Update from our ski instructor course – this week has been varied yet intense! On top of the daily training sessions with Emma and Jake from Element Concept, we’ve been learning about Avalanche Awareness and beginning the shadowing sessions with Kandahar Ski Club, meeting Les Elfes International and still managing to find time for the pub!

But hold on one second! We’ve still got a few people yet to be introduced:

Tom

Meet Tom, a strapping young lad that’s pretty much good at everything. Except controlling his facial expressions during fitness sessions…

Richard

Having spent many years in the fire service, Richard now has the opportunity to explore and enjoy the mountain lifestyle. He’s fit as a fiddle, patient (essential!) and will make a brilliant ski instructor.

Timothy

What can I say? DJ Foo in da house.

Weeks 5 and 6 of this year’s Saas Fee ski instructor course are very much merged together as we ensure that everyone is getting the most out of their time here in Switzerland. With the mountain being open to mid-station earlier than in previous years, we’re expecting a huge European winter to come! The pistes on and off the glacier here are in prime condition, ideal for perfecting those carved turns during training with Emma and Jake.

The guys have had more opportunities to do practice teaching sessions and also really get to grips with the bio-mechanics involved in high-level skiing.

The fitness sessions are really starting to pay off as everyone has continued to put in the effort from the first week so we’re seeing much better levels of fitness on and off the glacier. This is a huge help for anyone that is looking to work one, two or even 10 winter seasons in the mountains. Training at altitude with Jake is definitely a step in the right direction. These training sessions are also included on our Verbier Ski Instructor course which begins next month!

Autumn is definitely here in full force – the trees around the valley have turned fiery orange and yellows which means winter can’t be far away now!

Off the mountain, on top of everything else the newly qualified instructors have started to receive more and more job offers and interviews with ski schools around the world. Tom is all set for winter in Verbier, Rosie is getting good practice on her interviewing skills, Louisa has offers from ski schools in Japan and Sula has been offered pretty much every job in Canada!

This course is always very successful because when you decide to train pre-season in Saas Fee with Peak Leaders, you already have a drive to succeed and a very realistic goal to achieve. Knowing that you could be going straight from this course into a fully paid ski instructor job is a huge incentive!

This is why we have a great relationship with Les Elfes International in Verbier. Les Elfes regularly hire Peak Leaders trainees from our Argentina, Saas Fee (Check out how Abi got on last year) and Verbier courses because they know first-hand the quality of training that is provided. This week we had a visit from Adam, one of the managers at Les Elfes who came to meet the instructors and give them plenty of useful information.

At the weekend we had another visitor in Daniel Tomaschek. He came from Austria to deliver a fun and engaging Avalanche Awareness Course which aimed to introduce the group to various safety issues when skiing in the mountains. Everyone learnt something new and had a chance to practice using transceivers, shovels and probes.

Next week (week 6) we will begin shadowing Kandahar Ski Club, continue training towards Level 2 (which is only a few weeks away now!) and enjoy some down time in the beautiful alps.

If all this chat has further tempted you to book a course with us, why not check out our Verbier option, which starts on the 27th November 2016. You’ll be trained by Emma and Jake, and also, like Saas Fee, there’s jobs on offer for the REST of the season with Les Elfes.