skis are serviced at a local ski shop which proved very interesting.

Looking forward to starting our BASI Level 1 tomorrow!

by Maxi Ducam-Davies
 

Japan – Tokyo Trip
06/02/2010

With a day off from training and the snow looking sub-par (this covers anything other than a foot of fresh snow or a warm sunny day) a few of us took the chance to make a day trip to Tokyo. Although the idea of a day trip to a city around 4-5 hours away by car sounds ridiculous, the speed, simplicity and smooth operation of the Japanese public transport system makes the trip an easy and pleasurable one. A quick 30 minute ride on a local train, 90 minutes on the lightning quick Shinkansen and voila, we were in the middle of Tokyo. Some took the opportunity for an extra bit of sleep on the train, whilst those of us from Australia and the UK spent the 90 minutes comparing the dire state of public transport in our own countries to the Japanese experience. Trains that run on time? Get out of town!

Our first destination in Tokyo was Kanda, an area famous for its concentration of ski and snowboard shops. A conservative estimate would put it at 50 shops one one street, with almost any product being available. It was all a bit overwhelming to be honest, and how none of us came back with new boards I dont know. We have since made plans for a return shopping trip, with almost everyone set on forking over the yen for new gear. With good prices and a huge range it would be rude not to.

In the afternoon we headed over to Harajuku, an area known for its concentration of fashionable clothing stores and general cool Japanese kids. The designs, fashions and variety on offer were immense, and there were sky high prices to match. Most of us made a few small purchases, but the overall experience was one of window shopping and people watching. Harajuku also has the Tokyo's Burton flagship store, and we all contemplated maxing out our credit cards to look like the Japanese snowboarder kids in their amazing outfits. Like the snowboard shopping though, this can wait for another day.

We rushed back to Tokyo station to make it back in Myoko at a reasonable hour. We grabbed some dinner at the station (a pretty tasty Bento box), and it was back on the Shink. Unfortunately we missed our connection in Nagano, so we were forced to spend 45 minutes drinking at a bar near the station. Other attendees included a drunk gent who as far as we understood was an ex Americas cup sailor. Something may have been lost in translation though.

Back on the train to Myoko and back home at 11pm. A great day trip out of Myoko and one that really highlights the versatility of the place! It was good to get out of Myoko, but with powder forecast all week, it was also a pleasure to come back.

Thanks Dave for your account!

Japan – Backcountry Day, Ski Patrol, 1st aid and Tokyo - Busy Week!
06/02/2010

Week 3 has just flown by. Having completed their avalanche awareness day, it was off to practise their first aid skills with the local fire department. All the basics were covered, including CPR and how to use and AED

Learning CPR in Japanese - everyone can count to 30 now!

In between all the extras included, Rob continued with the group's training. But hey, so much snow, can only mean one thing. Trees, powder, powder and powder! But the park's still been perfectly shaped, so it would have been rude not to have a little run through the park.

We were very fortunate to spend a morning with the local ski patrol at Akakura Kanko. Despite the busy nature of their jobs, Henmi and his fantastic team spared the time, to allow us to shadow them in their daily routine. And really get a flavour of what it's like. We met them at 8am to get the first lift up to check all the pistes before opening to the general public. 2 of the team live on the mountain, so they were able to ski down to check the lower slopes. Our guys had to check all the fencing to make sure it was all in the correct spot, erect new fencing around the lift stations and restaurants to make sure snow falling off the roofs would not bury passers by. Yep, there really IS that much snow here!

Henmi supervising  whilst Marti and team put up one of many fences...

Sara getting stuck in...or just having a chat with one of the Ski Patrol?!

After a cup of coffee in the patrol building, plus a few stories of rescues by the team, we were off out for a rescue simulation by the patrol. All of the pistes are lined by trees, meaning there are some epic tree runs after a fresh dump of powder. This however means that there can be pretty tricky rescue situations for the patrol. Our willing volunteer Marti, had to pretend to hit a tree. His fake injuries were a suspected neck injury and a broken leg. Having practiced this during first aid inside a warm scenario - it makes you realise just what a slick operation the patrol perform - in snow up to their armpits and on a steep slope.

Marti being 'rescued'

Marti being carefully maneouvred into the sled - the patrol said that he was one of the biggest lads they've had to rescue. Ha!

And his relaxing trip down the mountain.

Marti taking it easy in the sled.

As I sit here writing this blog, it's dumping with snow outside. It's been snowing for the last 24 hours. We've got approx 1.5 metres so far and it's forecasted to just keep on coming. Happy days. Here's the view just now from my bedroom window. If you look at the roofs of the houses, you can see the snow is banking up!

Banff – Ozy Ozy Ozy Ozy, Oi Oi Oi
02/02/2010

 Monday saw the much anticipated return of Kenji for the skiers as he had been away the week before. The cold weather that had been predicted never really materialised, and instead we had the best weather we’ve had yet with cloudless skies and relatively warm temperatures.

Tuesday was Australia day which happens to be a big event in Banff because as it appears more people in Banff are actually Australian than Canadian. This meant there were many a flag being flown on the slopes and the occasional snowboarder in board shorts.

Wednesday saw the skiers have a couple of runs on a Super G, which was a good experience for all even if some were not completely in control and others getting down the slope in record times to get to the toilet!

Thursday was tense as the boarders were compared against the snow skool group but there was no comparison even with Juan’s helpful parting words to relieve the pressure ‘you guys better not let me down’ and they didn’t disappoint.

Friday night proved to be another entertaining night out, and this week we actually managed to make it into a club which ended in relationships blooming for some in the course (Laurob) while others felt slightly under the weather.

Saturday was a quiet day for some as they nursed hangovers however a few members of the group managed to brave the cold weather and make it out of their rooms to the local thrift shop (second hand shop), this resulted in the purchase of some interesting 80’s ski jackets and Nick joining the Team Alberta ski team.

Sunday was pretty casual with some of the group trekking up to the slopes for freestyle Sunday (now a regular occurrence). But questionable jump making led Robbie going for his second back flip unintentionally, don't worry though Robbie is hard as nails and isn't injured at all.

Peace and love

Nick, Matt and Jamie

P.S. Don't forget to checkout more photos on the facebook group by clicking here!!!

Verbier – BASI 2 and Powder
01/02/2010

The last week has been a very intense experience for the trainees as they've had to take their skiing to the next level in order to impress the BASI trainers. For the trainees nights in the Apres Ski Bar have been replaced with nights spent in their rooms writing lesson plans and burying their heads in their BASI textbooks. All of the trainees are responding really well to the training with the BASI trainers and the vast majority have hit their peak at the right time.......fingers crossed for Friday! The snow at the moment is great; the pistes are very grippyand the snow in the off-piste has a good covering; which means that conditions for the trainees are very favourable.

Last day of training with the ES trainers.

It hasn't all been hard work though; the weekend arrived with a foot of fresh snow on Friday evening which provided a well deserved respite from the training. Saturday was an epic day for those trainees that could drag themselves out of bed. Despite a few nasty hangovers I headed up to Savoleyres with a few trainees to make the most of the Verbier's great tree runs. On the way up the two George's who were in very high spirits managed to pole dance in the Savoleyres bubble, the photographic evidence is below! Although the morning was cloudy and the light wasn't great we definitely made the most of the snow; praise must got to Jack who's confidence was must have been sky high that day because some of the lines he was attempting looked practically impossible......on a few occasions he had to be dragged out of the foliage by the lads. That afternoon the cloud lifted and the whole mountain was skiable which made for an epic powder day.

The cloud lifting over Les Attelas

With only one week remaining until the end of the course the next few days are 'make or break' for a few of the trainees.......I'm sure they can do it, especially as the conditions on and off the piste are so good. Friday night promises to be a massive occasion for everybody but I wonder how many trainees will get heavily involved when the snow report says we're getting 30cm of fresh snow on Friday night with blue skies on Saturday morning!!!!

Tom

Japan – End of Exam party, Japanese Bob Marley, 5 Hour Onsens and Avalanches
01/02/2010

After everyone received their BASI Level 1 debriefs from Rob, it was time for a few well earned celebrations and some food in a local isakaya in Akakura Kanko. Bill (local legend), his wife Masayo and daugher Sena joined us.

Bill and his fabulous family

Rob enjoying beef tataki at the Hohedo restaurant

Ben Charnock, who completed our course in Saas Fee this autumn, is teaching here with the local Yodel Ski School - he joined us for a drink. Ben's been teaching local high school kids in Japanese - nice work Ben!

Japanese university students, in town for a week of partying - International drinking games by them too.

Sara and Marty

Jo on the harmonica helping 'Bob Marley' with a rendition of 'No Woman, No Cry'

We don't have pictures to prove it...but one trainee from Manchester, who'll remain nameless, decided on a quick dip in the onsen at 1am, and woke up at 6am on the onsen floor. Very clean and very prune like!!

We've just completed our Avalanche Awareness Day with Bill. Brilliant. Having spent the morning going through the various dangers and how to manage the risk of being caught in an avalanche, we put the info into practise.  We snowshoed up to dig snow pits, evaluate the snow and get a feel for what it's like being caught.

Looking through Bill's essential kit for any back country trip.

Snow depth on the golf course.

Assessing the snow pack and the various layers.

Jo checking the size and shape of the snowflakes to see how stable the layers are.

Up close

Creating a block in order to test how easily the snow will collapse, with Marty being the willing volunteer.

Sara and Marty on their thrones

Sundip, Jo and Dave were buried in order to feel what it was like in the unfortunate event of being caught. Even at just over 30 cm of snow, it's surprising how you cannot hear someone shout. Definitely a good wake up call!

The hike back.

Many Thanks to Bill Ross for an informative, practical and fun day.

Japan – BASI Level 1 Results
29/01/2010

Short and Sweet. - 100% success rate at BASI Level 1 for our first Japan instructor course. Well done everyone and thanks to Rob for delivering such a successfull Level 1. Check back soon for updates on the celebrations this weekend...

Whistler – Sledding!
28/01/2010

An epic day out today with a few of us taking out some sleds in the amazing winter wonderland of the Callaghan Valley. We were treated to deep  snow and clear skies, perfect for snowmobiles!

Check out the photos and a quick video of the day also.

Japan – Night Boarding, Kobe Steak, Australia Day and BASI Level 1
27/01/2010

What a week it has been! We finished off Week 1 with a plush Kobe steak dinner on Friday night at a local pension, with a teppanyaki restaurant. They say a picture tells a thousand words, so I'll let them give you an idea of the evening!

And the steaks were THIS big!

We all ate our weight in steaks, salads, stir fries. Trying to walk home after consuming that volume of food...well it took a while.

The group had a chilled out weekend, practising their moves from the week before in preparation for the Level 1.

Everyone has just completed their first teaching session as part of their BASI Level 1. It couldn't have been a better day, bluebird, in fact with empty pistes. Ideal. 2 days to go until results time and everyone is looking strong. Happy Days.

Dave teaching the basic turn below.

Rob taking notes for marking as the group give their demos.

Marty below putting the group through their paces with the standard turn.

A bit of lunch and time to work on the tan!

Marty catching some rays...You don't get this brown in Manchester!

Sundip looking the part...

Sara chilling in the sun at lunch

Everyone has got the hang of the Japanese pose

Great photo of the team above.

Back to the Hotel Windsor for the day's lecture and for video analysis and feedback.

It was Australia Day yesterday and also the hotel owners' birthday. Every Aussie that resides in Myoko was in the hotel bar for beer and vegimite sandwiches. The hotel owners showed them how it's done!

And to celebrate Inoue-San's b'day, we surprised him with a cake and a rendition of 'Happy Birthday!'

At Akakura Onsen, you can go night boarding. They open one piste and the park. It was pretty epic. Empty and a unique experience. Highly recommended. The lifts close from 4.30-5pm whilst the lifties change shift, then you are good to go until 9pm. Who needs European apres-ski, when you can do this instead?!

The main chair at 5pm - empty :) (Below)

The piste and park ready to go.

The park at Onsen is a bit like a slopestyle - box and rail, then kicker or quarter pipe, then another kicker, box, rail then kicker to finish...then back up in the chair, then repeat until time for a beer.

And just another wee reminder below about the perfect parks here. Wish you were here?!

Banff – The Olympic Torch & Getting a Lie In
25/01/2010

Distinct lack of enthusiasm on Monday morning as everyone felt the strain of missing out on a weekend due to first aid training, although comfort could of course be taken in the knowledge that should one pass out from sheer exhaustion, there would be 12 freshly trained first aiders to put one in the recovery position. Phew.

Olympic fever was rife in Banff this evening as the torch was carried through the town centre by an ex-Olympian who needed to “get a jog on”. We left with lots of teeny tiny Canadian flags, some flashing coke bottles and lots of shocking photos so I count that as some degree of success.

Olympic torch hype was still being felt up at Sunshine this morning where homage had been paid in the form of two huge ice 'flames' Nobody thought Brett was being serious when he said he was going to lick one...
Thursday evening saw the arrival of 'Snowed In Comedy Tour' to Banff, an evening showcasing an eclectic blend of outspoken and, in some cases, disturbing comedians from Canada and beyond, most notably Ireland's own Ed Byrne who had some very perceptive observations on snowboarding.

On Friday our snowboard group was very depleted as Casey and Brett yielded to various injuries, an occurence that Juan met with unexpected enthusiasm; it seemed he was hoping for a day off, alas, the remaining 3 snowboarders soldiered on, at least until 2.25pm when the general consensus of “I'm tired and I want to go home” was reached. Friday evening however, proved to be very exciting, with highlights including failed attempts at sobering up Rob through motivational speech and Jamie picking a fight with the lift door.

The long anticipated lie in that Saturday morning brought was perhaps one of the most welcome lie ins in the history of Peak Leaders. After a debrief of the previous night's events Casey and I went into town and spent far too much money on pretty things that we didn't really need before regrouping to see 'Legion' ; a strong contender for the title of 'worst film ever' with a story line that seemed to be a strange old lady said that some babies were going to die but in the end pretty much everyone apart from the baby dies. Genius.

Following a drunken bet from Friday night; much of Sunday was spent in anticipation of Robbie doing a back flip. (Which, astonishingly, he pulled off! Sort of...) Many considerably more mundane stunts were pulled by other, more sane, members of the group, but we were all put to shame by the effortlessly cool Canadian lads we ran into. Dammit.

Over and out,

Lauren and Hannay

P.S. Don't forget to checkout the facebook group for more photos!!!

Whistler – Freestyle and cliffs, video and photos
25/01/2010

Today was a purely freestyle and cliff drops focus!

We ripped up Blackcomb Terrain Garden in the morning, practising some skills for balance and warming up.

We then took it up into the higher mountain, working our way up from some smaller rocks and lips, into some bigger ones!

We had at least a couple of feet of snow, and falling along the way was half the fun.

Check out some video of the day!!!

Japan – Perfect Parks
22/01/2010

We've now ridden all 3 mountains. All are epic, but the one thing that stands out is the quality and quantity of their snowparks. The kickers are perfectly shaped, with good transitions and progressions catering for all standards of rider. In one of the parks I counted over 30 features! And that was not the only park on the mountain. Rob has had the group practising grabs and 50/50s on the boxes.

Wa doko desu ka kooen? (Which way to the park?!!)

1 of 30 features in the park. Absolutely ideal. Below is a local rider showing how it should be done. Check out the view.

Rob below.

