THE MOOD IS WILD on a sub-zero March morning in Fernie, adrenalin pumping in response to sun filtered through trees onto fresh powder. The AMP group, now in its 10th week on the mountain, paws the snow in its eagerness to rip it up. AMP stands for All Mountain Pro, though Pioneer or even Amphetamine might be more appropriate, because the commitment to exploring every lost stash, however gnarly, is tangible. We blast off in a stampede, six guys, one Finnish-Australian girl and me. Will I be able to hang in there to check out testosterone levels on the hill? I have serious doubts.
AMP, introduced in 2006, is an increasingly popular component in the Nonstop Ski and Snowboard instructor programmes in Western Canada. The family company, run by 29-year-old Rupert Taylor, started in 2002 on a mission to bring more of the British to British Columbia, and teach them how to ski or board at levels they’d never achieve on annual holidays in the Alps. Instead of asking ‘how good could I have been?’, why not get out there and find out?
Nonstop’s core course lasts 11 weeks, with everyone taking CSIA (Canadian Ski Instructors’ Alliance) Level I at the end of the first five. Pass rate? A heart-warming 100%. At that point, aspirations divide, with the majority opting for Level II, a realistic qualification for anyone who wants to work as an instructor later on. The rest – 12 out of 50 in 2008 - divide into groups for the thrills and spills of the wonderfully self-indulgent AMP extravaganza. Instead of learning to teach the perfect snow plough, they have a licence to plunder the steep and deep with a guide, five hours a day, five days a week.
In the 1990s, the pioneering three-month winter programmes were targeted at gap-year students, perceived as wealthy and time rich, and many answered the call, either before or after their degree courses. Sensibly recognising that older people often have more money, Nonstop extended the brief to include anyone with £7000 or £8000 to spend. Fitness is the only upper limit, with the oldest student to date signing up at 67. In my AMP group, Colin, in his late 40s, is a self-employed business analyst, while Alan, in his mid 20s, has a job as a civil engineer – and a ski-friendly boss who was happy to give him a three month sabbatical to pursue his dream. Alan’s next problem is that he’s so addicted, he wants another one for the first three months of 2009. The others are in the student catchment area, among them Sam, en route to a science course at Bristol University, and Niall, on a post-degree gap year before taking up his first job.
The AMP certificate is unique to Nonstop. There is a written exam and a very structured two-day evaluation. Students have to show mastery of linked carving, drop ins, short and varied radius turns, bump and glade runs, and controlled air time, always with the emphasis on smooth, continuous performance in all snow conditions. As I followed my guys round the double-diamond side of the mountain, side-stepping over tyres into Corner Pocket, exploding into Currie Powder, and eyeballing Sky Dive, the signature bump run that dominates the resort, I enjoyed the thrills and waited for the spills. They were a long time coming – the first of them was mine.
The second element in the certification is the All Mountain Activist points system: students get marks for taking part in the life of the community and the region. They organise or compete in local events, shadow resort staff through their working days, tour the backcountry, camp out in DIY igloos, and visit other resorts. Students who pass both elements get a certificate that has no professional standing. ‘We think it looks good on a CV’, said Rupert, sincere in his belief that its diversity should appeal to future employers.
Back in the real world, the Level II candidates were putting the final gloss on their teaching techniques. With the exam so close, this was serious business; too serious, really, for me to watch them at it, so I asked 18-year-old Matt Flinders how he was getting on. ‘Pretty nervous’, he said after the first day’s assessment, but he looked so relaxed it was hard to believe him.
A rich gap-year student? No way. When he left Loughborough Grammar in 2007, he discussed his plans with his mother, and checked out courses on the Internet. “We decided this was the best value” he said. “I’d done 35 weeks skiing on family and school trips to the Alps, so I wanted quality powder. And I knew Fernie was renowned for that. I worked my ass off for five months in my girlfriend’s dad’s business – he’s a pensions administrator in Leicester – to raise the money. And it’s been brilliant.”
A Sydneysider, Timmy Maxwell, his new best friend, nodded enthusiastically. ‘These are the first good Brits I’ve ever met, and the course is great too” he said. “I’d give it nine and a half out of ten’. The lost half? ‘Not enough girls’. He laughed. He was sitting next to two from his school, so he wasn’t exactly short of female company, and the Nonstop odds of three men to one woman are more favourable than they are in many winter sports scenarios.
Rupert Taylor first heard of Fernie on his Ski Le Gap snowboard course in Quebec in 1997. Four years later, with his degree in archaeology and ancient history from Nottingham in the bag, he signed up as a Fernie instructor – and fell in love with “a small tight-knit community and a silly amount of snow”. His father, Patrick, an executive in a range of radio station start-ups that includes Classic FM, was enthusiastic about a joint family snowsports business, but insisted that it should be in Whistler.
“I persuaded him to come here to Fernie with my mum and my sisters, and they had the same reaction I’d had, so that worked out fine,” said Rupert. “A year later, when I was running the new company out of my bedroom in London, I was less happy when my only booking for the next season cancelled in August.” But by 2003, the show was on the road, with 40 students confirmed for the inaugural 11-week course. They stayed at the first Nonstop home base, the Old Grocery Store, and ate breakfast cooked by Rupert’s sister, Melissa Nonstop students can also stay in houses in the neighbourhood, an option with more appeal for those beyond college age. At 48, Nick McKenna, a lecturer in travel and tourism at Stanmore College, preferred to pay a single supplement of £1100 and stay in a four room house rather than risk close quarters and boarding-school style high jinks at the Lodge. He discovered Nonstop at the 2006 London Ski Show and took leave of absence to do his Level II in 2008. As he’s single and his daughter is in a job after getting her degree, he hasn’t ruled out the possibility of using his qualification to teach in Canada, though the visa regulations are more complicated for over 35s. Even if he doesn’t, he has no regrets. ‘The skiing is unbelievable” he says. “I’ve been here for 10 weeks, but I’m still finding variations I’ve never seen’. From a man who normally skis Zermatt or Val d’Isère, that accolade is as good as it gets.
