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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

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