Unlike Europe, eating lunch on the mountain is relatively inexpensive, and a bit of an experience in itself. In some places you have to go to a ticket machine (looks like something you'd use to buy a ticket in a car park) put in your money and pick your dish, then take it to the cashier. No one's picked any howlers yet...the favourite has been octopus balls.

We've all been blown away by the Japanese hospitality here in Myoko. Shimosan, one of the hotel owners treated us to a drumming show; she wasn't content until the whole group had a go with her. We discovered a tiny underground bar yesterday serving local beer, sours and delicious home cooked food.

Our friendly barman!

Joe is a happy man with his beer.

The guys (and girl) have already been a bit of a hit in town with their karaoke singing -  Bon Jovi and other 90s rockers...but the Sara stole the scene with her rendition of Maggie May and James Brown. She'll have agents lining up soon!

Marty and Sara discovered a late night snack on the way home. A hot fountain with hardboiled eggs. Fish out your egg, shell it, eat it. There's even a little salt pot. Who need Maccy D's when you have this for 70 yen?

Zermatt – Kangaroo and Sledging...
21/01/2010

On Friday we continued working on our carving which seemed to help alot, later we then went to Nellys for supper and ate a mixture of kangaroo, springbok and ostrich all of which were new to most of us. We then went onto playing pool and table football at a local bar, followed by a trip to the local gay night! Saturday began with our first lie in which was greatly appreciated by all. Some people spent the day skiing whilst others used the day to relax and recuperate! On Sunday we went sledging where Geoff filmed a number of wipe outs complete with commentry. Afterwards we visited the igloo hotel where we had cheese fondue and mulled wine which considering so many of us were freezing from the sledging was very welcome.

By Kitty

Zermatt – The Start!
20/01/2010

4th day of the course and I'm the lucky one who gets to write the first blog post! Since arriving everyone has settled in and we are all having a great time. Thanks to Kaspar, it was a flawless transition from home. The skiing has been challenging for all of us but everybody has been giving their best and is showing massive improvement in just 4 days. Brendan who works for the Swiss Ski School is a great instructor, not only does he balance work with fun but he also is very encouraging when necessary, plus its nice to ski with such a phenomenal skier.

The training is intensive but he makes it interesting and fun for us all. Off the slopes everybody is happy with the hotels and the village. We all find it so awesome that we get to see and ski the mightiest Alp of all everyday! Looking forward to the weekend and some well earned rest!

Geoff Butterfield

Banff – First Week & First Aid
20/01/2010

 The beginning of the course proper, started with a typically large North American breakfast. We then headed up to the mountain where we met our instructors for the next 11 weeks. Kenji for the skiers and Juan for the snowboarders. As a skier, our day was spent as a bit of a free ski on varying terrain (the double black diamond was interesting), to give Kenji an idea of what he was up against. The evening was dinner at the Rose & Crown, followed by a few socialble drinks with the locals, enabling the gang to do a bit of social networking. Tommy's it would seem, is THE place to be. With one vegetarian amongst the group, Lauren is fast becoming a connoisseur of vegetarian fajitas.

Wednesday saw the start of the lessons for the skiers, with some back to basics instruction working on balance and stance. As a group, the skiers have varied experience, with several years of annual ski holidays to just a dozen days on the mountain. The group overall seems strong and everyone is taking onboard all the advice given and already improvements in individual performances can be seen. Dinner tonight was at the YWCA at the other end of town, but that meant having to pass all the bars on the way back to the hotel.

More technique skiing saw some more visits to the moguls and a bit of off piste skiing. The weather at the top of the mountain saw visibility to arm lengths and wind that nearly brought you to a standstill. Although this didn't stop Kenji having us ski from top to bottom (down black runs and moguls) with no poles and hands on knees, lets just say that interesting was an understatement. An excellent meal was had at the Elk & Horsemen tonight, handily right opposite Tommy's.

So Friday saw the end of the first week skiing the inprovement of each individual can be seen already. The instructors here are clearly at a standard of what each of us should be aspiring to achieve, as I know that is the standard I want to be. For the skiers, next week will see a temporary change to our instrauctor as Kenji is taking part in a Level 4 exam, hard to imagine he needs to be tested. And as the weekend had landed, it was only expected for the hair to be let down, kick back and do some more social networking. A late night visit to McDonalds saw an unamed person purchase $17 of fries and coke, of which he didn't really want, however due the 'icy' conditions outside, he fell over repeatedly and dropped most of it anyway.

The first weekend off turned out not to be a weekend off, as we had a Standard First Aid course, much to the disappoint of the group as there had been overnight snow and the weather was perfect. As a varied group of people ranging from a farmer to students and a Military Policeman to a Pharmacist, our experiences in medical knowledge was also varied. But as a whole, the group found the course a bit laborious, but still very worthwhile.

As the week one Blogger, all I can say is that each day is even better than the day before. And even if things didn't go quite right, 'Better a bad day on the mountain, than a good day in the office'.

Mal Kay

Verbier – No rest for the wicked......or Peak Leaders Trainees
19/01/2010

Before you come on a Peak Leaders course you have to get over the idea that you're going on a glorified holiday........if you come with that attitude you'll feel like you're being worked to the bone. Unsurprisingly some of the trainees thought that they'd be given the chance to catch their breath after a busy festive period, but Roddy and his colleagues had a very different idea.

Move over Sammy Carlson because Sammy Antwiss is in da house!

Training has not only been stepped up in the past few weeks to a six day training week, but the trainees have also had their off-piste awareness/avalanche training and freestyle training. This means that not only are they rocking super stylish 360's in the park but they've all got a much stronger idea of how to read snow conditions, how to ski off-piste properly and what to do if an avalanche happens. Some of the groups were even lucky enough to be taken by their guide to some of Verbier's most exciting couloirs deep in the Verbier backcountry. On returning to the chalet I was very envious to hear numerous stories of fresh powder, epic climbs and heart-stopping traverses.. Needless to say; stories of Charlies cowardly yelps when climbing down the infamous 'Stairway to Heaven' definitely made me smile.

Don't look down!

Other than lots and lots of skiing the trainees have also begun completing their ILM assessments. Freestyle coaching sessions, sledge races and Swedish lessons are some of the various events to have taken-place........and we're all looking forward to Anna's Synchro competition on Friday. In other news the three trainees that narrowly missed-out on their BASI level 1 earlier in the season all passed their resit with flying colours, so congratulations to them.

George (aka Westbeach) looking pretty Gangsta

Finally, some of trainees with too much spare time on their hands have built a quarterpipe at the back of the chalet which must have taken some serious time to build and sculpt; both Ash and Andy have been sessioning it in the evenings in-between re-runs of Andy's ski movie 'Refresh' which I'm seriously considering hiding for the remainder of the season!

Only a few days until BASI level 2 begins........I'll keep you all posted on how it's going.......I promise!

Tom

Japan – Arriving to 2.5 metres snow
18/01/2010

We all made it to Tokyo Airport, coming from all the corners of the globe. LA, Sydney, Milton Keynes and Verbier! The hotel owner Inoue-San picked us all up in his little mini bus - a little tight with bodies and snowboard bags, but 4 hours later we arrived to just a little bit of snow...

We received a warm welcome, amazing katsu curry dinner, couple of Asahi beers then off to bed (aside from those that had a couple of cheeky Santori whiskies to toast the arrival.)

Day 1. Woke up to this view this morning. Not bad!?

We've been so lucky so far. The first day of coaching was at Myoko Ikenotaira, which is a 5 min bus ride from the hotel Windsor. Amazing. Huge open runs, empty, tons of powder and 3 parks. Could not really ask for more. Oh and delicious japanese food at lunch for £4. Happy days.

The group at the bottom of the main lift station at Ikenotaira. The only other people on the mountain were a few Japanese school kids, and the Japanese army. Interesting ratio of 1 instructor to about 80 soldiers!

Empty treelined runs. If you venture off piste to the right of this photo, there's a hole in the snow, with a hot springs in it.

Day 1 coaching with Rob.

The most amazing views from every run.

Day 1...Done.

Whistler – Avi Day
15/01/2010

Well its been an interesting couple of weeks of training. Annie has had us ripping around and exploring the mountain, shaking off the slightly stressful task of passing the Level 1 exams!

Today was an avalanche awareness course, and conditions were perfect for getting away from the lifts and into some deep snow.

We learnt how use avalanche tranceivers, and track down a signal under the snow. We checked out the layer of snow in a snow profile, and tested for weaker and stronger layers. All good skills to have for sure.

A hike up to the famous Flute Bowl gave us a chance to shred down a face of 60cm of fresh, untracked pow pow.

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Banff – Safe & Sound
12/01/2010

 After 9 hours in the air at 35,000 feet the new crew arrived. Everyone was quite tired but very excited to be in Canada. The following morning was the welcome brief, where the team get to meet each other and find out about how the course works. Next it was time to pick up the season passes, although the card printer wasn't working and we had to pick them up the following day at the mountain everyone was stoked to be getting the process started.

That evening we had a treat in store for the team. As Doug Godfrey, a local legend and owner of Mountain Magic was able to give the team an in depth tuning clinic. I think everyone now knows how to look after their ski's and board's rather well.

Monday, today, we explored the mountain and it was also a chance for the team to get their snowsports legs back before training starts tomorrow.

Everyone is getting to know each other really well already and it is shaping up to be a great course. With good snow, good people and a great town to be in you can't not have a fantastic time!!!

Looking forward to the next 11 weeks,

Your course leader,

Sam Feltham :-)

P.S. Don't forget to check out the facebook group for more photos!!!

Verbier – Snow, Shadowing and Secret Santa
04/01/2010

 Since the trainees completed their BASI level 1 a few weeks ago there’s been no hold-up in the training regime…..even Christmas day saw a number of trainees shadowing lessons on the mountain! So, what have the trainees been up to over the past few weeks?

The minute that the level 1 exams had finished, with 94% of the trainees passing, another aspect of their training began……First Aid. A 9am start on Sautrday morning didn’t win me any friends but once the team begun the training with Richie and Flora they seemed to enjoy and excel at what they were doing. I don’t think Richie and Flora had ever met two people quite like Ella and Alex, the self-proclaimed (Jedward) twins. I think at times Flora struggled to get a word in edgeways.

Anyway, with the First Aid training finished the guys and girls resumed training with their ES instructors. Training moved away from being focused heavily on the central theme, the key focus of BASI level 1, to involving more of the five strands and higher-end skiing and snowboarding. Week four was much the same but for some of the trainees there was an opportunity to fit-in some shadowing. Shadowing is a mandatory requirement from BASI and involves following an instructor and their clients around the mountain so that trainees can pick-up different teaching methods and gain more confidence. Special mention must go to Alice Banks (Banksy) who was highly commended by her instructor and 5 year old clients, the ES Penguins. In another group one half of the Jedward, Alex, saw the financial rewards of being an instructor with a 50chf tip from the father of a little terror that she’d made allies with.

Although the majority of trainees followed ES instructors some of the trainees shadowed and helped-out instructors from Les Elfes Activity camp. As the majority of children were in their teens this proved a quick learning experience for the guys, needless to say their experiences didn’t discourage them too much!

On Friday we celebrated Christmas!!!! Together with my lovely assistant Spike I cooked up a Christmas dinner for the 24 trainees that had stayed in resort. Despite having problems fitting 23kg of Turkey into the oven and having never cooked for so many people it all went surprisingly well and the food tasted like it was supposed to…….with the exception of the stuffing. I believe two of the girls even commented that it was the best Turkey they’d ever eaten…….but I won’t reveal their names incase Mum gets too offended and decides not to cook Christmas lunch for them next year.

Dara doing the honours.

Boxing day was a rather more chilled-out affair, for me at least. A few of the trainees shadowed and a few of the trainees took advantage of the good light and dusting of snow, but I think it’s fair to say that the majority spent the day nursing a hangover.

The week that followed Christmas was spent shadowing. A few lucky trainees, namely Callum and Andy M even had the chance to shadow some freestyle, freeski coaching. Well-known British Freestlyer Andy Bennett even made an appearance which was great for Andy M, a member of the GB development squad for Freestyle. Andy M, spurred on by Andy B, was seen spinning 720’s off the kickers and getting all sorts of technical rail tricks on the boxes. For the other trainees the shadowing might not have been quite as exhilarating but they all learnt some valuable lessons and picked-up a few ‘tricks of the trade’.

Oli getting inverted.......and staying inverted!

The end of the week climaxed with New Years Eve 2010. After a hearty meal of Chille Con Carne those that could walk out of the front door headed down to Place Central where thousands of people gathered with Champagne and Fireworks……possibly not the safest combination. If you’ve never been to Verbier on NYE you won’t understand how busy the place gets; picture thousands of inebriated Brits, Dutch and Swiss dancing to cheesy music, climbing lamp posts, dancing on balconies,  launching snowballs and fireworks at anything that moves. For this one night Verbier is more like London during the Blitz than a classy Swiss Ski resort. Anyway, after the countdown all the trainees went their separate ways; some of the ‘high-rollers’ made their way to the Farm Club where they rather regretted paying the extortionate entrance fee and drinks prices to hang with Princesses Eugenie and Beatrice. The rest of us slummed-it in the Casbar and Wonderbar….where we didn’t have to take-out a bank loan to have a good time or worry about spilling drinks over members of the Royal Family……. Did we Charlie! Surprisingly a fair few of the keener trainees turned-up to shadowing on New Years Day; I’d like to say they’d been to bed and were well-rested but the reality was that they’d probably worn their ski clothing out that night and made a quick detour via the ski lockers after leaving a nightclub at 8.45am.

Place Central at Midnight.

The rest of the weekend was far more laid-back; Saturday night involved finally getting the opportunity to open our Secret Santa presents! Presents ranged from Alcohol to cuddly toys to handcuffs and everything in-between. There were a few teary eyes in the crowd including George Magill who wasn’t overjoyed by the Barbie Doll he unwrapped and Andy Moss who couldn’t even crack a smile for the Swiss Flag come tea-towel he begrudgingly turned into a bandana. On Sunday full training resumed as the festive period was well and truly over……if only the Apres Ski Bar wasn’t so much fun!!

Whistler – Merry Christmas
28/12/2009

Merry Christmas from the Peak Leaders crew!

A "white Christmas" is definitely and understatement. We've had  a nice Christmas day shred, and then an amazing dinner with all the trimmings, with plenty of wine and beers too.

We've got another epic week on the mountain coming up, before bringing in the new year!

Whistler – A powder christmas
24/12/2009

Merry Christmas!

This week has been chock full of deep pow and good times. We've had some big dumps of snow, and its been an epic time here.

The weather has cleared up nicely now too, giving us some bluebird days and more ahead.

Have a great Christmas, from everyone here in Whistler.

St Anton – Anwarter & the end
23/12/2009

As the course is coming to end, the atmosphere amongst the group had taken a different direction. On Friday during breakfast the shear focus of the group was phenomenal. The facial expression said only one thing, failure is not an option however there were some exceptions. The expression on mine and Ben's faces said only one thing too much jagermeister... despite this we strived on with the determination.  As the day went on most of the group had the first part of the exam. This involved taking a mini lesson, whilst being watched by our examiners. I think that on a whole everyone did super. Especially Phillip who got a 1/5(1 being the best.).  Later on we had our last theory lecture another roller coaster of emotions. For dinner that night most of the group went to Scotty's and had a beer and pizza for ten Euros. Dan and I went to the opening night of the Moosewirt with some Danish guys also doing the anwarter. The place was booming and was being filmed for a German T.V. Channel.

