How Often to Wax Skis

I have often been asked how often skis need waxing, but there really is no hard and fast rule. It depends on what the skis are used for, how much use they get, what the snow conditions are like, and how much the skier values the feeling of using fast grippy skis, versus the effort or expense of having them serviced.

Waxing frequently makes the skis run faster, and can protect and prolong the life of the bases. Waxing too often is not a bad thing, unless using high-fluoro waxes which can dry out the bases.

Frequent edging, on the other hand, whilst keeping the skis sharp and grippy, wears out the edges as metal is removed each time. When tuning the edges often, it is important to shave off the minimum amount of material, using a diamond file for example. This way it is possible for the edges to wear more slowly than if they were filed extensively from a blunt state after being left for some time.

A well tuned ski feels very different from one that is not, and so the simplest answer as to when to service skis is when they feel like they need it.

The table below shows how often I would tune different types of skis in my collection. It might act as a rough guide, but should also illustrate how much variation there is between skis I use for different purposes, and between skis where precise performance is more or less important.

Ski	Service frequency
Race Skis, used for racing or race training.	After each day of use
Piste performance skis, detuned race skis or carvers	Every week or two
Freestyle skis	Once or twice a season
Off piste or touring skis	When they feel like they need it, i.e. when the edges are blunt or burred, or lacking grip on firm snow, or when they run slowly on flat sections

Most Expensive Beer

I thought I had to give a mention to the Tremplan restaurant in Alp D'Huez for charging the most I have ever paid for a pint of beer in a ski resort, or anywhere else for that matter. 7.40 Euros for a half litre of Kronenbourg with my lunch - I'm glad I didn't go for a decent beer. I am aware that in some parts of the world, and even in this part of the world in certain clubs, beer can cost significantly more again, but for someone used to 3 Euros in Andorra and maybe 6 Euros in the French Alps, over 7 Euros seems pretty excessive for a pretty normal restaurant in the village.

Please feel free to comment on relative price of beer at your local ski areas around the world. It would be great to find out the cheapest and most expensive resorts worldwide.

End of the Season

Well, the ski season is drawing to a close here in Andorra, with some resorts closing tomorrow and others a week later. As always there is plenty of snow, particularly on the higher slopes. Unusually though, the resorts have remained busy right up until the end of the season. Most years April is quiet in Arinsal and the rest of Andorra, and we get to have a few weeks enjoying snow and the sun before closing day. This year though I have been teaching classes until today, and have worked far more hours than ever before in April. The rest of the season was a little quieter than previous year, which was not unexpected due to the economic situation. It seems a lot of people who had held off booking a ski holiday decided at the last minute to go anyway.

We also had a lot of visitors recently who were on their second trip of the season to Arinsal. Some people actually commented that two weeks here cost the same as one in the Alps, It seems that in some ways the recession has helped us to extend our working season as people look for a cheaper end of season option.

Just to sign off, here is a photo of the view from our balcony - sunshine and snowy mountains...

Support Vancouver

As I am sure everybody knows, the Winter Olympic Games began in Vancouver last weekend. This is a once in four year event and is a showcase for winter sports around the globe. Yet I went into my local bar this evening, in a ski resort, and the Winter Olympics coverage took second place to Everton in the Uefa cup. European club football is considered more important than the Olympics, in a ski resort in Andorra - even though the Andorrans are competing in the Olympics but not in the Uefa cup.

There are football games every week of every year from August until June. The Olympics are two weeks every four years. So please, all you skiing, skating, bobsleigh or luge fans out there, demand that your local pub puts on Eurosport or whichever channel is showing the Olympics where you are in the world, and ask them to put football in second place for just two weeks in every two hundred and eight. For many of these athletes, Vancouver is the pinacle of their career - the least we can do is support them and admire their skill.

Ski Instructor Qualifications

I originally wrote this overview of ski and snowboard instructor qualifications in June 2007, but as there have been some changes since then it seems worth publishing a revised version.

I am going to look at the various levels of ski (and snowboard) instructor qualification and the letters you might see after people's names. I realise most people booking into ski school don't think about the qualifications of the instructor too much. However, advanced skiers/riders might want to look for a higher level instructor to fine tune your technique. Often the adverts for higher level ski or snowboard courses have a barrage of qualifications to convince you how good the instructors are. Hopefully the info below will help make sense of things.

