100% exam pass rate, record snow, in the Dive & Wild West and the 80′s
Posted on March 25, 2012 at 5:49 pm

This week, was exam week for the Banff Peak Leaders skiers and riders, a great experience …….. if a little bit stressful!

100% PASS RATE 100% PASS RATE 100% PASS RATE 100% PASS RATE ……. EVERYONE PASSED.

Congratulations to all, the effort everyone has put into the 11 weeks of training has paid off ……. you are now CSIA & CASI Level 2 qualified instructors.

Some of the guys pre level 2 exam results…… nervous smiles?

Natasha – the smile says it all.

We  passed!!!

Kenji “the legend” ski trainer opening his thank you present.

Time to celebrate.

During the week Sunshine Village smashed its record for seasonal snowfall, the resort has had over 9 metres of snow with still 7 weeks of the season to go.

Delirium Dive and Wild West are Sunshine Villages famous off piste, big mountain, double diamond black runs.  David Sharples a former Peak Leaders Banff trainee who is now in his 4th season as a Sunshine Village ski instructor went skiing & riding with Tony from Peak Leaders in the steeps and deeps to experience some of the record snow…….

David picking his line

Dropping in.

Powder face shots

After the stress of exam week time to relax…… Noquay Ski Area had an 80′s theme day with 80′s classic music playing all over the hill and bright & tight onesie ski suits out in force. Cameron, Emily, Grace & Andrea crew joined in the retro look…

For those of us old enough to remember these outfits were the height of fashion back in the day!

We have one week left on the course, time for everyone to hit the park, steeps, powder, apres, Sunshine Village, Norquay & Lake Louise and maybe Kicking Horse.

It is going to be hard giving up our office for the past 11 weeks -

DID I MENTION EVERYONE PASSED THEIR LEVEL 2 EXAMS?????????

Powder, Sunshine and Helicopters
Posted on March 13, 2012 at 3:02 am

As the Peak Leaders Banff group left their hotel to find Banff Avenue covered in fresh snow the question was asked  “if it has snowed this much down here what will it be like up the hill?”

Andy soon found out….. waist deep in powder on Standish

Billy’s smile says it all…… fresh perfect Rockies POWDER

Fresh tracks for all……

Life on a Ski & Snowboard instructor training course is often a Roller Coaster…… in this case it was!

After all the powder we had the warmest day of the season at Norquay Ski Area – Scott in shirt sleeve order….. unheard of in Banff.

Every Banff ski area has a Bra Tree…… the female members of the course admiring others handy work of throwing bras onto the tree from the chair lift above

Cameron grabbing a bit of air on an early morning ride

He followed this by going heli boarding at the weekend…… he is living the dream!

The skiers and riders are into the last week of their training before their Level 2 exams next week.

Time to put it all together.

Big couple of weeks!

4 weeks and counting……
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 3:51 am

The Peak Leaders Banff 2012 course is at the 8 weeks point and only 4 weeks to go.

The ski & snowboard groups are deep in training for the level 2 instructor exams and we have had continues dumps of fresh snow which has made the conditions go from good to amazing at Sunshine Village.

Ski trainer Kenji watching Andy’s bump skiing …………

As part of the training the group skied the GS gates for the morning to work on edge and pressure control

Grace carving it up.

In the last 48 hours Sunshine has had 64cm of fresh snow

Billy J floating through the powder.

Tony chest deep.

The forecast is for more snow over the next few days.

On the apres ski front Natasha was the star of the mechanical bull riding evening (many years of pony club paid off) ……..

until the operator had decided she had been on long enough…….

with everyone working hard on their skiing, snowboarding and bull riding the food at the hotel restaurant is just what the group needs……..

Where did those 8 weeks go? Powder days, training, partying, more training, ice hockey, level 1 exams (100% pass rate) noodles for lunch, umm ribs & steak for dinner and even more training.