On Saturday we all enjoyed our first lie in since the beginning of the Anwarter - a much need rest! The day proceeded with more training and practising the three practicals. Later as we prepared for the theory you could feel the tension between the group. Most of the group spent the whole night striving back and forth until the early hours.

Nevertheless all this hard work paid off and everyone passed the theory. As the day went on the concentration of the group remained and everyone did the last part of the exam to a very high standard. Much to our surprise, everyone passed the Anwarter and headed straight to the crazy kangaroo. It wasn't long before everyone was stomping on the tables in a child like fashion.

Monday: The first day off since the start of the Anwarter. Most of the group spent the whole day in bed trying to remember the shenanigans of the night before however myself Ben, Dan, phill and Robbie made it to the first lift. The best cure for a hung over is clean mountain air and by lunch time most of the group were enjoying the blue sky's and empty slopes. At the museum restaurant the general conversation was toned towards trying to piece together the night before. The whole group is now looking forward to wearing the slightly gay blue uniform with pride. It just goes to show that hard work and concentration really does pay off.
 

Whistler – Exams and MORE snow
21/12/2009

The Level 1 is done and dusted! Everyone has been working really hard all week. We had a suitably big night after the end of the exams, and sore heads the next day to boot.
The weekend has been a good chance to chill out, and has also brought another 50cm of snow, with more on the way! This week is shaping up to be amazing snow, and a great way to take us into Christmas.

Banff – Level 1 & Final Farewell
19/12/2009

 The CSIA Level 1 exam started on Monday for the team, everybody was a bit nervous but with Kenji's top notch training they were all well prepared. After 4 days of the course co-ordinator, Kyle, assessing everyone's skiing and teaching it was results time and I'm very pleased to tell you that we got a 100% pass rate!!!

With the end of the exam comes the end of the course :-( Firstly I'd like to thank the Sunshine Village snowsports school for all their help, everyone back in the office in Scotland working their socks off and finally I'd like to congratulate all the trainees on passing their Level 1. Also thank you all for being a great bunch of people and good luck in all your endeavours in the future! 

All the best,

Your course leader,

Sam :-)

P.S. Don't forget to checkout all the quality photos on the facebook group!!!

Banff – Ice Hockey & Icy Temperatures
13/12/2009

 Well this week has seen lots of different activities and the coldest day to date. On Monday morning, refreshed and ready to go after our weekend off, we arrived at the gondola base station at Sunshine Village to find it closed due to the temperature, -31°C!!

The gondola doesn’t run below -30°C so we had to wait until it warmed up enough for the gondola to move us all up the mountain. They definitely look after you in Canada as we got free coffee and hot chocolate the whole time we waited. We made it up to the skiing area a little late to meet Kyle for our ‘introduction to freestyle day’. It was totally different from our usual day of lessons – lots of time in the park, some jumps and attempts at 180s. We had varying degrees of success in the park and at jumps and everyone really enjoyed the day, despite the bruises it brought.

Tuesday was warmer (only very slightly but enough that the gondola took us straight up the hill). We really started to focus on teaching practice today in preparation for the Level 1 exam next week. There is a real emphasis on how to make it fun for your students and making sure that your demonstrations are precise enough to be copied. We had to take lots of breaks indoors to stave off the cold, 50 minutes on the hill and 10 minutes inside seemed to work well. And dinner in the Elk and Oarsman was, as ever, excellent tonight. Chicken lime tortilla soup – delicious.

Lots more skiing on Wednesday and the temperature seemed to be slightly warmer (or maybe we were just getting used to it!). Our demonstrations of snow plough turns and intermediate parallel are starting to look more consistent and we all have phrases chanting in our heads from turn the leg and wider stance to bend at the waist. We finish skiing early on Wednesday as headed off to get a coach to Calgary to watch the Calgary Flames playing the Atlanta Thrashers. The home side won 3-1 and scored an exciting, last minute, third goal. To everyone’s delight we saw quite a few fights (it wouldn’t really be an ice-hockey match without one). The game was really fast paced and after a good introduction from Larry, our host on the coach, we understood at least some of the rules. The stadium is huge, holding 19,000 people at capacity and we were reliably informed it is the 4th largest in the NHL. So if you’re heading to Banff or Calgary, we can thoroughly recommend a night out to watch the Flames – Go Flames Go!

We all felt a little tired and jaded on Thursday morning after our late trip back to Banff from the ice-hockey but Kenji’s enthusiasm soon woke us up and after a few warm-up runs we were back to practising our demonstrations – with mixed success! A few afternoon runs around Mt Standish soon had our blood pumping again and we all had to think of one thing we wanted to practise on Friday – our last day of training before our level one. Due to different Christmas functions being held in the various restaurants we eat in, we had a second evening eating at the Elk and Oarsman. On Thursday night you get to collect ‘Elk dollars’ if you picking the winning ice-hockey team. But you have to pick the one that scores the goals!

Friday, our last official day with Kenji, was a day of lots of skiing. We tackled our first double-black diamond at Sunshine and really hared around the mountain all morning. We mostly skied at Goat’s Eye in the morning where a few fresh centimetres of snow had really made a difference. We tackled Hell’s Kitchen running onto the bottom half of Supermodel – so called as it is a narrow mogul run that follows the line of the Goat’s Eye lift. You are on full display to the ascending skiers the whole time. The early afternoon saw us move over to Mt Standish where we tackled some of the many chutes that lead off the top of the hill. We fitted in some last minute practice of our snow plough demonstration between runs down the chutes and a few ‘Eureka’ moments were had as it seemed our demos finally came up to scratch. Just to really test us we finished the afternoon with 2, non-stop, top to bottom runs from Goat’s Eye. Thighs were definitely burning after that.

No rest on Saturday as we were back to the village for our Avalanche training day. It was an excellent introduction starting with a video session to introduce the subject. We quickly moved on to familiarise ourselves with the kit and move outside to search for buried transceivers and understanding a bit about the back country. After lunch we saw slides and learned about slab and wet snow avalanches, the different size of avalanches and just how much of an art surrounds the subject called ‘snow science.’ In the afternoon we looked at some run off areas and saw real life examples of the pictures we’d looked at earlier. Then on to digging……Mercifully there was only a little bit of digging involved – to isolate a 30 cm by 30 cm block of snow so we could test its failure point. We discovered that our digging wasn’t at quite the exact standard of accuracy to give the best results but with a little more practice…..
We finish the day a little cold and tired but had all thoroughly enjoyed the day. Sarah, the snow safety expert who ran the day, was a font of knowledge and had a real enthusiasm for and fantastic knowledge of the subject.

A lovely Thai meal, a few beers and a big sleep finish off our Saturday. And Sunday? Rest, for everyone in preparation for CSIA level 1 starting Monday……..results to follow.

All the best,

Louise

P.S. Don't forget to click here to checkout more photos on the facebook group!!!

Whistler – Week 2, and Level 1 soon!
11/12/2009

Here is whart Laurie has to put down in writing after the second week in Whistler.

Its been about a two weeks since we arrived in Whistler. All of us coming from around London with a few exceptions, me from near Portsmouth and Tim from Madchester.As a group we quickly got our priorities in order, drinking and eating. Having established our favorite larger "WildCat Strong" we readied ourself for skiing each of us quietly confident in our abilities. The next morning we all woke up jet lagged but happy knowing that in a few days we would be skiing, the first day consisted of shopping and Dahj showing us the best place to get a burger... Splitz Grill. Having spent the last few days in preparation for skiing we met our instructor Annie as Canadian as possible, constantly smiling and using phrases like "Mosey on down" trying to make us as comfortable as possible before crushing us on the ski slopes. That might sound negative but really having thought we were all great skiers we then had to learn th Canadian Way. ..That being the complete opposite to the European "stand up straight with skis glued toghether"to be replaced by a more practice athletic stance enabling a higher level of skiing. The course continued this way for a few days and we were thankful for our day off, some of us made use of the local facilities like rock climbing. As the course progresses just two weeks in were on the way to becoming Level 1 ski instructors.

Laurie

Another week of skiing has come to an end, and the guys will be thankful to get a day off. We did 5 days of coaching this week, getting all the days we can in before the Level 1, next week. Good luck to everyone!

Verbier – BASI 1
10/12/2009

So it's been almost two weeks since the trainees arrived in Verbier and in that time they've just about made the giant leap from recreational skiers and snowboarders to professional instructors. Tomorrow is the day of reckoning!!!!!!

Anyway, I guess you're all wondering what the guys have been up to since they left home and arrived bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in Verbier. Well, despite learning about the extortionate drinks prices the hard way, they've been very busy training. Not only have they all shown a great deal of determination and focus but they've all been great people to spend time with......despite the chat at dinner from Tim, Drew and Charlie.

In the first week the trainees teamed up with their coaches (Rob, Roddy, Sandy and Matt) who helped them get their skiing/boarding legs back and introduced them to the core BASI syllabus. The trainees also had the opportunity to do some circuit training and Pilates in the evenings which not only made grown men cry but caused a few discreet giggles in the process. After a week spent enjoying Verbier's comparatively empty slopes and a couple of fresh snowfalls it was time for the trainees to begin their level 1 examination.........but not until they'd sampled Verbier's vibrant night life. I can still picture the utter discontent on Tim, Harry and Ashley's faces as they left Coco penniless after parting with the GNP of a small European country for three beers.....I can assure you the beer doesn't taste any better up here!

After a Sunday spent counting their finances and licking their wounds the trainees began their level 1. Gavin, Simon, Kerr and Steph were flown in from around Europe to run the week long course which introduces skiers/boarders to teaching the very basics of the sport. So far all of the trainees have taken the course very seriously......except for Harry who thought  that playing lift chicken in the middle of an examination would be a good idea and who's positioning of slalom gates for beginners needs some serious rethinking! The snow out here has been great on the pistes and despite a few cloudy days we've enjoyed beautiful sunshine.........which is amazing considering there was only a dusting of snow on the tops of the peaks less than two weeks ago.

I'll let you know how the results go tomorrow evening.....................................................

St Anton – The snow has arrived!
10/12/2009

After a fairly green couple of weeks the snow has arrived in St Anton and the group is now working hard for their Anwarter exams.....

What started out as a quiet beginning to the week, has rapidly become an intensive and very busy Anwarter course. Snowplough drills, avalanche training and Ski touring by moonlight with Schnapps and hot punch after a 2 hour climb set us up for the week, followed by snow and some of the lifts opening to the relief of management and Skischule Arlberg. Meanwhile, we have settled into the intensive instructors course, which is entirely in German (of course), but we are nevertheless a bit worried about how well we will do in our theory exams, and at the same time a nasty bug has struck several members of the team. But, the group dynamic remains excellent despite some highly perfumed, personal sartorial items arriving in the post from the UK.

by Chris

4.12. - 7.12.

The Anwarter Course began on the Friday with the group turning up at the meeting point for the start time and realising that we weren’t the only ones on this course. The other hundred and fifty or so of the trainees came from all over the world including Denmark, the Netherlands, Poland, Australia, Germany, Switzerland and Austria. The spoken language on the course is German and many of us were worried about how we would cope with the level of German required; especially in the theory sessions. Despite some lows due to our incapacity to do a simple snow plough turn and understand even ‘good morning’ most of the group are understanding more and more as time goes on but it is by no means easy with some lectures going by without anyone understanding anything.A classic moment was Joe being asked by his instructor in front of the entire lecture theatre in a talk when most of us only recognised every third word:  “Verstehst du Josef” to which his reply was simply “Ja”.

The day begins at eight before the sun rises with an hour and a half of theory before everyone hits the slopes to start the practical exercises. These seem to vary between instructors but most seem to consist of endlessly doing the snowplough and ‘Alpines Fahrverhalten’ on slopes that would normally fly by in the blink of an eye. Highlights include Ben being told by our instructor, Eva that she would like to take a picture of his ‘Alpines Fahrverhalten’ to show future students because it was so perfect and Philip being asked one day why he was so good at ‘kurven’! Most of the time, however, we are told we can always improve, whether it be at the snowplough or when taking the warm up; often a “nicht schlecht” is a reason to celebrate. The evenings have been much more restrained than in the last few weeks with most people far too tired to go out, especially with the prospect of a seven o’clock start the next day, and most electing to cram in as much German and ‘Schussfahren’ exercises as possible! After such hard days, supper was always looked forward to but often made more exciting by Dan drinking a shot of vinegar and Joe M and Ben bringing up some pretty filthy areas of conversation.

by Nicholas
 

Banff – Sun, Ski & Sulphur
07/12/2009

 Fully motivated by the World Cup races last weekend, everyone was eager to get back to the powder on Monday morning. The temperature dropped quite a bit this week, but the skies have been blue and sunny, providing amazing views in every direction.

Kenji continued his focus on our ski improvement and provided lots of individual coaching. The results really paid off as we tackled the steeper runs and worked on skiing narrow shoots and bumps with confidence. We also had great fun following Kenji on 'adventures' through the trees, skiing backwards, and progressing our 180's.

In addition, we stepped up our focus on teaching skills this week. We each took turns demonstrating different techniques and leading the class in exercises. It was cool to see how much we've already learned, and that we were able to help each other improve.

Time off-piste has been good fun as well. We've kept on the lookout for wildlife, and so far we've spotted a black wolf, a huge herd of elk, a beautiful caribou, and a possible moose (it was big whatever it was!)

I'm not sure they meet the technical definition of 'local wildlife', but we also met up with two of last year's Peak Leaders who are working as instructors this season in Banff. They gave us great pointers on getting the most out of the course, and even showed us a few dance moves at one of the local clubs. Dinners have been great as well. My personal favourite was an 'awesome' elk burger with sweet potato fries at the Elk and Oarsman (where we had an extra guest at our table - a lifesize black bear sculpture).

On Saturday, we walked along the river to the famous Banff Springs Hotel to enjoy the lovely views and a festive Tiny Tim Toffee Nut Latte. That evening, we joined the crowds lining Banff's main street for Santa's Christmas Light Parade and a big dose of local holiday cheer.

A few of us met Sam on Sunday for a 6k hike up Sulphur Mountain. The snowy path was challenging at times, but our work was well rewarded by the outstanding views from the top. After a scenic lunch, we took the gondola back down and headed for a well-deserved soak in the Hot Springs.

As they say in Canada, it's been 'AWESOME, eh?'!

Melissa

P.S. Don't forget to checkout the facebook group for more photos :-)

St Anton – Week 1....
02/12/2009

We all arrived safe and sound by Saturday just in time to watch the All Blacks thrash England in the rugby.
 

Unfortunately we arrived in a snow-less and warm St Anton (not a promising sign). On the Sunday Kaspar took us on a long hike up into the mountains and forests around St Anton where we had the finest in barbecued cuisine aka frankfurters and bratwurst etc. The next few days we had sport in the mornings and German in the afternoons with some interesting role plays from Joe M and Dan. Due to the severe lack of snow St Anton unfortunately couldn’t open on the Friday so our free skiing day was cancelled however we were able to go to another resort in the Kaunertal on the Saturday so we haven’t completely missed out on skiing. Kaspars birthday celebrations that evening were also great fun with Jaegermeister flowing in all directions. We’re all looking forward to the mountain opening on Friday.
 

Whistler – Whistler kicks off
01/12/2009

The course has begun here in Whistler!

We've had a few days awesome days on the hill now, getting our legs back and starting to find our way around the enormous Whistler and Blackcomb.

As well as finding our way around the mountain, on the first day we spent looking around the village, getting to know the town, getting our passes sorted, and checking out the shops. We're all now officially Whistler Blackcomb season pass holders!

