2010 was my first season in Verbier, it was totally different to where I was last year. Verbier is like no other resort I have ever been to, the skiing is amazing. It has everything a ski resort needs, motorway pistes, monster bumps, lots of easy to access off piste and some of the best après ski places I have ever been to! Verbier is a great town, I can’t wait to be back here next season!
I moved to Verbier with a couple of intentions in mind, I wanted to be in a big well established “skiers town”, as opposed to Grindelwald which was more of a mountaineering and scenic town with a little skiing thrown in.
I also wanted to be in Verbier as the ski school I work for has some fantastic skiers in it, and I knew that if I was to be in Verbier then I would be able to train with some of those phenomenal skiers and work towards finishing my ISTD which is the last of the British ski instructor qualifications.
I booked these exams for the end of April and I am thrilled to say I passed both my Technical and my Teaching exams. This means that I just have one exam left to do, and then I will be fully qualified with the International Ski Teaching Diploma.
After leaving Verbier and having a monster drive back to Scotland I was home 4 days before I went skiing at Cairngorm! I was there on Sunday and then the following Saturday. It wasn’t alpine skiing, but to be skiing in Scotland on the 15th of May was pretty amazing. I really enjoyed it, really great news for the Scottish ski industry. I know that they needed a good winter if Scottish skiing was to survive, so that’s excellent.
I grew up skiing in Scotland almost every weekend when I was at school we were up north for races and training it was three hours from home and it meant I could ski most weekends. I absolutely loved it, even on those “classic” Scottish weather days, in the driving rain and gale force winds, it was amazing! My two days at Cairngorm this season were beautiful though, blue skies and no wind. It was the perfect end to an amazing season!
That’s all my news for now. Enjoy your summer, hope you are all craving the white stuff already! I know I am!
Mike Crawford
Tags: mike crawford, scotland