In general, there are three or four tiers of qualifications for ski or snowboard instructors. There are also separate schemes for coaching (race or freestyle). Each country has it's own instructors' organisation (or sometimes more than one). In addition, the ISIA exists to oversee the national organisations and allow the exchange of ideas. Currently the ISIA has 38 member states and sets minimum standards for obtaining the ISIA Stamp and Card

Firstly then, abbreviations for the various instructing organisations you may see -

BASI - British Associoation of Snowsport Instructors
CSIA - Canadian Ski Instructors Alliance
CASI - Canadian Association of Snowboard Instructors
CSCF - Canadian Ski Coaches Federation

NZSIA - New Zealand Snowsport Instructors Association
PSIA - Professional Ski Instructors of America
ISIA - International Ski Intructors Association

And some non-English speaking organisations for comparison



EFPEM - Escola de Formació de Professions Esportives i de Muntanya d'Andorra
ENSA - Ecole National de Ski et d'Alpinism (France)
AADIDES - Asociación Argentina de Instructores de Esquí y Snowboard

Okay, so what are the levels and how do they compare? The following lists start with the most basic qualifications and work up to the most advanced, with coaching qualifications tagged on the end. The list is not exhaustive, but hopefully it may clarify some confusion over the long list of instructor qualifications in existence. The qualifications listed under each heading may be considered roughly equivalent to one another, although the details will vary.

Foundation Level (able to teach beginners up to snowplough turns, including artificial slope qualifications)
BASI Level 1 Instructor (Formerly Foundation or Trainee), CSIA 1, NZSIA 1, PSIA 1

Instructor Level (able to teach parallel turns and beyond. Requires a good level of personal skiing and teaching)
BASI Level 2 Instructor (Formerly Instructor or Grade 3), CSIA 2, NZSIA 2, PSIA 2, EFPEM Nivell 1, AADIDES 1

ISIA Stamp Level (Internationally recognised standard. International minimum standards. Able to teach to a high level. Requires a high level of personal skiing and teaching. Should include off-piste awareness and a coaching element)
BASI Level3 Instructor ISIA (formerly Grade 2), CSIA 3*, NZSIA 3, PSIA 3, French Stagiere, AADIDES 2, EFPEM 2

Note that although the CSIA 3 is considered to be at about this level only CSIA 4 holders now recieve the ISIA Stamp in the Canadian system


ISIA Card/Eurogroup Level (Highest level certification. Eurogroup recognition. Requires a very high level of personal skiing and teaching)
BASI Level 4 ISTD (International Ski Teacher Diploma, formerly Grade 1), French National Diploma, Austrian National Diploma, Italian Maestro de Sci






According to the ISIA, "Snow sports instructors with the highest national training from the following countries already meet the ISIA minimum standard for the ISIA card:

Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Japan, Great Britain,
Italy, Holland, Spain, Switzerland."


However only the European countries on this list are fully recognised across Europe.
 
Coaching Qualifications (Not strictly instructing qualifiacations, these are for race coaches etc.)
APC 1, APC 2, CSCF 1, CSCF 2, BASI Development Coach

Updated 12th April 2011

Ski teaching - a viable career?

I was recently sent an email from a reader of this blog who is considering dropping his university course to pursue a career teaching skiing year round. He wanted to know how easy it would be to make a sustainable career as a ski instructor. I am sure plenty of other people have asked themselves the same question so I thought I would post my my answer below.


Firstly, to put it bluntly, it is not easy to make a sustainable living as a ski instructor, particularly if you plan to do two winters a year. It is very difficult to break even working in the Southern hemisphere when you consider the cost of a return flight. You should also consider that at most
you can work around 8 months a year - 5 in the Northern hemisphere and 3 in the Southern. Starting as a newly qualified instructor with a low level qualification will put you at the bottom of the priority list wherever you work, meaning less hours and a lower rate of pay.

All that said, it is possible to make a long term career out of skiing as long as you are prepared to work at it and don't expect it to be easy. You can have a lot of fun along the way as well.

Firstly, you have to like teaching - loving skiing is not enough if you find that you spend all you teaching hours wishing you were out skiing for yourself. You will spend a lot of time on the beginner slopes, particularly to start with, and there will not be too many days like the photo above. I find teaching beginners a lot of fun, and very rewarding, although it is good to teach higher level classes as well. If you don't get a buzz out of turning a first timer into a competent skier then ski teaching probably isn't for you. If you can, try and get some experience teaching or
shadowing at your local artificial slope before deciding to drop everything to be an instructor - until you have tried teaching you won't know if it is for you or not.