After the 3 days we've had, a bbq and beers and some chill out time in the hot tub was in order.

Looking forward to a awesome course, with the base already well over 2 metres, and loads of good Canadian times ahead! Bring it on!

Banff – First Week & World Cup Race at Lake Louise
29/11/2009

 Well, what can I say? The snow in Sunshine village is some of the best I have ever seen, especially considering it is only November. We have had a few days of sun and good visibility sandwiched between fresh dumps of powder.

Only down side is that it’s pretty freezing. We have had a week worth of skiing with our instructor Kenji who is very good and says we are all improving quickly.We have been to a few different restaurants in town and experienced the local cuisine including buffalo meat loaf!

On Saturday we went to Lake Louise, which is just under an hour away. But it was well worth the trip because it was the first World Cup Alpine Ski Race of the 2009/10 season.

It was great to see all the international athletes in their element and getting warmed up for the Winter Olympics.

It was also really good to see all the TV companies at work. Doing interviews and the presenters doing their thing.

It's been a great first week.

Hope everyone is well back home,

Charlie

P.S. Don't forget to checkout the facebook group for more pics and vids.

Saas Fee – Level 2 and the end!
27/11/2009

Weeks 8 and 9 have of course been the BASI level 2. Therefore everyone’s heads have been down and their legs have been flexing and extending like never before. Our allocated trainers were Stef and Rob for the boarders and for the skiers, Ben and Roy. They have all commented on how dedicated and knowledgeable the group are. This is credit to themselves and also to the coaches who have done the training throughout the course. There was still plenty to work on though!

At the end of the 1st 5 days everyone was told roughly where there were at and everyone made an action plan of things to work on over the weekend. Many obviously managed to fit the usual weekend nights out into their action plan.

Week 2 of BASI commenced and with pretty high winds on the mountain most days there were limited runs to use. There was still plenty of space to practice what was needed though and the groups could be seen working away on their central theme, short turns, long turns, variables and teaching sessions. Max had the best one having to teach a pretend hen party, although it looked like some of the lads enjoyed acting the part a bit too much!

With the course nearing the end everyone was thinking about what they will do next. There are some great plans and job offers in the group, including teaching in Switzerland, Canada and Japan, ski patrolling in Canada and even talk for one of driving husky dogs in Alaska! With time running out a few of the lads were also putting some last minute efforts into wooing some girls from another group.
The final day arrived and with perfect but cold conditions the trainees had one last opportunity to prove their skills to the trainers. Results were given and 16 out of 18 skiers passed and 10 out of 14 boarders.

So, one last night remains and a big celebration by all, before everyone goes their separate ways, taking with them great memories and stories of their time in Saas Fee.
Well done and thanks to all and good luck for the season ahead!
 

Banff – Safe & Snow
24/11/2009

With most of the trainees arriving on the evening of Saturday 21st November we waited until the Sunday to get everyone together and check out all the sights and sounds of Banff. But with one of the snowiest Novembers on record everyone couldn't help but get excited about getting on the snow.

Today, Monday 23rd November, was the first day of training. At 10:00 the trainees met their trainer, Kenji, who is one of the top trainers at Sunshine Village.

Everyone had a great day training, but it wasn't just the snow and the training everyone was raving about. The queues were tiny!!! So not only do we have some of the best snow in years, there's not many people stealing all the powder!

Looking forward to the rest of the course,

Your course leader,

Sam Feltham

P.S. Click here to checkout the facebook group for more snowey pics!!!

Whistler – 5 metres of snow and counting
21/11/2009

So its only a third of the way through November, and we have already broken the all time record for November snowfall!  Over 16 feet and counting! The crew on our November course will be here in just a few days now. the season is shaping up to be absolutely amazing, with an incredible base setting up.

Saas Fee – Week 7.... a tame one!
18/11/2009

Week 7 has been a tame one by Peak Leaders standards. The powder days took their toll on many with leg muscles burning and ego’s bruised from multiple falls into pillows of snow. For the snowboarders Monday was a day as one big group. The powder was still deep enough for us all to try bigger and better jumps off a natural kicker (in between the fun of going over the central theme). We all thought we were pretty good until James pulled a huge back flip out of his bag of tricks. A week of hero worshipping commenced. Unfortunately Marten must’ve found the appeal of being worshipped too much and did a sweet back flip minus the flip and ended up on his head. Thankfully there’s not much in there so no real damage was done.
 

More damage could have been caused by Ed’s ILM. Rugby. After a day up the mountain, a foot of snow and an overly competitive Scotsman I think we were lucky to leave the field in one piece. A slightly more sedate ILM was Jordan’s 10-pin bowling evening. It proved that Kasper’s skills at Snow sports are definitely not transferable to other sports.
 

Back on the glacier it was the last few days of training with the instructors and everyone was concentrating on getting the most out of the remaining days. Tweaking any faults while we still had the knowledge and experience of the ski and snowboard instructors to fall back on. Thursday drew to a close our time with Rob, James, Loz and Roddy. I’m sure that everyone wants to thank the guy’s for everything they’ve done for us, often going beyond the call of duty. Looking at us all now and then going back to October you can’t recognise the skiers and boarders that turned up that first week. Thanks again for your help. It’s been emotional...hasn’t it Harry “I’m just tired”.
 

Thursday also commenced 3 days of rest and recuperation if you so wished. Nobody really wished so Nesti’s, Alpen, Popcorn and Poison all got their pound of Peak Leaders flesh (and Francs). The threat of another British group in the town taking our reputation on made certain unnamed members of the group step it up a level. They have since discovered the true cost of furniture and a visit to the loo in Saas Fee.
Policeman and angry hotel manager appeased we can now look forward to meeting the BASI Examiners. With a fresh dump of snow on the cards we should be set for a good start to Level 2, wind allowing.
 

Saas Fee – Week 6.... it was a busy one!
13/11/2009

By Alexandra, Domi and Shonagh (well contributions weren’t exactly equal)

Winter finally started to hit Saas Fee over the weekend, leaving us somewhat snowed in on Monday as we had our first full day of minimal visibility. The mountain closed early and the snow continued to fall overnight closing the mountain on Tuesday and Wednesday. Undaunted the boys decided to build a mini park next to the Felskin lift (the fashionably late girls directed) – a Mini-Shred session began and lasted for 48 hours. Skiers and boarders alike attacked the rail (made of sticks) a box, a quarter pipe (again made of sticks) and a couple of kickers. Aided by Gluwein the day became night and we have photos to prove our skills…surely the FIS World Cup competitors felt threatened.

Bri (eezy)’s ILM could have caused an avalanche on its own…picture the scene, eight boys ‘booty dropping’ to Single Ladies by Beyonce…I don’t think JLS have much to worry about. Needless to say, more of this later.

Finally there was a break in the weather on Thursday and we were back up the mountain to train for our BASI 2 which seems to be approaching all too rapidly. Just in case the excitement of a full day’s riding wasn’t enough, Thursday afternoon saw thirty two of us scavenging around Saas Fee for Shonagh’s ILM. She set us three pages of tasks which included general knowledge questions (thank you to Tourist Information, without whom most of us would still be searching for answers), a scavenger list (who knew there were so many cocktail umbrellas to be had up a mountain) and lastly the photos….the photos. Oh my God…the Policeman was tame, the photos of a girl surrounded by 45 men less so, and the piggy back ride from a stranger, the weirdest request of them all. Alex’s team won showing speed and knowledge hitherto unknown to snowsports instructors.

Frietag (we are taking German lessons, after a fashion) and the weekend beckoned. Not before of course another gruelling day up the mountain, we were reminded that we only had another five days of training to go. Even this knowledge could not quell our excitement as we hit the powder (or as Henry would insist on calling it the ‘awesome variables’). Most of us spent the day upside down, digging ourselves out of self-created snow holes…no injuries though as it was like landing on a duvet.

We promised there would be more Beyonce..and yes there was. James had taken on board Bri’s tuition and was determined (ably supported by Ed and Max) to introduce Saas Fee to not only Beyonce but slightly randomly Cotton Eyed Joe (an early 90’s hit) and Soldier Boy. Poison and its fascinated regulars are still recovering.

We had missed two days of training so the hangovers made their way up the mountain for weekend training. More powder, sun, more face planting, more fun. Saturday night was dinner out…or in for those of us lucky enough to be invited to our Italian masterchef’s dinner…yum. Once more we hit the town..not without its casualties. Eyebrows went missing (still MIA), a pair of tights was grievously injured and Ben donated his supper to Nesti’s (the only donation we have heard of which involves more than cash).

By Sunday, the wheels had come off and most of us spent it wondering where we had left them. The snow was still falling and Alex organised a SnowMan competition…many of the artefacts are X rated and we believe still in evidence, providing no end of entertainment for the Korean teams as they run round the sports pitches. Ed, Jordan and Matt are the Artistic Snow Kings of Saas Fee for this week.

All that remains to be said of Week Six…is ‘You’ve Gotta Have Faith’…….
 

Saas Fee – Dancing, pool, gorges and lycra.....
04/11/2009

By Jordan and Alex,

Week 5 turned out to be very eventful for us all due to a sudden surge of ILM activities. Morven started off the week with her dance session which all the lads quite enjoyed, especially Bram who appeared to appreciate Max’s (Peck-asaurous) sensual massage. The next day was another day on the slopes with the usual ski/boarding banter and german lessons in the evening.

Wednesday started off with a rude awakening for Jordan as it was his 19th birthday. We then wasted no time in hitting the slopes. That evening was enjoyed over some pool and casual drinks hosted by Adam. The evening was a success but we proved no match for Anthony, our resident South African who sealed the win in an exciting final against Gavin.  Thursday was another day of ‘dope’ piste action, but moving on to the weekend.....
 

Friday night was mostly enjoyed in Nesties Ski Bar with the lovely Pipa, except for a couple of the group who had the pleasure of meeting the British Alpine Ski Team.

Saturday (halloween) started off early with Anthony’s ILM, Gorge Walking, which turned out to be more of a gorge adventure. We were swung 15 meters up from cliff edge to cliff edge, rappelled 30 meters onto boulders and propelled via zip line into caves, all in the trusted hands of our experienced mountain guides. All the lads truly enjoyed this and decided it was the perfect hangover cure. Harry kept the day on track with his surprisingly ‘fun filled’ game of Ultimate Frisbee which showed an impressive lack of coordination and that, as far as frisbee is concerned, size does matter! James then took over the mantle of Master of Ceremonies with his evening of halloween madness. He pulled off a great evening of team games, fancy dress, questionable dancing and an obscene amount of lycra. The group shocked each other with the range of peculiar costumes that emerged, especially the appearance of the two bearded nun’s, one cow, a box and 10 lycra covered young men.

The night didn’t finish there.....the costumes, mixed with high spirits and much alcohol, yielded some interesting results...and all you need to know, is that Saas Fee will not be forgetting Halloween 09 anytime soon.

Just to put the records straight, Morven and Steve did NOT hook up... and if any lessons are to be learnt from this week they are; One should not mess with shush Police or Popcorn bouncers, and Swiss girls love the lycra.

Jordan Alex
 

Saas Fee – Week 3!
04/11/2009

By Tom....

On Monday during week 3 we started our day with BASI training. The skiers had a new ski instructor called Loz who replaced Larry, since he had recovered from a recent ankle injury. The skiers were using progressive exercises so that they could perform aggressive and perfect carved turns by the end of the week. Whilst the snowboarders were continuing to perfect their basic turns and expand on the central theme. That evening we ate at an Italian restaurant around the corner from the Park Hotel, since Patrick the head-chef was away on holiday. The portions were very large and the staff were very welcoming.

On Tuesday, we continued our week with BASI training and progressing from what we had learnt the day before. The weather was perfect and a few of the skiers had a chance to take photographs of themselves with Bode Miller, a top US skier. That afternoon, the majority of the Peak Leaders group took part in additional German lessons. They learnt quite a few basic expressions and parts of the German grammer for their first lesson from a local Swiss teacher.

On Wednesday, the skiers had a chance to try out freestyle skiing thanks to coaching from top British freestyle professionals. They had the chance to learn backwards carving and how to land kickers and control their speed in the freestyle park. That evening German lessons followed.

On Thursday the weather wasn't ideal for skiing and boarding because of a heavy fog over the Saas Fee mountains. However, BASI training still followed. We practiced skiing slowly with our eyes' closed in order to improve our accuracy which was very efficient. On the other hand, we weren't able to continue practicing our carving turns since the visibility was very poor.
 

That evening, as part of our ILM course (International, leadership and management course,) we were to take part in a transceiver hunt throughout the village. Avalanche transceivers were placed around the town in shops and bars and we had to search for these transceivers with a transmitter. The task was a lot of fun and all in all successful.

On Friday and saturday the snowboarders began their First-Aid training with established trainers. The course lasted both Friday and Saturday since it was a 16-hour course. The whole group managed to pass their First-Aid assessment even though it was very challenging. Whilst the snowboarders were First-Aid training, the skiers had two days of free skiing. The weather was perfect, however since it was the weekend the slopes were quite busy because of the amount of week-end skiers. On Saturday evening, we had a Pub Quiz hosted by an ILM student. It was very well organised and lasted the best part of two hours.

Finally, on Sunday the skiers began their First-Aid training while the snowboarders had a day of free ski. In the evening Patrick the head chef and hotel manager of the Park Hotel came back from holiday and everything returned to normal.
 

Whistler Mountain Bike Instructor Development Camp – A crew on video....
03/11/2009

Here is a short vid of the crew, ripping it up in Whistler. Nice one Spencer on the quality editing!

Saas Fee – BASI Level 1.......
28/10/2009

This week we had BASI exam throughout the whole week, however because of the weather the first two days were cancelled on the mountain. Instead we undertook theory lessons to aid our comprehension of the central theme and fundamental elements.

On Wednesday we were on the mountain and we practiced our previously learned skills and had video analysis. We did the video analysis on the mountain at lunch so then we were able to practice our faults in the afternoon.
 

The next two days were pretty similar to the Wednesday. We improved on our core skills and slight problems that Helen saw in our skiing. Overall I found it a very challenging but rewarding experience. All of my group passed their BASI 1 exam.
 

Friday night…we got on down…
 

Saturday was quite hazy for everyone especially Ed who’s birthday we were celebrating the night before. Some guys went for a swim and not many people managed it to dinner. Saturday night was pretty quiet for everyone but a few of the true soldiers went popcorn..some stories to be told there…
 

Saas Fee – Powder and Teletubbies...
15/10/2009

12/10/09
 

So the week began with our avalanche awareness course whilst one group did the course the rest enjoyed a day of free skiing or a day in the park for some! The rest of the week was spent preparing for BASI level 1. On Saturday morning we were greeted with some fresh powder and some epic skiing… easily our best day so far!

Come the afternoon we had our final video session, which provided us with some much needed final pointers before our BASI assessment began. As Sunday was going to be the first of the birthdays (Alex and Bram) Saturday night was earmarked for celebrations. This resulted in another classic evening. Apparently Popcorn turned out to be a real team bonding experience, even the teletubbies came out to play!

But once again what happens in Saas Fee stays in Saas fee. Sunday gave us all a well deserved rest in preparation for the start of BASI level 1 assessments, good luck guys!

Sarah Owen

Argentina – The Final Week!!!!!!!!
13/10/2009

So this is the last blog entry for the Peak Leaders 09 Argentina course…….sad times. The unfortunate truth is that I’m now sat at home in my parents living room, trying to ignore the carriage clock ticking in my ear, and reminiscing about the last week we spent in Argentina. Although the aforementioned week involved a lot of travelling it’s a week that I will never forget as it opened our eyes to another side of Argentina, one that didn’t involve steak houses, ski slopes and Jagerbombs!