4 week left……. training, powder, delirium drive double black diamond?, LEVEL 2 EXAMS and much more. Excellent.

Steeps, bumps and Park
Posted on February 19, 2012 at 8:27 pm

Post CASI/CSIA level 1 success for all of the Peak Leaders Banff group has been about steeps, deeps and park.

The riders have been hitting the park daily.

Billy J hitting the boxes and big kickers…..

The skiers used their big 3 lift passes for a day of steeps and bumps at Lake Louise Ski Area with their bump slaying trainer Kenji.

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Skiing the steep back chutes at Lake Louise

The early morning crew of Tony, Billy B and Andy got the first lift up and fresh tracks in the Sunshine Village powder.

Banff is in the middle of one of the most beautiful national parks in the world. And some times it is not only the humans who use the pedestrian crossings to get across Banff Avenue!

Thursday was freestyle training day for the skiers……. after a bumpy start the guys were loving it!

Moral of the story is …….. don’t lean back when sliding on a box!

Once you find the “Gorilla centred stance” all is good…..

Rob “rocking” it

Anna riding the rainbow box

Emily laid down the most stylish 180′s of the day. Here she is half way round on the ‘star trek’ kicker

Level 2 training is being cranked up and everyone on the course are showing what 6 weeks of training can do to their skiing and riding.

Week 7 here we come…..

Banff week 2 – the big chill
Posted on January 23, 2012 at 3:57 am

After the warm weather on week 1 of the course. Mother nature came back with vengeance……. with day time temps of -31 for 3 days running.

In fact for 2 days Sunshine Village could not run the lifts for 2 of the days as it was just toooooo cold.

Most of the team stayed indoors. However, Tony, Natasha and Andrea braved the cold and went to Lake Louise and enjoyed some awesome snow. With wind chill the temp was -47 at the top of the gondola!

Look into my eyes….. it’s cold out there.

With Sunshine Village shivering in the big chill several of the group went to Norquay and had a deserted hill all to themselves

Thursday was 1st Aid training and after a day of learning everything from dealing with a heart attack to someone who has had a stroke the guys all successfully passed the exam.

Billy Bob about to begin CPR practice

Banffs top ski shop- Soul, Ski & Bike ran a ski and board tuning clinic on Thursday night and the guys learnt how to p-tex, edge and wax skis and boards….. no blaming equipment when falling over from now on!

wax on wax off

Friday morning was SNOWPLOUGHING with Kenji for the skiers….. amazing how difficult it is to do a snowplough with the correct technique and make it look natural (Kenji has no problems with either).

snowplough, snowplough, snowplough

Its the weekend……. late breakfast, perfect snow, time to catch some air …….

Cam grabbing it

Emily going loooong

Old skool trick but Andy is going big

Banff 2012 week 1
Posted on January 16, 2012 at 5:13 am

The Peak Leaders Banff 2012 group arrived to find Banff and Alberta having a mini heat wave…… day time temperatures in Banff were above freezing….unheard of for January.

Banff 2012 crew

This seasons base is the Rundlestone Lodge Hotel with its huge rooms, swimming pool and hot tub and breakfasts and dinners of Canadian size portions. No slumming it for the Peak Leaders trainees!

The group is made up of people from all over the UK and Andrea our USA import (she is getting to grips with the Glaswegian and West Country accents!)

The legend that is Sunshine Village Ski Trainer Kenji is training the Peak Leaders ski instructor trainees again this season and has been working his magic, already transforming some ‘interesting’ skiing styles.

Kenji wearing his new Zaini beanie

Rob was having some equipment issues on the 1st day….(Kenji thought it was down to ‘operator error’) but Rob has now mastered the art of skiing with a ski attached to each boot.

Grace has fallen in love with moguls….. not!

The snowboard trainees are in rotating each week for the first 4 weeks with different trainers. Each trainer will be working on different aspects of riding.