Secondly, it will really help if you have an alternate career you can fall back on, either for summers, or in between seasons in the spring and autumn. Most instructors here in Arinsal have another job in the summer, except for South Americans and an Australian who teach skiing back in their own countries. We have instructors who are electricians, hiking guides, a sound engineer, a retired policeman, some who work in Majorca or Ibiza in bars, one used to work in a chocolate factory - it doesn't matter what, but it has to be something you can do short term. Myself, I have worked on a building site in Chamonix, a high ropes course in Stoke, and for a care work agency for short term work in spring and autumn, as well as doing seasons in Argentina and New Zealand. Getting some other outdoor qualifications is also quite popular, allowing you to work in the mountains all year round, but be careful to check which ones are valid outside the UK if you want to live abroad. It is not too difficult to break even over a season in Europe, but you will need to save money for more instructor courses, start of season costs (in most resorts you will need to pay a sizable deposit towards your accomodation upfront for example, and might not get paid much until the end of January if you are paid monthly) transport to and from resort etc.

Thirdly, courses. It depends how good a skier you are, but the cheapest way to qualify is by doing the courses separately. This means you will need to be a pretty decent skier to start with (minimum 12 weeks, able to ski any piste competently, carve on reds, ski off piste and bumps to some degree). If you are a reasonable skier but not at the level a gap course is a good but
expensive way to get there. I wrote some blog posts on how to become a ski instructor a while back, which you might want to look at if you haven't already. If you are looking at this as a long term career option then you will not want to stop with the Level 2 qualification which you will get
after a gap course (or after doing 2 courses, work experience, first aid and child protection if you do the courses separately). Employment opportunites and pay improve considerably with a Level 3 ISIA qualification - a further 7 weeks of courses plus more work experience and a second language. For the best pay and opportunities (plus to right to work in either France or Italy)
you need Level 4 ISTD (I'm using the newest BASI names for the qualifications here) which is a further 3 - 4 weeks, plus the Eurotest, more work experience, written project and interview. This is all a lot of time and money, but if you plan to work in Europe you should plan on doing these courses sooner or later, but the good news is you can be working as an instructor from when you finish your Level 2 (Level 1 for artificial slopes). A few instructors working mainly in France manage to make very good money, but there are a lot more instructors out there (mainly outside France) who are just getting by. Your choice of course (i.e. which country's system) depends on where you want to work. Most countries will favour instructors with their own qualification, so for example if you wanted to work in the US, PSIA would be better for you. If you only speak English and want to work in Europe, then BASI is generally your best bet (although for Andorra, CSIA 3 is better paid than BASI 3 at the moment). If you speak good French or German (good enough both to sit the courses and to teach in) you might want to look at the French or Austrian systems, although the French system is difficult unless you have a racing background as the Test Technique slalom test is a pre-requisite.

Lastly, I wouldn't necessarily be in a hurry to drop your university course - you could do your BASI Level 1, teach some part time hours in a snowdome, then take your BASI Level 2 and work Christmas and Easter holidays in the Alps for Interski for example to gain experience and contacts. You could even do a season in Australia, New Zealand or South America (if you
speak Spanish) over the long summer holiday. That way you would still have your degree to fall back on. Obviously I don't know your situation as regards how long you have left, just how dissatisfied you are with the course, what the financial implications are if you drop the course or
continue with it, but it is possible to begin your ski teaching career whilst continuing your studies. It is also good to get some experience - your first full time instructing job will be the hardest to get, especially if the economic crisis continues, but if you have already gained part time experience it will be a lot easier. I did work experience at a dry slope, then a season in Scotland, before I managed to get a job abroad - my mistake was assuming it would be easy and applying to a couple of ski schools rather than dozens of them. That said, Scotland was a great experience and gave me a really good grounding in how to teach varied groups in very varied conditions.

Good luck, whichever route you decide on. Teaching skiing really is one of
the best jobs in the world in my opinion, but do be prepared to spend
several seasons gaining qualifications and experience.

More photos from Cerro Catedral and surrounding area

I'm back home in snowless England now, for a few weeks. The upside is I have easy access to the internet again so have no excuse any more for the lengthy gaps between posts. Here are a few more photos from Argentina to begin with.

A stunning view and an ageing chairlift - two features that sum up this ski area

One of the large fleet of piste bashers hard at work

The River Limay, taken whilst rock climbing in the Valle Encantado, about an hour's drive from the ski area.

You can see from the photos that the landscape is pretty spectacular - to be honest the images don't really do it justice. It is well worth visiting the are just for this. Skiing wise, there are some good runds, and when the conditions allow some great off-piste possibilities. However the ageing lift system means it takes a long time to get up the mountain, and lack of snow making (and a reluctance to use the snow cannons they do have) means the lower runs returning to the base are often patchy.