After an epic night in Esquel, Eskeletor as it’s affectionately known by the locals, many of us hadn’t caught much sleep so it was a relief to know we were about to embark on a 10 hour bus journey. The journey, which the majority of us slept through, took everybody across the Patagonian desert, the biggest desert in South America, to Puerto Madryn on the Atlantic coast. Without visiting Argentina you can’t really understand how empty the middle of Patagonia actually is; we’d literally drive for two hours without seeing a single settlement or car. The road we took was very straight, in ill-repair and surprisingly narrow, just about wide enough to fit two cars side by side…..which was surprising considering it was the main road that ran from the east to the west of Patagonia. It seems that the Patagonian’s don’t really have much need or desire to travel around their country, as a people they stay fairly fixed and get on with whatever they do in their local area. Anyway, I’d love to tell you all about the scenery but for the majority of time I was sound asleep; nevertheless you’ll hear all about it when we travel back to Bariloche, later in the blog.

Before arriving at Puerto Madryn we made a quick stop at a famous Welsh Tea House ‘Ty Te Caerdydd’ for afternoon tea. The place was a little surreal with a giant tea pot in the garden, little old ladies running around serving tea from pots with pink tea cosies and pictures of Princess Diana literally everywhere. It seems Diana had visited the Tea House in the mid nineties because it was one of the most revered in the whole of Patagonia……she obviously hadn’t tried the Plum jam, minging. Anyway, none of us had the heart to tell the owner, a tall dark Welsh looking fellow, that Princess Di was no longer with us, so we ate a vast array of cakes and sandwiches in relative silence in the comfort his living room then left. Once we arrived at Puerto Madryn, around 9pm, the majority of trainees either went to bed or tried to grab a table at one of Puerto Madryn’s famous fish restaurants.

The next day was a very relaxed affair, for most anyway! I believe the only trainee to wake-up before midday was Sophie Ward who took a brisk run along the beachfront to view the crimson flocks of Flamingo’s. The remainder of us met in the hotel lobby at 1pm to jump on a bus to view a colony of Sea Lions. At this point a few foolhardy trainees, led by Hamish ‘Armstrong’ Carmichael, thought it would a good idea to cycle the 12km to the nature reserve. Needless to say an hour later we passed this foolhardy gang 7 or 8km into our journey, at the back were James and Tim who couldn’t wait to tell us their harrowing tales of cycling on sand and other such tales of desperation and woe. At the front, a mile or further on, were Kathrine ‘the machine’ Liver and Petty who didn’t really understand what all the fuss was about. On arrival at the nature reserve the smell of fish was overwhelming, which isn’t the most pleasant smell. A short walk to a viewing platform overlooking the Atlantic and down below us lay a colony of over one hundred Sea Lions, a weaving mass of grey and brown that occasionally parted when the males began getting rowdy with one another. During this time David and Sophie made us all feel completely inadequate with the size of their camera lenses…..I’m not ashamed to say I had lense envy. After a while we’d seen enough of the Sea Lions and in honesty the smell had got too much for most of us, so some of us boarded the bus and a few trainees cycled back. That night, whilst at dinner, a bomb was dropped; apparently the only road between Puerto Pyramids, where we planned on watching the Whales, would be closed from 7am in the morning which meant a very very early start.

Half dead the trainees descended upon breakfast at 5am, it wasn’t a pleasant site. Back on the bus for 6am and we were off along the coastal rode to Puerto Piramide as the sun rose over the Atlantic. Puerto Madryn is a strange place, strangely enough it has all the charm of a run-down Kent/Sussex sea-side resort. It would be very easy to forget you’re in South America were in not for the half built tower blocks, mass of Ford and Chevrolet trucks grunting up and down the gridded roads and the endless mix mash of randomly designed housing…no building in Puerto Madryn bares a single resemblance to any other building in Puerto Madryn. Anyway, after a two hour drive through the dawn we arrived at Puerto Piramide, a small fishing/tourist port that sat on a beautiful beach surrounded by sandy hills. Puerto Piramide sits on the Valdes Peninsula looking back across a giant bay to Puerto Madryn, which is so far away you can’t even see it when you’re stood on the top of the cliffs. Unlike Puerto Madryn, Puerto Piramide has a sleepy feel to it, wooden shacks line the beach with hastily nailed together wooden signs….unsurprisingly the old clichés like Moby Dick’s Whale tours and Captain Hooks Restaurant shamelessly made an appearance. As we’d arrived so early we all piled into a beachfront restaurant, much to the dismay of the barman who clearly thought he’d been given the graveyard shift, to have coffee administered intravenously. After a quick shot of the good stuff myself, Charlie Baddeley and Alex Willan decided to scale the highest hill in the area to view the port and the surrounding landscape and fifteen minutes later we’d succeeded….without Oxygen!

After a couple hours spent hanging around and enjoying the sea breeze we all grabbed a lifejacket and boarded the giant Zodiac that was perched on the beach. Apparently the locals aren’t allowed to build a peer within the national park area so the boat operators have to use giant tractors to pull the boats in and out of the water on big metal trailers. Once on our way the captain, a stereotypically bearded and heavily weathered gentleman, navigated away from the beach and out to the depths. The purpose of this trip was to see the Southern Right Whale which comes to the Valdez Peninsula to breed. Southern Right Whales are pretty big; fully grown females can grow as long as 18.5 metres and can weigh up to 130 tonnes, which is roughly twice as much as a Challenger II tank. Less than five minutes into our tour we could see in the distance a young calf jumping out of the water so the captain carefully made his way through the choppy water to the where the calf had last been spotted. Once we got close to the calf and its mother the captain skilfully manoeuvred the boat alongside and all the trainees’ lept to the side of the boat that the Whales were on. Even Lara, who’s arm was in a serious cast, wasn’t shy about muscling in on the action. As the calf lept continuously into the air, in an attempt to hit the pestering seagull that hovered above, the mother popped her head out occasionally for a breath of air, leaving behind a stinking cloud of water vapour. After an hour spent following Whales back and forth across the bay everybody seemed to have taken photos that David Bailey would have been proud of so we headed back to shore passing other wildlife on the shore, including a gulp of White-Bellied Shag Cormorants (thank you Wikipedia) and a lone male Sea Lion bathing on the rocks. Once on land the trainees went for lunch at one of the many shack restaurants that lined the sandy streets of Puerto Piramide. Once everybody had eaten we took a short drive to the nature reserve’s museum and on to a beach to view yet more whales. On this occasion they were no more then 30 metres from the beach, frantically paddling against the incoming swell and onshore winds in an effort not to be beached. That night a few of the trainees hit the town but I think it can be safely concluded that Puerto Madryn is severely lacking in any South American flair when it comes to nightlife.

The next day was an epic bus journey that started at Puerto Madryn and finished 800km away at El Boson where the final party was being held. There’s not much point in describing the whole journey to you as it’ll bore you to tears but I’ll briefly describe the scenery as it was so epic. The Patagonian desert is a vast sandy landscape with wide rivers running calmly through it and large sandy hills that have been blown into all manner of shapes by the wind. Occasionally in the low sheltered valleys you’ll see a ranch; visible only by the tall, narrow willow-like trees that shelter it from the wind and afternoon sun. As the majority of the landscape is formed from sandstone and other sedimentary rocks there are lots of canyons and rock faces with very little in the way of vegetation except for bushes and tufts of grass. The roads are narrow and very straight; it seems as though they only bend if there is a sizeable geographical feature in the way. Anyway, as we drove closer to the Andes and gained a bit of height large pools of salt water appeared along the side of the road and to my amazement a lone Flamingo sat in the middle of one minding his own business. Natasha, who was sat next to me, clearly thought I’d been toking on the old Crack pipe when I stood up and shouted that I’d just seen a lone Flamingo in the middle of the desert. Fortunately Ivan (the everlasting-know-it-all) explained that it was quite common to see Flamingo’s in this part of the desert and my credibility was restored. As we neared the Andes the sun set over the snow capped peaks and cries of ‘are we there yet’ reverberated around the bus.

We arrived at the party venue at around 11pm and in fairness the vast majority of trainees were tired and not in the mood for partying. The venue was Nico’s parents restaurant, a homely little restaurant in the middle of nowhere that resembled a Hobit’s house. After a feast of Lamb and pumpkin stew and a few Stella’s, premium beer in Argentina, it was time for the prize giving. As I’d been living with everyone for the past 9 weeks it was difficult to choose prize winners, as everybody had improved so dramatically, but there were some skiers and snowboarders that had really excelled and caught the eye of their BASI trainers and Argie instructors. Prizes this year were handed out to the following people:

Friendliest and most enthusiastic trainees – Milla Ralph and Rosie Leach

Course joker – Will Murphy

Most promising instructor – Dan Hunt

Best freestyle snowboarder – Neil Patterson

Best freestyle skiers – Alex Morgan, Adam Coombs, Harry Lloyd, Jon Wade, Ed Pycraft and Charlotte Vantreen

Most improved snowboarders – Claire Craig and Andrew Lomax

Most improved skiers – Michael Davies and Ed Barry

After the prizes had been given out Colo and Ivan handed out certificates to everybody and the DJ, Nico’s brother, began pumping out Techno beats from behind the bar. As it had been a long day of travelling a large proportion of the trainees took the early bus home to make the most of their last day in Bariloche…..and a fair amount of us stayed behind to watch Colo and Ed’s dancing, play drinking games and fall asleep in the corner of the restaurant.

The next day was a very chilled-out affair as most trainees did absolutely nothing except pack their belongings and prepare for a final big night in Bariloche. Most of us woke with a bit of a hangover and after a big concerted effort by all the hotel staff and trainees we managed to get Harry, Ed and Adam on the bus to the Airport. Once at the airport we managed to delay the plane for a good 20 minutes due to baggage issues then said our goodbyes to Ronnie, Ivan and Colo. After a two hour journey we arrived in Buenos Aires which was definitely a change of scenery. A short bus ride took us to our hotel in the centre of town and less than a couple of hours later everybody was sampling the restaurants and bars of BA. Needless to say the nightlife and beautiful women in Buenos are second to none, the place is a buzzing cosmopolitan that feels more like a European city than a lot of cities in Europe. After a few minutes searching through the pages of his Lonely Planet Nezza P, Neil’s alter ego, selected a top notch restaurant and despite having a few difficulties hailing a taxi we were soon sat in a beautiful restaurant called Cluny being served delicious food and cocktails by a gang of very helpful waiters. The service, food and drink were first-class and the whole experience cost us less than £25 each; back in London you’d be hard pressed to find the same for less than £100. After a highly entertaining meal we jumped in a taxi and made our way to a giant club overlooking the sea called Mint to watch the sun rise…..for your information clubs in BA don’t get going until 3am. The rest of the trainees found themselves in the VIP section of a Techno club called Crowbar, a night organised by Charlie and Alex. Anyway, we all spent the night break dancing and throwing shapes on the floor and before I’d even had a chance to look at my watch it had got to 7am in the morning and I was stood outside a club in the middle of nowhere, with no money, a gang of local women following me (honest!), a certain Caribbean Sunset haired trainee hanging upside-down in a tree and in less than an hour I had to ensure that 40 trainees got on the bus to the airport……..the rest is history!

Argentina; what an epic way to spend a summer.

Saas Fee – Week 2!
09/10/2009

We were greeted by another day of glorious sunshine which has been great for the first week with the instructors. Everyone seems to be coming back with stories that they are improving. We had our first big night out as a group on Friday night. Some started the party early, and they seemed to be the first ones home. Others lasted a bit longer and Saturday morning was certainly very interesting as all the stories started to filter through. I would love to share them with you however, what happens in Saas Fee stays in Saas Fee!!

Saturday became a day to chill out and the BBQ in the afternoon was good with everyone far less animated than usual. We will see if everyone throws themselves into next Saturday nights’ party with as much enthusiasm. The day off gave the legs time to recover and we have had another day with the instructors and an avalanche awareness course.

It looks like some new snow is on the way. Just in time for the BASI 1 week!
 

Verbier Mountain Bike Technical Leader Course – Final Week
06/10/2009

The FINAL Week!!!! This was quite a strange feeling as the time had passed so quickly as we had all had such a great time but it was not over yet by a long shot as this was not only the final week but also exam week so preparation was everything as none of us wanted to spend 6 weeks in the alps having the time of our lives only to miss out of the main qualification at the end. Our nights on this week were mainly spent collating all the trails and maps we had used in order to build the a log book which was required for the exam. This was to be used as proof that we had actually completed the desired amount of trail rides. As if 6 weeks in the alps was not enough LOL. Well Exam day was upon us and by this time we were ready for anything and, and........Wait for it!!! We all PASSED with flying colours which felt amazing! The perfect end to what can only described as a life changing experience!!!

PHOTO MARK ABRAHAM

Verbier Mountain Bike Technical Leader Course – Week 5
06/10/2009

By this point we had started to focus on the final weeks exam. To prepare for this, PeakLeaders had arranged for us to teach and guide a group of local riders which we all thought was excellent preperation for the exam as well as giving us real life experience to prepare us for real guiding in the future. Felix had started to re-cap on all we had learnt over the past month, not only the Mountain Bike skills and Techniques but the local knowledge of the Wildlife and Fauna which is also an important part of being a guide.

PHOTO MARK ABRAHAM

Verbier Mountain Bike Technical Leader Course – Week 4
06/10/2009

We continued exploring the almost endless network of trails to be found in the Verbier area, Downhill! :-) and Uphill! :-( By this point everbodies riding was becoming better by the minute and our physical and mental fitness were improving everyday due to spending time riding in the beutiful scenery and training at an altitude of often in excess of 2000mtrs above sea level (Roughly twice as high as the highest peak in the UK). This was very handy as we were beginning our First Aid course which was run by Flora from Elements First Aid. She was an excellent teacher and helped Mark, Rob and Myself pass with flying colours which set us up perfectly to deal with most emergency scenarios in an Outdoor environment.

PHOTO MARK ABRAHAM

Verbier Mountain Bike Technical Leader Course – Week 3
06/10/2009

After exploring some of what Verbier had to offer we were offered the chance to go and ride some of the other resorts in the local area, well France! But the drive was only 1 hour, a half hour less than my usual drive to the local Mtb centre. With this knowledge we all jumped at the chance! So on our second gondola ride Felix (Guide) and myself noticed a small ramp at the edge of a large rocky outcrop and both decided that it would have been rude not to go check it out. After a couple of minutes of shall I or shant I, we both agreed we would do the jump.I voted that Felix go first (Just to test it, You know!) So down he goes off the jump and all seems well and good albeit I didn't see him land so I step up to the plate! I blast down going a bit faster than Felix I might add and lauch off the ramp setting up for the steep landing below but unfortunatly for my man bits the landing was not as steep as anticipated and I land with my hips placed delicately between the compressing rear suspension and the surprisingly hard underside of my saddle however I did manage to hold on which was nice considering the alternative option of a Face, Body and Limb Plant. After seeing my expert demostration, there was little wonder XC Mark and Rob the Wreckage! were not really keen to take part in this particular excercise which was ok as there was a wide variety of terrain on offer to allow riders of all ability to set their own challenges.

