For many skiers, the ultimate thrill is riding deep, untouched powder. Join the ALLTRACKS Powder Club this winter.
An increasing number of skiers are looking to get off groomed trails and gain the skills necessary to go off piste and enjoy backcountry skiing. Our off piste ski courses provide you with the opportunity to do this by taking your all mountain skiing to the next level. Go further and push your boundaries with ALLTRACKS this winter and join one of our off piste programmes.
The training on our off piste ski courses aims to turn confident resort skiers into ones that can ski technically well in all terrain, with a focus on deep snow – allowing you to enjoy one of the greatest aspects of our sport. You will witness the beauty of the majestic Coast Mountains in British Columbia, Verbier’s excellent accessible off piste or the vast Val d’Isere – Tignes ski area, all of which have some of the most spectacular powder skiing anywhere on Earth. On many of our off piste options, Heli Skiing and ski touring is included too.
ALLTRACKS pure off piste skiing courses are 2, 6 or 8 weeks long, whilst our 8, 9, 10 & 11 week combined instructor & off piste courses combine off piste skiing with instructor training too. They’re a great way to balance technical ski improvement, qualifications and hunting powder.
If you’re looking to take your backcountry skiing up a notch this winter, join one of our camps and you will soon be enjoying the very best the mountains have to offer.
Coaching on our off-piste courses is conducted in small groups with a maximum of six guests per coach on our Whistler & Val d'Isere programmes. You’ll get technique coaching from BASI or CSIA coaches, and backcountry skiing training with guides from the Canadian Avalanche Association (CAA) and the Association of Canadian Mountain Guides (ACMG/IFMGA) – the best of both worlds, or in France with Henry Schniewind.
As with all our programmes, we follow the ALLTRACKS Training Formula, splitting your time between technical training – including drills, video analysis and lots of feedback – with higher tempo, higher mileage sessions that explore the best terrain and conditions that the area has to offer.
Developing your knowledge of backcountry safety in conjunction with improving your technique is the key to good off-piste training. The CAA Avalanche Skills Training (AST) Level 1 is included on the Canadian off-piste ski courses and the AST Level 2 is included too on many of the longer camps.
AST1 covers the basics of avalanche formation, how to identify avalanche terrain and companion rescue. AST2 further develops your companion rescue skills, as well as avalanche decision-making skills and route planning.
Fire up the Bird – You’re going Heli Skiing!
An undoubted highlight of some of the off-piste ski courses is the heli skiing trip. Take your skiing to the absolute pinnacle this year with a day of undiluted powder heaven, led by some of Canada’s top Guides.
Accessing an area over 50 times the size of Whistler resort, Whistler Heli Skiing has a tenure of 432,000 acres. It really is the ultimate skiing adventure and one that every skier needs to experience in their life. It is included in the cost of the 6 & 9, 11 week off piste ski courses and it can be added on to some of the others.
The majority of the time, you’ll use lift access or short hikes to access terrain. However, on some of the longer off-piste camps we include ski touring whilst doing the AST2.
For those unfamiliar with ski touring, you will be taught effective travel techniques and no previous touring experience is required. For those of you who are new to this – It opens a whole new world and the whole mountain becomes your playground. To those already familiar with ski touring, we will help hone your technique and develop your backcountry travel ability.
We simply couldn’t run our off-piste ski courses anywhere else in Canada. Whistler Blackcomb offers unrivaled steep and deep terrain, as well as having access to even more world-class off-piste skiing in the neighbouring Garibaldi Park.
With an annual average snowfall of over 39 feet thanks to the prevailing Pacific storms, you’re going to be skiing hard. Which makes it doubly important to have somewhere comfortable to rest. Our chalets and condos come with free wifi, well-equipped kitchens and welcoming sitting rooms so you really do have a home for your course.
Professional organisation with a personal touch is how we operate our programmes. In the run up to your course, you will have a personal contact to ensure any questions that you may have can be answered efficiently and that you have all the information you need.
Once you arrive in Whistler, our resort director Guy Hetherington is there for the duration of your course to ensure that everything goes smoothly. By being based exclusively in one resort, we are able to offer an especially high-level of personal service to our guests that simply cannot be matched by an operation spread across multiple resorts.