Starting the year with the Royal Marines Mountain Leaders

For the last 2 weeks I've spent time working with the Royal Marines Mountain Leaders in the North of Norway. Running their Advanced ski instructor's course has become a yearly highlight. This year was no exception. Just colder than ever before...

January in the north of Norway and -32° C. It is like the cold has taken every instance of nature in a hard grip, it is a quiet and motionless landscape outside. Like if the trees are holding the breath, and all birds hide in their nests.

Frost and hoar. The sun stays under the horizon another couple of days.

I woke up to the first day of a 10 days long ski course with the Mountain leaders in the Royal Marines. It has become a yearly highlight; the Advanced Ski instructor course (ASI), the ski course at the highest level in the British Armed Forces where Telemark and Cross Country skills shall be tuned in to high standards. The last 3 years I have had the enjoyment to run it together with Gorm Gunleiksrud at the Norwegian Allied Training Center.

Gorm in Saariselkä

Chief instructor Mick and Gorm hold the Royal Marines Flag

Gorm wrote the ski program to the Royal Marines 5 years ago with their former chief instructor mr Shane "Ginge" Booth. 3 years ago they needed one more instructor, preferably one with civilian expertise to make sure that the course had a high general level. I was given the opportunity and through out the last years, we have seen many excellent skiers evolving during course.

RM Mountain Leaders and ASI students 2015 in Saariselkä, strong skiers!

As much as I was looking forward to the ski course, the Mountain Leaders came with high expectations and our 13 students proved to be very motivated. Intense days and hard work awaits us all during the course, but everything is set up to give us the best conditions to succeed.

Nordic Skiing, cross-country techniques and efficient navigation on skis were all parts of the schedule for the first 3 days. After a short introduction about why-where-when, the requirements to pass the course and what we aim to obtain during the upcoming 10 days, it was time to get outside.

I dressed warmly in several layers of wool, down jacket and a handmade hat from Greenland....if only the temperature could increase to at least -20 °C...at least!

Love the handmade hat from Greenland

In the Royal Marines ski program, an ASI is the highest ski instructor and shall be able to organize training on every level of skiing, on both Cross country and on Telemark. Therefore we need to go through all stages of learning, from the very beginner's level to the advanced skiing techniques and it takes years of experience before the students are ready to enter the ASI course.

After 3 days on flat track and out in the terrain, we headed to Saariselkä in Finland to work on the down hill techniques and proper Telemark skiing.

Saariselkä, Finland

Saariselkä is a special location. The small village in the very north part of Finland is completely built up for tourism and it is easy to understand why people from all over the world come here. The scenery is simply beautiful.

The big Finnish lake "Inari" is situated only about 40 kilometers north from Saariselkä. From the lake comes humidity and it is the moisture in the air that makes the snow stick like glue on the trees. When the Finns claim Santa to come from this region, I can't blame them!
In fact, this is exactly the way I imagine the landscape to look like when Santa comes riding with his reindeers...like a fairytale.

In the light of a lamp in the ski slope stood this peculiar pine tree

The marines don't really care about Santa. Instead, our objective was a white hill called "Kaunispää" where the Finns have built a smaller, but pretty good ski area with several lifts and ski slopes in different angles and difficulty. Unfortunately the ice cold temperature had traveled with us...

For the first 2 days the ski lifts were closed due to the temperature. Of course we insisted on skiing and used our Nordic skis and low leather boots in the slopes, organizing the ascent by ourselves!

Starting out on Nordic skis with low leather boots...

2 frosty days with closed lifts, yet - the sun is back!

...changing into to regular Telemark gear. Time to fine tune the technique.

On Telemark equipment we can thoroughly fine tune the skiing techniques, work with the skis, the edges and evolve quicker. It was a lot of fun, sweat, frustration, succeeding, falling, and enjoyment on the slopes for the rest of the course. The days consisted of coaching, filming the skiers and analyzing the techniques. Excellent telemark skiing skills started to appear.

Great telemark skiing at the end of the week!

The ASI course in action

At the end of the course, it was hard to even recognize the skiers that we had met at day 1. There had been a huge amount of progress taken place and the best thing I know is to see what one can do with an open attitude, focussed training, courage and motivation.
Our students had taken their skiing skills to another dimension, it had been a great experience to coach and share the journey. 

Sweet speed control and cutting turns when the ASI Mountain Leaders put it all together

It pushes me to run such an intense, progressive and all-embracing course like the Advanced ski instructors course; undoubtedly it is a true privilege as a ski instructor! I am proud of every skier at the course and I have a lot of respect of the effort that our students put in!

Thank you for the company: skiers from all levels

So if anyone ever had an idea that the British can't ski, I'll simply reply:
an ASI from the Royal Marines will most likely out-class the great majority of Scandinavian Telemark skiers! Well done guys, you are brilliant.

Thank you Mountain Leaders for yet another great time together, 
I am looking forward to next year.

Saariselkä, with the hat changed into helmet