PHOTO MARK ABRAHAM

Verbier Mountain Bike Technical Leader Course – Week 2
06/10/2009

Things were starting heat up and we were all begining to feel more comfortable on the Big Mountain Terrain. After a week and half of constant nagging Mark was on his big bike and had been persuaded into using Flat pedals instead of clipped pedals that only seemed to be causing a problem on the steep terrain common in the Verbier area (Love it!) After he was converted he instantly felt more comfortable and his riding improved 10 fold, "Rob the Wreckage" was in full swing and I was fast becoming the in house bike mechanic in the Chalet / Bike Emporium.

PHOTO MARK ABRAHAM

Verbier Mountain Bike Technical Leader Course – Arrival Time
06/10/2009

Having left Glasgow with 70kg of luggage, you can imagine my relief when I finally managed to drag myself into Verbier 36hours later. However I was lucky as when I arrived in Geneva I met a cool local biker that was going my direction so he helped me navigate to the train. We chatted on the train and he told me that I was in for a real treat with regards to the alpine trails in the Verbier area. While on the next train to Le Chable I met a very friendly couple and their children. The children were very curious as to why someone would travel across europe with 70kg of luggage (So was I!). When I finally arrived in Le Chable, the couple felt compelled to give me a lift up to Verbier as compensation for the "20 Questions" which was awesome as it saved me from a 1hr wait for the bus in the 30 degree heat! Arriving in the picture perfect town of Verbier I was greeted by Mhairi (Peak Leaders Organiser) who was more than happy to show me to the very spacious chalet where I would be spending the next 6 awesome weeks!!!

Week 1: The first run didn't really fase me much as I am from a DH background but it was "amusing" to hear Felix (Our Guide) describe the warmup trail to a rather shocked Mark who was armed with his Lightweight Carbon Fibre XC bike. So as we approached the first relatively steep swichback I could hear Mark dismount and I could see Rob on his Freeride bike just dissappear very slowly over the edge of the trail into a perfectly placed bush. As the day progressed Mark was becoming more and more concerned that his bike was not really built for this kind of abuse, Rob was starting to forge his new persona, later to be dubed "Rob the Wreckage" and I was starting to worry that I should have been out a bit more on my bike over the last year. By the end of the first week we were all a bit tender, ruff around the edges and buzzing with excitment about the weeks ahead and Qualified CTC Trail Cycle Leaders (Thanks Pete!!!). A success I would say!!!
 

Saas Fee – The Start! By sam Farrell
30/09/2009

Day 1!

We arrived in Saas Fee on Saturday to great weather, we all met on the terrace of the park hotel and the introductions began. We then met Patrick the owner of the hotel before dinner and also the instructors and Kasper the Peak Leaders Group Leader.

Day 2

Kasper took us on a group tour of the town the get to know the surroundings and where everything is located, including the large array of facilities from swimming to golf! In the afternoon we all just chilled out on the hotel terrace in the sunshine, had a few drinks and got to know each other a bit better.

Day 3

First day on the slopes amazing weather up on the glacier perfect conditions for skiing/boarding. Our ski instructor Roddy who will be training us for the BASI Level 1 and BASI Level 2 exams showed us around the mountain and we had some free ski time to get back into the swing of things. Then back down to the village for some table tennis and a bit of poker!

Rob the Snowboard trainer with his group of trainee snowboard instructors!

Roddy and his group!

Day 4

Back on the slopes at 9am for our second day, feet a bit sore but loving the summer skiing not a cloud in the sky! Roddy our ski instructor went through some of the basic fundamentals of skiing and then showed us some interesting techniques.

Later in the afternoon we donned our shorts and t-shirts and Kasper took a group of us on a hike up into the surrounding forest to where there is a glacier mountain spa, we all a had a dip, its amazing for your feet and legs!! We then were shown a glacier lake and other side of the town some great views.

Then back to hotel for a well rewarded dinner!
Sam.

Argentina – The road to Esquel
30/09/2009

 Firstly I’d like to apologise to all those parents and friends out there who have been eagerly awaiting the next instalment of the Peak Leaders Argentina 09 blog….but to no avail. In all honesty a couple of the girls, I’m not going to name drop, were very keen to tell their side of the story but putting pen to paper took a bit of a sideline due to the various nightclubs, restaurants and Cerro Cathedral’s spring snowboard park.

So, what have we been up to over the past few weeks? In the last blog that I wrote all of the trainees had completed their level 1 and a week of intense training with the BASI trainers….which proved to be a big ‘wake-up’ call for a few.  In the two weeks that followed all of the trainees really focussed and improved their skiing and snowboarding dramatically. Sure Harry and Adam were late for the majority of buses but when they did turn-up they were focussed on the job in-hand and far more professional, most of the time anyway. Level 2 is always a massive step-up for all the trainees as the emphasis is no just placed on the ‘central theme’ (i.e the basics of getting a skier or snowboarder to turn and control speed) but also on higher-end more technical skiing and snowboarding, understandably it’s pretty important that the trainees practice what they preach and with consistency. Fortunately the weather for the two weeks that followed was beautiful sunshine and minimal winds, which made the trainers jobs a lot easier.

After two weeks of intense instruction from the trainers and many late nights spent with their heads in their books the fortnight culminated with the annual BASI/Peak Leaders synchronisation championships. Returning champion Les Ward was hot favourite but Julian Griffiths was hungry for the title and had put his trainees through an intense regime of synchronised short turns for the entire two weeks. Favourites aside, the whole event was thrown into disarray when Andy Jenks and his team of trainees rocked-up in a selection of matching 80’s all-in-one’s…..at this point the other trainees knew that they were about to witness synchro history. All of the teams put together strong performances and with one team left it was Julian’s team that were in first position. Under the mounting pressure the cast of Dallas assembled at the top of the slopes, shoulder pads and all, Charlie ‘Chopper’ Post donning a large Afro wig that completely obstructed his eye-sight and Ed Barry rocking a pair of sunglasses that he stole from David Hasselhoff. The performance that followed was mesmerising and from the moment that Andy’s team set-off Julian’s head sank and Les’s dreams of another championship sailed off into the distance. On announcing the winner Andy went ballistic, a picture of BASI professionalism, diving head-first into his trainees…..there had clearly been a great deal of banter between the trainers over the past month.

Once the Synchro competition had finished the trainees were told whether they had passed their level 2, a very nervous moment for a few. Once the results had been dished-out the trainees gathered at the mountain for a celebratory BBQ and a few beers… both Sam and Adam ended-up wearing their Birthday cakes (cakes that Ivan had painstakingly taken up the mountain and saved from impending doom on numerous occasions!). Friday night was pretty large and the trainees, who had managed to repress their urges to drink and party for a whole week, found themselves in the usual haunts; South Bar followed by La Cantina….those hardened drinkers graced the dance floors of Pacha and Rocket until 7am the next morning. Unsurprisingly nothing happened on Saturday……apart from Michael ‘Kenya’ Davies seeing the error of his ways and joining the dark-side for an afternoon; apparently he was managing to keep-up with his fellow skiers after just one morning of Snowboarding. 

Sunday was undoubtedly one of the best days of the trip. First thing in the morning we all hopped on a bus and headed North East along the long dusty highway to Cuyin Manzano…a small village hidden away in a valley of the National Park. Cuyin Manzano was where Ivan’s mothers family was from and was real Gaucho country; Ivan had kindly organised a day for the trainees on his family ranch. After cruising along the main road for an hour we headed off-road along a dusty gravel track through some incredibly beautiful landscape. Sandy grey hills covered in large tufts of grass and bushes with lush green evergreen trees and rocky sandstone outcrops dotted around and cool blue streams running along the bottom of the valley…..sounds idyllic doesn’t it! Once we arrived the majority of the trainees mounted a horse, of their choice, and with a bit of a kick and friendly encouragement they were off. The rest of us walked a short distance to the BBQ where Ivan, who was dressed in full Gaucho attire and a black beret, was cooking-up some very fresh meat with Ronnie, Pety and a gang of his Gaucho friends. So while the others trekked across the mountains we amused ourselves with the small stream, where Gav and Ed perfectly illustrated that you can never grow too old for building a dam, the other trainees relaxed with some delicious food, chilled beers and beautiful sunshine.  

Once the first group of trainees returned from their trek we all chose our weapon….unfortunately I drew a very short straw and was soon the amusement for the duration of the trek. The horse that Ivan had given me was a little old and dishevelled and perhaps more importantly really didn’t enjoy going up hills, which is a bit of an issue when you’re trekking across mountains. My only saving grace was the one-eyed Gaucho riding along-side who continually whipped the back of my horse, which although I didn’t agree with kept me at the tail-end of the group. At the front of the group Ed Pycraft charged around on ‘Shadowfax’ wielding a staff and quoting Lord of the Rings and George was rocking a look that was probably more Brokeback Mountain than Gaucho. The ride that we took weaved along the edge of a hill then dropped down into a narrow valley where we rode through and alongside a beautiful stream, again the scenery was epic and by the end of the ride the aptly named ‘lento’ broke into a canter, undoubtedly because he knew he was on his way home. Once we returned to the ranch we chilled with the Gaucho’s for a few more hours to drink cold beer, eat fresh lamb and enjoy the very relaxed atmosphere .

On Monday and Tuesday the trainees had a Freestyle clinic with local freestyle legends Nico, Jago, Tommy and Marky.  I’m happy to report that the even the more mature members of the team were keen to take-part in the activities and on a number of occasions showed the kids how it was done. Fortunately the park had been shaped and was very soft which meant that conditions were perfect for the trainees to hone their skills on the newly shaped kickers and rails. On the other side of the park a few Argentine and American Burton Pro’s showed us’ how it’s done’ with a couple of 1080’s and double backflips thrown over the 20m kicker. I’m happy to say that the coaches stepped up to the challenge and held their own on the large jump, Marky even managed a switch backside 720….which, for those of you who aren’t up on your Snowboard tricks, is a very difficult trick. Anyway, back to the trainees, every body skied and Snowboarded well and learnt new tricks in relative safety…..a special mention must go to Ivan who narrowly avoided a severe injustice on one of the rails.

Wednesday was an early start for all of the trainees as we left for Esquel at 10am in the morning…...well we would have done if the usual suspects hadn’t been out partying until 7am that morning. After an hour struggle we managed to get all the trainees on the bus and begin our Journey. After a couple of hours we arrived at a small hippy town called El Boson where indulged in Argentina’s best Ice cream and sat outside in the sun amongst the pink blossom. Perhaps the funniest moment of the trip was when a large truck with the letters S.P.L.I.F drove past, I couldn’t believe my ears when I was reliably informed by Colo that this was the name for Patagonia’s fire service…..you’d have thought they might change the initials slightly for the fire service in Argentina’s biggest hippy town. After a short break we headed onto Esquel, the drive was along the East step of the Andes so on one side we could see large snow-capped mountains and on the other we could see a vast empty expanse of flat grassy desert. We arrived at the Cabanas in the afternoon and the trainees soon had their fires going as it was a fair bit colder and windier than Bariloche. The scenery around Esquel is a lot different to Bariloche; where as Bariloche is very green and alpine Esquel resembles the Scottish Highlands. The mountains are very baron with very little vegetation and are littered with rocks and outcrops, there are no lakes and the town is more industrial and geared less towards tourists......but it does have the best park in Argentina which was practically all ours!! That evening we headed out for a meal at a local restaurant ‘La Luna’ then most people hit the hay.

Harry 'The Eagle' Lloyd with his signature trick

Thursday started with a slow drive up a windy and narrow gravel road up to La Hoya, the resort. Unfortunately I’d chosen the party bus, which commandeered by Dan and Rosie was playing dance music at 2000W first thing in the morning. On arrival at La Hoya, which is a very small resort in comparison to Cerro Cathedral, we grabbed our lift passes then took three chairlifts to the top of the mountain. Unfortunately the snow conditions in La Hoya weren’t great due to the poor snowfall throughout the season and had frozen to sheet-ice overnight due to a sudden drop in temperature. With better snow cover you get the feeling that La Hoya could be a freeriding Mecca because all of the off-piste is easily accessible within a short hike. Anyway, Ivan set a slalom course on a North facing slope and the majority of trainees began their race clinic with Ivan, who represented Argentina at the 1980 Olympics when he was just 17. The freestyle clinic had to be postponed because the snow in the park was too hard, making landings and take-offs very unforgiving. The park in Esquel is really well made with smooth jumps and a variety of rails to hit, plus we had our own piste basher, team of shapers and professional photographer. Anyway, while the majority of trainees cruised the slopes myself and Charlotte ‘Shaunie’ Vantreen began the inaugural annual straightlining world championships, the idea being that the first person to turn…. was a wimp and lost. At the time this seemed like a good idea because the slopes were practically impossible to turn on anyway……but after running out of slopes to straighline the competition was abandoned. I’m not ashamed to say that Shaunie was a little faster on her ski’s, but I very much doubt she’ll be back next year to defend her title!

Shaunie probably regretting her decision to try the rainbow rail

The next two days were spent between the slalom course and the Snowboard park, fortunately Nico and his crew of park shapers were very diligent in softening the landings and reshaping the jumps to prevent any injuries. The guys really improved during those two days; special mentions must go to Adam, Alex, John and Ed who all span over the second biggest jump in the park; to Kenya and Shaunie who span their way along the flat box then both ended-up doing themselves a serious injustice on the rainbow rail; to Mr Lomax who was boosting higher and further than anybody on the jumps; and to Lara who on the very last run of the last day on the slopes fell awkwardly and broke the radius bone in her arm. In fairness this was the third time that Lara had been carted down the mountain in a blood wagon so the fact she'd remained without serious injury until then was a miracle. That night an epic drinking and dancing session ensued as the trainees knew that an 8 hour bus journey waited for them the next day.

At the moment we're in Puerto Madryn, a port on the Atlantic coast of Patagonia....but I'll update you on what we've been up to here in a couple days.

Tom

New Zealand – Snow Park & The End of an Era
13/09/2009

With exams over it was time to chill and have some serious fun! Most of us took a trip over to Snow Park NZ, one of the worlds best terrain park only resorts. The skiers were taught in the morning by some of the Snow Parks pros. Whilst the snowboarders were taught by Karl Dunham, their normal trainer who happens to be a pro too ;-)

Everyone tried out new tricks whether it was their first or hundreth time in the super-pipe, on the boxes or going off of the kickers.

We were even treated to some serious pros like Simon Dumont struting their stuff on the big line.

It was a great day but that wasn't the end of it. That evening was the course awards ceremony. The catergories and winners were:

Most Questionable Quoute - George Howell

Most Silly Scenario - Sarah Ellis

Best Goggle Marks - Alex Charman

Funniest Laugh - Charlotte Simister

Joker of the Course - Nick Kempster

Most Improved Skier - George Howell

Most Improved Boarder - Simon Moore

Awesome Award - Chris Thorpe

After all the awards and prizes were handed out it was time for karaoke. There was some interesting choices of songs. The best performance of the night for me was by Karl Dunham, the snowboard trainer, who did "A total eclipse of the heart" by Bonnie Tyler. I just wish I had a video of it to show everyone :-P

Well it has got to that time when we have to wrap things up. It has been an amazing 10 weeks and I'd like to thank everyone involved from the hotel staff to the trainers but most importantly I'd like to thank the team. You were all fantastic throughout the course, giving myself plenty of support and each other. I hope we have all taken away some great memories and have made some lifelong friends.

See you all in London on 7th November for the "Queenstown Super Instructor Reunion"

Safe journeys,

Your course leader,

Sam Feltham :-D

P.S. Don't forget to checkout all the photos from the course on the facebook group!!!

