New zealand Blog 2010

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!!!

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 :-)

 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 :-)