BARILOCHE 2019 – WEEK 7
Game time!
After 6 weeks of skiing we’re now at the business end of the course. The Peak Leaders began their BASI level 2 exam on Monday.
Over the past month and a half they have worked hard to better their own individual skiing skills: from on-piste technique to off-piste skills, from race training to freestyle sessions – as well as learning how to deliver high quality lessons.
Now it is time for the trainees to show BASI trainer James Bennet what they can do – and they get to do it in the the amazing surroundings of Cerro Catedral.
Conditions here are still excellent and the weather is sunny, so now it’s up to the Peak Leaders to show off all their skills!
The course is run over two weeks with the middle weekend off, so it is 10 days on snow in total.
It’s a professional Ski Instructor qualification, so the focus of the course is on improving your own technical skiing and also learning how to teach clients in a safe, fun and accurate way.
The trainees are given lots of different information about how to improve their skiing and James always gives them a perfect demo so that they have a very clear idea what they are trying to achieve.
Here are some of his turns – expertly slowed down at the critical moment to show off his excellent technique!
At the weekends the Peak Leaders have a chance to relax and unwind after a tough week of skiing.
One of the many amazing things we do on this course is to go and visit an Argentine ranch and go horse-back riding!
It’s an awesome experience and getting the chance to explore the Argentinean wilderness on horses is fantastic.
Led by Ivan and the local Gauchos (cowboys) the team set out and navigate various river crossings (ok, they were streams…). S
ome of the Peak Leaders had obviously done this before and there was quite a lot of galloping going on!
And as always it’s really hard to believe that we only have one week left. The seven weeks have flown by and the Peak Leaders have one more week of skiing in Argentina left.
They’ve all worked hard to put themselves in the right place so now it’s up to them to go out and give it everything! By Friday we should see as very happy team of newly qualified ski instructors…