New Zealand – Snow, Wind & Level 2
11/09/2009

 The end of the course is looming so that meant time for more ski and board exams. Eight days of intensive training and testing for the skiers started on Tuesday to the amusement of all the boarders who had a long lie in as they only have to work for five days.

A week of not being able to go out partying has led to the invention of new games throughout the hotel. This week was football tennis in the corridor complete with armchair net and toilet roll court markings. It was certainly an improvement on the last new game of stand against the wall while everyone takes turn to kick the ball very hard at your back.
The NZ weather continues to just do its own thing and surprise us. I have become convinced that every Kiwi is a weather forecaster and none of them have any basis for their predictions. The infamous “Coronet Peak Snow Line” that you phone to check if the mountain is open always insists “Coronet Peak is open today and it is a glorious day across the mountain with great skiing on and off piste”. This ignorance of the real facts continued as 100kph gales hit the peak and closed most of the lifts. With everyone convinced that spring had come to Queenstown, the NZ weather again surprised us with a nice big dump of snow to boost the exam conditions. This was the road that had been totally bare the day before:

Tuesday was the last day of exams and full of extreme tension, with all the testing finished by lunchtime there was an agonising 5 hours of waiting. The general consensus was to celebrate anyway with a range of civilised (champagne drinking) and less civilised (centurion of beer) events before heading to the Copthorne hotel with the other training groups.

The level two exams are known to be hard so there were some ups and downs to the evening as the results were received. A generally good pass rate for Peak Leaders, 87.5% for the snowboarders and 77% for the skiers. Everyone stuck together through the evening and kept each other’s spirits (and levels of spirits!) topped up whatever the results. The tradition of midnight jumping into lake Wakatipu was continued much to the amusement of the instructors and spectators on the lakeside. We even found a photo that was acceptable to publish.

So just a few days left now to do some final skiing, bunjy jumping and final sampling of Queenstown nightlife before a lot of goodbyes on Sunday.

What a week!
Bruno

P.S. Don't forget to checkout more pics on the Facebook group!!!

Argentina – Bring on level 2
03/09/2009

So we’re already into week five and all of the trainees have completed their level 1instructor qualification, meaning they’ll be teaching on an indoor slope near you very soon. Almost three weeks have passed since I last updated the blog and a lot has happened since then, including a week of powder, a week of rain and a week of beautiful sunshine.

Before I update you on this week’s antics I better tell you all about the last couple of weeks and BASI 1.

The weekend after I last posted the last blog we’d had a small dump of snow so the conditions on Monday were pretty good, unfortunately visibility was still a little poor as a grey, murky line of cloud sat at 1800m. Similarly to the previous week the wind was blowing but it was nothing that the guys couldn’t handle. As the majority of the students had taken Sunday very easy the Argentine instructors unleashed their wrath and made the most of the early morning powder. Ita, a former protégée of Ivan, wasn’t shy in taking her trainees on a few detours through the bamboo fields and into the trees; I’m not lying when I say that the screams and laughter of Daniella and Sophie could be heard across the resort.

The next day will forever be known as ‘Tuesday Bloody Tuesday’ due to the amount of carnage that occurred on the slopes! As the snow on the hill was still in great condition and the trainees had all had an action-packed day on the slopes on Monday confidence was high…….possibly a little too high. Special mention has to go to Fred Alliot and Addie Freyne who both had nasty injuries but were soon back on the horse. In total I believe we had a total of 9 injured parties that day, poor Colo spent most of the day in the medical centre.  The rest of the week was spent getting the trainees up to speed and sessioning the great snow and amazing off-piste in-between the trees and bamboo. The local Argentine instructors really put the guys and girls through their paces and a lot of the trainees who had never really skied in deep snow were all pretty confident gunning it through the trees at Mach 10 in waste deep snow by the end of the week. Tommy, Jago, Ita, Ivan, Peti, Marky, Teti and Jorge all did a really good job at helping the trainees get to the standard they all needed to be at for their level 1, despite not a single piste seeing a basher for the entire week.

Thursday night of the aforementioned week was the exam results party. After a swift drink at the hotel bar we all headed the micro-brewery in Bariloche where the trainees sampled the various locally brewed Ales and Lagers; the general consensus was that 60% of the beers we tasted were close to undrinkable. Fortunately the 12% Barley wine was one such unpalatable beverage; this factor probably saved a few hangovers…..unlike the enormous shots of Tequila which were being conjured up by the sadistic barmen. After our appetites for exotic local ale were quenched, which didn’t take particularly long, we all headed to La Cantina for a night of trusty Quilmes, Vodka Speed (a local version of Red Bull, not the amphetamine) and DJ Liv B in the mix. 

The weekend was epic, Friday night began with the usual weekly assault by Peak Leaders on Bariloche’s steak restaurants in an effort to find the coveted ‘best Steak in town’ title; Taquina and Alberto’s were amongst the restaurants that were descended upon by the Ganit’s…...no Steer is safe in Argentina while we’re here. So on to Saturday; I’ve honestly never seen so much snow fall in 24 hours. So much snow fell that the roads up to the resort kept closing, only 2 lifts were open to the public and the Airport closed. This last point was very unfortunate for the BASI trainers who were due to land at Bariloche Airport on Saturday morning but were left circling the runway for an hour before heading back to Buenos Aires via a small airport further south. Unfortunately I can only really talk for the small number of trainees that I took up the mountain on Saturday but I’m sure they’ll agree that Saturday was one of the best days of the trip. The snow was so deep, all the way to the base of the resort, that if you fell over and lost a ski the likelihood was that you wouldn’t find it without an hour search…...as one of the crew discovered. After catching the first bus up the mountain; myself, Charlie ‘Bad Boy’ Baddeley, Will ‘Honeyboy’ Murphy, Dan ‘Bling Bling’ Hunt and Michael ‘Kenya’ Davies ditched the girls and beat a large gang of young American Snowboarders to the untouched powder in-between the trees….you’ll have to look at the photos to get a clearer understanding of how much fun we had. After a couple of runs through the trees to the base of the resort we decided to build a jump onto a snow-covered tree stump so the guys could get some decent photos for the album. During this kicker session Michael managed to bury one of his ski’s a meter and a half under the snow and Charlie survived a human cannonball attempt, despite this it was a lot of fun. We even managed to persuade Will ‘I honestly can’t do it’ Murphy to try the jump, Will probably won’t thank me for saying he was being a bit of a wimp that day….but hey, you win some and loose some.

Sunday was another epic day but Saturday nights antics meant that a few too many trainees didn’t make it up the hill early enough to make the most of the blue sky’s and ridiculously deep powder. True to form the Snowboarders, particularly David and Gavan, were probably camping outside the lift station in an effort to get the first, freshest lines down the mountain. Later that afternoon the BASI trainers arrived, tired but surprisingly upbeat. At the end of the day we all gathered for Sunday night’s general meeting where the trainers (Roy, Les, Ben, Blair, Rob, Andy and Julian) were introduced and chatted through the following weeks schedule and course content.

Monday was a big day for everybody…..it was everybody’s introduction to BASI and all the trainees were keen to impress. Unfortunately the weather that week had other plans; I’m not exaggerating when I say that it rained solidly for the entire week, washing all the snow at the base of the resort away, turning all that beautiful powder to a crusty and sometimes slushy mess. In fact so much rain fell and snow melted that the water level in Lago Gutierrez raised a meter in just four days. Nevertheless, if there was a week when the BASI trainers could get away with poor weather and snow conditions it was this week as the trainees would be getting to grips with the central theme; this comprises of the building blocks that all BASI instructors use to teach their students to control speed, direction and line. The week generally consisted of time spent on the nursery slopes working on the trainees’ central theme, a couple of assessed teaching sessions, a small bit of work on Piste performance and theory and video feedback in the evenings. As I stated at the beginning of the blog all of the trainees managed to pass their BASI level 1 despite the challenging conditions; which means I’m now looking after 63 official BASI instructors! Friday night was spent in Alberto’s sampling fine Argentine wine and Steak, yet again, then on to South Bar and finally Cantena. Unfortunately Saturday was a bit of a wash-out but above 1400m the snow fell fairly heavily which meant that Sunday, although a bit windy, was another beautiful day with great snow. The majority of trainees made it up the hill and those that didn’t really missed out. After a great day on the hill Ivan organised a party at the hotel; we had a huge BBQ (Argentine style) and Bariloche’s best Tango band and Tango instructors showing the trainees some moves. Claire and David made it look sickeningly easily, Aine and Michael really struggled to get to grips with the steps and Flavio stunned the female population of the course with his extreme dance moves…..I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s on Brazil’s version of ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ once the course finishes.

Finally on to this week’s antics; perhaps the most noticeable change is that the weather has been absolutely amazing. Blue skies, pisted runs, grippy snow and warm afternoons; the best conditions possible for the trainees to progress. All of the trainees have improved dramatically over the past few days and are now skiing/riding like instructors, fingers crossed they can keep improving throughout the weekend ready for Monday. During the evenings all the trainees have had the opportunity to chill in the sunshine besides the lake or in the water, which Rosie discovered isn’t the best of ideas, they’ve also had the opportunity to attend extracurricular lectures from the BASI trainers concerning ‘finding a job’ and ‘the route through BASI after level 2 success’. The next two weeks are really important for everybody……but I’m sure they’re ready for it!

Tom

New Zealand – Now 100% Level One & Sparkle Motion
30/08/2009

Exams being only a week away everyone has been working very hard for the duration of this week towards those. From Skiers practicing more wedge demos to boarders teaching 180s and ollies, it really is a borders life... The 2009 winter games have also been going on providing some great entertainment.

Monday morning started with the usual groan as everyone slumped from there beds and into the bus for yet another day of skiing and wedgedemos down the big easy. The boarders however went for another awesome free style day at Remarks which ended with Max pulling of a 540 and most of the others landing 360s. The following days gave us terrible weather which meant the borders retired inside, while the skiers miserably continued in the wind and rain. Tuesday night saw the opening of the world famous SPARKLE MOTION night club in Ryans Room. Huge amounts of fun was had by all. Including those who dared try Chris's Sparkle Motion special which included the special ingredient Listerine, the night was very messy, George.

On Thursday, the Level One retakes began. It finished today, Sunday, and I'm happy to report all 7 passed. That makes it 100% pass rate for Peak Leaders at Level One this year!!!

On Friday, thankfully there was 10cm of snow as the temperatures have been a little high recently. This meant the boarders spent the day doing jumps,  while the skiers were ripping it up on the big easy doing demos.

Saturday almost everyone ventured up the hill to practice for the coming exams, and later in the evening a mix of boarders and skiers ventured up the hill to go night Skiing, it was an awesome night!

Those brave enough to venture up on Sunday sourly regretted it. The two main lifts were shut due to gale force winds, and the weather was terrible. But thankfully we still have sunday night to look forward to. Being Simons 18th, the night is going to be a wee bit messy, and doubly for him having just done the Nevis Bungy, the second biggest bungy in the world.

Good luck to everyone with their Level Two exams, the skiers start on Tuesday, and the boarders on Friday. Being smarter and just generally better the boarders only have 5 days of examination while the skiers have to suffer through 8.

Kenya

P.S. Don't forget to checkout the facebook group for more pics of the team :-)

New Zealand – Poker, Luge & Synchro
23/08/2009

The poker tournament on Tuesday was a thoroughly good night all round, when the majority of the group took part in all their glory. This turned out to become a dress up affair including a TellyTubby and a Pimp care of Ryan and Max. This went on through the night and beyond, culminating in Joe being the winner followed by Bob in second and Simon in third. Further games then carried on until the hotel was about to start serving the next morning’s breakfast.

Wednesday saw Gavin’s group up Coronet with another day of training with, yet again, copious stupid comments from Karl. For those not at school an adventure took place including Robin, Little Chris, James G, Posh Alex and Simon... Little Chris decided that he was too insane for the gondola so walked up the hill going the wrong way up the extreme downhill mountain bike track under the threat of possum traps, construction sites and the odd orcses.

Friday saw the infamous synchro skiing competition with everyone, including our rivals that cannot be named. However, in the morning there were a few individuals a little worse for wear as their A-Level results were released the night before, *cough Mark cough!*

Toddy’s group decided that it was a fancy dress affair, and thus scored bonus points for originality to make up for the lack of any synchronisation in the actual skiing. Robin also managed to score a one in a million photo of the Tellytubby and Noel Baxter on the T-Bar in the background. This followed an amazing spread of food for lunch at Heidi’s Hut where everyone easily had their fill. The day ended with the following result: 1st – Robynne’s Dirty Rotten Rotators, 2nd – Wah United and 3rd – Toddy’s Tellytubbies.

Saturday loomed with another run for Robin, Tim, The Cannon, and George with some excellent finishes from Robin coming 2nd in the 5k and The Cannon coming 5th in the 10km, improving on his time from the last race with a pained look on his face suggesting he may actually be part human rather than all machine that we suspected. The rest of the group followed in the footsteps of those that went up the gondola on Wednesday to have an awesome day luging.

The week has ended with a few minor injuries from luging and general aches and pains from many of the group from the large amount of training. So the weekend has been a relatively sombre affair compared to previous weeks in preparation for exams starting, for some with Level 1, on Thursday – eek! 

Hope all is well back home,

M :-)

P.S. Don't forget to checkout the copious amount of other photos on the facebook group!!!

Whistler Mountain Bike Instructor Development Camp – Crankworx and The End
21/08/2009

The end of the couse has unfortunately arrived. It was an awesome time, and I'm fairly sure I'll catch some of the crew back next year in the bike park, some as bike guides. We were given official bike guide uniforms by Tom, the supervisor of the Bike Park, to celebrate passing the exams. Crankworx kicked off and was totally awesome. We did some volunteer marshalling for some of the race also.

Cheers have to go out to Mike, our amazing coach, and to Tom for all his support too. Thanks also to Whistler Bike Park, and to all the Peak Leades crew on the course!

Argentina – Will & Matt\'s Blog
19/08/2009

Tom ‘The Bomb’ Peak Leaders/Ewbank has had a bout of laziness since last week, so he has decided to pay me, Will ‘Honeyboy’ Murphy and Matt ‘Power’ Brauer two pesos each (that’s around forty pence) to write this blog. Of Course, I jest; the truth is that we felt that Tom’s role in a flat structure organization such as Peak Leaders didn’t constitute the level of responsibility that writing such an extensive body of text entails, and so we decided that it needed to be more of a ‘group effort’ (Tom – ‘well done for listening in the ILM lectures boys……but I lied, it was a hypothetical flat structure……Bariloche 09 is a hierarchical structure with me at the top and you two clowns at the very bottom’).

Young love, Matt & Will having an intimate moment

Monday was crap. Pure and simple. We spent the entire day hiking up the mountain and then snowploughing down. Whilst everyone showed certain amount of disdain for this malicious and tedious exercise, we were all constantly reminded of how this was ‘essential’ to the learning process, which it probably is, but it wasn’t much fun to say the least. It’s safe to say that the beginning of this week marked the beginning of ‘learning how to be ski instructors’. (Tom – ‘As you all know stopping and controlling speed is a fairly important part of learning to Ski, unfortunately both Will and Matt were a little rusty’)

Colo and some of the instructors

More good news – for those of you that have spent copious amounts of cash on your sons and daughters to ‘learn how to be good leaders’ the ILM course is now well underway. With great thanks to The Bomb’s late night efforts, we’re all now experts in the differences between teams and groups and the advantages and disadvantages of negative, positive AND constructive feedback. Imagine that! We just feel sorry for the poor people that aren’t learning such important life lessons as these. (Tom – ‘cheque is in the post Will’)

Tuesday was much the same as Monday, in that the snow was not only very finite, but also more akin to water than actual snow. There was one chairlift open, one poma, and just the one run, of which we took full profit, along with the other 600 holiday makers to whom Bariloche is currently home. To add insult to injury Will had the pleasure of skiing directly over a tree root, a mere two yards from the restaurant, which unbeknownst to us at the time, would be the last place we stopped that day.