Umm….. what was that the trainer wanted us to do?   Cameron loved riding black diamonds switch all afternoon.

Billy J dropping in

The snow has been either been powder or groomed light & grippy snow…. perfect to get the body back into either skiing or riding mode.

On the apres ski front Andy has been leading the charge to the Dancing Sasquath. Throwing down some very bizarre moves on the dance floor (please see below)

“Look at my guns”

This season the guys who signed up for Peak Leaders Big Banff get the Big 3 lift pass which includes Sunshine Village, Lake Louise and Norquay ski areas.

Sunshine Village living up to its name

So this week we had a tour around…. Thursday Sunshine, Friday Lake Louise and Saturday Norquay….. variety is the spice of life!

Perfect snow

The temperature is dropping and more snow is forecast, bring on week 2.

Life in Canada after leaving the RAF
Posted on August 19, 2011 at 3:14 pm

Andy Garnham took an active resettlement course with Peak Leaders in Banff,  Canada, training to become a ski instructor. Here is his story..

 I served for just over 20 years in the RAF as a logistics officer.  During my time in the RAF, I was fortunate enough to have 3 years as a liaison officer with the Italians, based near Milan and an hour or so from a ski resort in theAostaValley….

 Can you outline why you considered taking a 3-month ski instructor training course in Canada for your resettlement?

 My wife had lived in Canada before I met her.  We had always planned to move to Canadawhen I retired from the RAF, but the immigration offer came earlier than we expected.  We had about 8 months to organise retirement, pack up in theUK, find jobs and somewhere to live in Canada. Fortunately, we’d already done a lot of recce work and knew we wanted to live inSun Peaks, British Columbia and we had looked at the job market in Kamloops, the nearest city.

 I’d skied for over 20 years and was hooked.  Our plan forCanadawas to live and work in a ski area.  We found Sun Peaks almost by accident at the London Ski Show.  A lady called Nancy Greene told us Sun Peaks was a 4 Season resort and the perfect place to live.  She should know, as she lived in Sun Peaks and was a former Olympic Champion.

 A ski instructor course in Banff fitted perfectly and gave me 3 months in Canada to do job hunting and complete the immigration processes.  At least that’s what I told my wife!  Three months skiing for someone who’s always wanted to be a ski bum, was too good an opportunity to turn down.

 And why did you choose Peak Leaders in Banff in particular?

Peak Leaders was registered for Enhanced Learning Credits, so I could use these to cover some of the course costs.  They also had an excellent reputation and understood the processes associated with resettlement from the armed forces. 

You’ve finished the course successfully, could you outline the qualifications you got, the experiences you had, and maybe some of the highlights of your time in Banff?

The final week of the course was the CSIA Level 2 ski instructor assessment, which I passed.  The training leading up to the assessment was outstanding and all delivered through the ski school atSunshineVillage. 

It was interesting being a 45 year old on a course largely drawn from pre or post university gap year .  They were very inclusive and great fun to be with.  I never felt left out.  The highlight had to be a day at Kicking Horse – you get the measure of the place from the sign at the top of the gondola that simply says “Warning Cliff.”  No fence, no out of bounds.  Ski it if you can!

You have moved out to Canada full-time now, could you tell us your plans for the future?

 We’ve just bought a house in SunPeaks– it’s not quite ski-in ski-out, we have to walk about 50 metres.  It’s a great ski area, with loads of glade skiing and whole areas that are just left natural.  I had my first day on the slopes the Sunday after we finished the course and last Saturday we woke up to 40cm of fresh powder.  Suffice to say I fell out of bed and onto my skis.  

 My wife and I both work inKamloops, about 40 minutes away – I got a post as an analyst with the British Columbia Lottery, based on my experience in the RAF. I still commute to work, but 40 minutes down the valley dodging the wildlife, beats the 7.35am from Wandsworth toWaterloo.  Next season I plan to ski instruct part-time and make the most of my resettlement qualification.