Wednesday, the whole resort was closed (Tom – ‘On this day some trainees went swimming in the morning and everybody went for a meal in Bariloche for lunch’)

Whilst it may appear that we are being decidedly nihilistic, in all seriousness, the first part of the last week was somewhat disappointing. But later that evening, lady luck started to play into everyone’s favour (well ours, at least; after a night out on the town a small squadron of elite drinkers decided it would be a great idea to wake up half the hotel on time of arrival… at 3 in the morning. Resulting in a small cut on Rod’s right hand, a fat lip for Kit, an embarrassed Rosie, a screaming Milla, a petrified Sophie, an unimpressed Ben and a very angry Judith). (Tom – ‘Very lucky that I’m a heavy sleeper and that Rod (aka Big Dog) went easy on you’)

The winning streak continued into Thursday, which promised copious amounts of snowfall and some quite magnificent powder skiing through tree lines and other more challenging endeavors than Monday’s snowploughing had provided. Rod ended the day face-first in a shrub, which was the cherry on top of a cake of a day. Lara would like us to mention that she did a grab of some sort (Snowboard trick), she assures us that the ‘photo is on its way’. (Lara - 'Hi Mum').

We were even lucky enough to witness this trend continue into Friday, which brought about yet more good snow, with the small price to pay of fingers so cold they felt as though they may just drop off. The lack of time spent on the hill during the early part of the week was made up for to some extent by an uncharacteristic early start on Saturday for a little more instructed skiing.

Saturday night was messy. Barnaby Fry finally turned 18, and what could be more appropriate to celebrate than an ‘I love the 90’s’ themed night. He was born in the 90’s, so it works…..Sort of. Anyway, people made their best efforts to dress as if brit-pop was still rife, but to be honest, it tended just to involve people wearing the least ordinary clothes they had brought with them from the U.K. – an underlying dress code that will most likely dominate future themed nights. Nevertheless, the birthday boy definitely had a good time. As did most people, which was indicated by the subsequent lack of bodies at breakfast the next morning. (Tom – ‘I’d like to mention that a small group of the more mature and culturally experienced trainees, pictured below, went to the ‘Fiesta de las Colectividades Europeo Argentinas’ where they proceeded to drink every drink in the European backcatalogue and represent the UK, who hadn't been invited to take-part in the celebrations. Unsuprisingly Will and Matt found themselves in a cheesy/sleezy nightclub as usual’)

Until next time…

Lots of love Matt and Will....................(and Tom)
xxxxxx

New Zealand – Demos & Heli-Shoosh
16/08/2009

 As the second week of level two training kicked in, the potential instructors settled in for another hard week of intensive skiing/riding. Imagine then the skiers disappointment after spending three of our valuable four days on the baby slopes doing, wait for it, more wedge demos! A week of these and the new fangled Wedge Christies was enough to dampen the mood. Tuesday was particularly bad due to rain and low-lying cloud – tempers ran high with surly students and impatient trainers (Todd nearly caused an avalanche after screaming across the piste at Bruno). It wasn’t all bad news though; due to the rain the boarders probably just went home!

After a very technical few days our spirits were restored with a go-mission on the heli-shoosh day (shoosh being the correct term for skiing and snowboarding together). The group gathered for a 7.30am start only to have this delayed for two hours whilst the guides inspected the runs. Finally we were split into our groups and headed off into the backcountry. Froggy (Chris Thorpe) was terrified of his first helicopter experience and his face was a picture as he took off in the first helicopter headed to the Heli-4 expert slopes. Other notable nerves came from me, Ben Thomas, I found myself in a group with my instructor, examiner and the training director (eek) and whose guide was an ex powder ski champion. Ryan was concerned that the helicopters might not have the high standard of luxury that he was used to when flying to and from the Tully mansion.

The snow was hard work at the top of the slope and very soggy at the bottom but in the middle of each run was near perfect powder. Settlements (a precursor to an avalanche but without the snow actually falling) and scary landings aside, it was a fantastic day. ‘M’ managed to bury her entire body bar her head under the snow and Tim did a fantastic – and possibly not deliberate – jump over a 15 foot cliff. Well-done Tim… Robin managed to take over 250 photos of the groups, not to mention his head-cam footage and Froggy is now a helicopter enthusiast.

All in all a productive week with a fantastic ending – without a doubt Saturday was most people’s best day of the course so far. With just two weeks to go until the final exams, the nerves are kicking in and the nostalgia of the days gone by begin to emerge.

Bring on level two,

Ben T.

P.S. Checkout the facebook group for a large amount of pics :-)

Whistler Mountain Bike Instructor Development Camp – Level 2 results!
11/08/2009

Congratulations to everyone! We all passed the tough Level 2 course.... Yeeeah! Everyone is super stoked, and the last couple of days have been a good celebration.

We now have the next week to enjoy the epic event that is Crankworx. A week and a half long meet of the best bikers in the world, with 50 000 spectators squaming Whistler. We've also got a couple more days of coaching and some big freerides to come, so stay tuned for more photos and video!

New Zealand – Avalanche & Freestyle Training
09/08/2009

After a hard week with the level one exam and celebrations, week 5 started with our first freestyle day up at Remarkables. We had such good conditions after the weekend’s snowfall that the day became a mixture of Off Piste and Park, with the emphasis on a fun day. We managed to escape the day with no major injuries, just a few minor sprains and bruises which was a result. Holly Wright embarked on a series of head plants for the week that has left her with a “duelling scar” (Rumour has it Toddy thumped her, it may be true as he has been absent and in hiding from Ben ever since) The 1st being a 50 metre face plant and roll off a cornice at the top of the Shadow chair, also closely followed by Mark Jackson who managed a greater distance but had nil points for style.

Tuesday had the start of our Avalanche Awareness course with an evening session lecture followed by a full day in the mountain with the Ski Patrol learning how to recognise risk and use the Avalanche Transceivers’. I think most found it interesting and useful, but it has led to the quote of the week courtesy of George Howell, when the group were asked what they had learnt, he replied “how to dig holes in the snow”. Chris Thorpe and Ben Thomas volunteered to be buried and spent time in the cold and dark. Rather them than me. Thursday and Friday had more short radius turns followed by more short radius turns. Freddie Groom has discovered that his balls aren’t big enough, and he has to ski like he has huge ones!!! On Friday night was the "Rail Jam", which means that copious amounts of skiers and snowboarders jump on to rails and try to pull off the best trick.

There was no bowling this week as the alleys were booked up with paying punters. It was just as well as the current record holder was feeling a wee bit tired, and couldn’t wait until he got back to his room to throw out a few Z‘s. 

For a few, a hard weeks skiing is never quite enough, 4 of our intrepid “wanna be” instructors, all skiers (apparently the boarders were either not up for or to it) decided to enter a 10km race at Jacks Point on Saturday morning. A bit of friendly rivalry between The Roadrunner (Robin Phillips) and Mike “Top Gun” Cannon, with Top Gun being challenged by the Roadrunners previous best of 38 Minutes. Saturday saw battle commence under a blood red sky, a dry but cold day, with a glorious red sunrise for those that were up to see it. The race got off to a fast start with an early lead being taken by The Road Runner. By the 6km mark The Road Runner had dropped back but The Top Gun was still going strong in what transpired to be his 1st 10km race.

The race winner came in at 35minutes followed in 5th place by the Top Gun with a very commendable 39m 50s, sub 40 minutes in his 1st race – Well done. Followed in by Road Runner, George Howell and a limping James Gould, who twisted his ankle at the 6KM mark but still hobbled in with a creditable, sub 60 minute time. The next race is in 2 weeks time will any boarders be up for the challenge? And can anyone better the Top Guns time, if anyone can Cannon can!! 

Sunday was Avalanche training for the rest of the group who didn’t do it on Wednesday, and we had a far better day for it weather wise, although there were a few sorry looking souls that made it onto the bus after a very late Saturday night out, with Nick Kempster deciding that he needed to soak a few rays half way through the morning. Not content at this later in the day Nick decided on all over tan was an essential to complement the goggle tan, but modesty and censorship prevents me from showing more, we just hope someone remembered to slap on some sunscreen.

Over and out,

Tim Watkins

P.S. Don't forget to checkout the facebook group for more pics of the team!!!

Argentina – Week Uno
09/08/2009

So it’s been a week since I last submitted a blog and I’m sure you’re all itching to here what everybody has been up to.....

Last week I finished the blog telling you that it had been raining down at the hotel and was hoping that this rain would be falling as snow in the resort. Well, that night it snowed up at the top of the resort so our first day was spent dipping in and out of the pockets of powder on Cerro Cathedral’s wide open slopes. The first thing that really strikes you about Cerro Cathedral is that the resort is surprisingly big; on the piste map 1000 vertical meters of skiable mountain doesn’t seem much when compare to an Alpine resort but you can find yourself skiing/riding for quite a while before you have to jump back on a lift. Also, during the week the slopes and lifts are practically empty so you can end up covering a fair distance during a day.

After a morning spent navigating the resort with our guides and looking specifically at the rules and regulations imposed by the FIS (Federation International de Ski) we headed to the mountain restaurant for a hearty meal and a welcome glass of Champagne. Once we’d all topped-up our energy levels we headed out for another few runs before taking the chairlift down the mountain as the poor snow-cover meant that 2/3 of the resort was closed. That night the team had their first mountain safety lecture delivered by one of Bariloche’s mountain guiding legends and all-round nice guy Nico. Although there were a few heavy eyes the lecture was incredibly interesting and hopefully gave the guys a much stronger understanding of how and why avalanches occur; I know that I walked away with a much better understanding. After dinner the majority of trainees hit the hay in preparation for another busy day.

When I woke on Tuesday morning I knew by looking at the sky that there was about to be a big dump of snow; if I’d been in the UK I’d of run outside and bough my washing in…..which is surprising coming from somebody who almost always gets it wrong and ends –up with wet clothes. In Patagonia the locals can tell that it’s about to snow if the Condor’s are circling the resort at the bottom of the mountain and sure enough, before catching the first lift up the mountain, we could see these elegant 9ft wide birds gliding majestically above our heads. Anyway, Tuesday was to be spent navigating Cerro Cathedral’s slopes and getting to grips with using avalanche rescue equipment. During the morning the trainees were introduced to using an avalanche transceiver, probing the snow for body’s and shovelling effectively; you’d be surprised to what extent the trainees struggled with the shovelling part! At the end of the day I descended the hill safe in the knowledge that if there was any chance I’d be avalanched in Argentina I had a team of guys that would be able to find me quickly and effectively…..although in the time they’d take to dig me out of the snow the likelihood is that I’d be frozen solid! That night, after another mountain safety lecture and dinner, a large group of trainees descended upon Bariloche for what turned out to be quite an eventful night for a few of the trainees. I almost forgot to mention that throughout Tuesday day and night the snow fell very heavily; so much so that snow had fallen as low as the hotel and 40cm of snow had fallen at the base of the resort.

At Wednesday morning’s breakfast a few of the trainees looked like they’d been tortured the night before…so much for the ‘few social drinks’ that had been promised at Tuesday’s dinner. Needless to say the programme ‘stops for no man…..or woman’ so after a few pints of Coffee and a long and slightly confused stare at their cereal the trainees made their way to the meeting room, (aka; Peaks Club, Club House, Hall of Love, Room of Doom, etc etc), for the first of the First-Aid lectures. Throughout the day I was surprised at how enthusiastic and involved the trainees were in the many drills and exercises. As an instructor you are always taught that the safety of the group is paramount and that ultimately a client’s life is your responsibility so I was pleased to see that the younger trainees were taking their responsibilities very seriously.

As Wednesday had been spent nursing hangovers and learning the basics of First-Aid in a classroom environment the trainees were very happy to be heading up the mountain on Thursday morning. At the base of the resort we were greeted by a snow-line that now continued all the way down to the resort, it had previously stopped 400m from the base meaning that skiers had to get a chairlift or Gondola back down the hill. Coincidentally Thursday was the first day that the sun was out and we could see the true beauty and splendour of Patagonia; I’m not exaggerating when I say that every view, from literally anywhere on the mountain, could have been a postcard. Throughout the day the mountain guides carried-out a number of exercises that gave the trainees a strong understanding of what to do if a medical emergency happened in a mountain environment…..they did a great job of holding the trainees attention, especially as there was so much powder around. Unfortunately, as group leader, I had the misfortune of having to ride between groups all day and therefore didn’t have a chance to shred the powder!!! Again lunch was fairly substantial and after food and a chat the trainees were soon bombing around the slopes trying to find the few remaining pockets of powder that I’d left them.

Friday……what a great day!! For the trainees this was the culmination of all the weeks exercises and lectures; a chance to take everything that they had learnt in the classroom and on the Piste to the backcountry. After picking-up our packed lunches from the crazy German bar/restaurant in resort and completing a few warm-up runs we unstrapped our ski’s and boards and began our hike through the deep unpisted snow to Cerro Cathedral’s hidden powder-filled slopes. About half way through the hike the trainees were split into their groups and were lectured on the different ways to monitor the profile of the snow; this is how resort staff and guides measure the stability of the snow…..you’ll all be pleased to know that on this particular day the snow was very very stable. With Nico, Jimmy, Craig, Colo and Lucas’s knowledge imparted we all climbed higher up the mountain where we took a break to eat our packed lunch. After lunch some of the trainees descended the backcountry to the frozen lake where they dug their own snow profiles and some of the other trainees, including me, followed Nico to the top of the mountain through a labyrinth of Rock’s and steep slopes. After a twenty minute hike we reached the summit where we had an unbelievable view of the resort and a great opportunity to take photo’s….not that anybody remembered to bring their camera! The ride back down the mountain was great fun and it was many of the trainees first attempt at riding a relatively steep and exposed section of off-piste; despite this they all skied/boarded very well and there were only a few tumbles which all ended in smiles and laughter……shortly followed by mockery and banter from the group. A special mention must go to Lara who ended upside-down on more than one occasion and who, whilst riding through the trees, managed to fall over a tree stump and down a hole only to be suspended by her board being caught on the aforementioned stump….in typical Lara fashion I found her giggling and completely unfazed by her ordeal!

On Friday night we all headed-out to a restaurant in Barlioche to celebrate Michael, Claire and Colo’s birthdays. A few drinks later the restaurant descended into chaos and the star attraction was no longer the steak but the vast array of previously undiscovered Argentine shooters. After the candles were blown out on the cakes everybody left the restaurant, to the owners relief, and made their way via a number of bars to Pacha where they mingled with Bariloche aristocracy, threw drinks on one another, fell asleep and danced with resident ballroom dancer and Peak Leaders trainee Rodhri. A good night was had by all which could be confirmed by the three people that managed to make it to breakfast on Saturday morning. Saturday was a very relaxed affair where some trainees made it to the mountain and went to the local swimming pool but the majority stayed in bed. Today promises to be the same as the training really goes up a couple of gears next week; as I write this blog I can hear a number of trainees planning a swim in the lake…..I better go and keep an eye on them!

Adios for now,

Tom (Group Leader)