Author: Tyneside Loipers

Six hardy Loipers - Neil, Lewis, Ben, Paramjeet and Peter and Alison - spent most of one week at the comfortable Dalseter Høyfjellshotel and then travelled to the northern Rondane (Norway's first National Park) to ski the renowned Rondane north-south traverse, staying in DNT mountain huts along the way. With unexpected hut closures, plus the Norwegian shutdown (due to corona virus), stormy weather and mixed snow conditions, the team got more than they bargained for! Read the story of their adventure (written by Lewis Preston) - click on the link below. Six Loipers ready to depart from Dalseter on 12th March Their plan was to take them from Hageseter in the north to Rondvassbu and Bjørnhollia in the south. Then they would ski out to the rail line and collect…

Don't blame the corona lockdown as an excuse for losing fitness. UK biathlete Scott Dixon has devised a series of home training sessions which you can join using the virtual meetings app Zoom. The sessions starting this week (today) are graded for different ability levels. Scott Dixon will be on screen guiding you through various ski-specific exercises for mobility, balance, fitness and core strength. Details of how to join the online video training sessions are in this explanatory document from Scott (see link). Group sessions are only £5 per session or £25 for six sessions (2 per week over the next 3 weeks). It seems like a good offer and is no doubt a worthwhile programme.

Sixteen Loiper members turned up at the Dalseter Hoyfjellshotel for this year's GB Nordic season organised by our own John Mordue. Loipers Martin Read and Stephen MacShane arrived at the beginning of March and the rest of us turned up a week later on 7th. This was the 3rd time for some of us - it wont be the last! The Dalseter hotel is friendly and comfortable and Grethe, the hotel manageress, made us feel very welcome as usual. There is plenty of good skiing to be had (both hill-touring and cross-country track skiing). On the tracks Out on the hills - Robert enjoying off-track touring The season had started with an abundance of snow. For our week (7th March) there were well over fifty GB Nordic guests and leaders…

Kevin and Kimberley sent through some photos of their Japan skiing trip Jan/Feb 2020. The Japanese powder snow looks great! The group included Loipers Martin Read and Steve Campbell plus various friends from our occasional Loiper trips to Canada. Japanese/Canadian guide Yuji and his colleague did a great job finding the best skiing each day. Wow! Great telemark skiing from Loiper Martin Read. Great snow too! Kevin telemarking in fine form - with selfie camera fixed to his right ski tip!

Alasdair travelled to Seefeld in Austria in late January 2020 to take part in the World Masters Winter Games - the Winter Olympics for veteran skiers. Alasdair's article (download here) is a lovely account of the Nordic cross-country racing and ski-orienteering.

Mike Hall and Les and Gwenda Cavill enjoyed a top-quality week of cross-country race training with Totally Nordic at Obertilliach in Austria and then followed it up by competing in the 50th running of the Dolimitenlauf Ski Marathon. Read Gwenda's description of the week here. Have a look at these great videos of the race taken by colleagues at the Totally Nordic week. The start of the freestyle race (click here) is quite inspiring - perhaps I will try it one day! And Les Cavill finishing the marathon (here) - well done Les, demonstrating Skate 2 technique (very impressive after 3 hours and 38 minutes of skiing)!

If you would like to give something back to the sport and also have a great week skiing with a sociable group of visually impaired skiers, then your help would be greatly appreciated. A group of blind and partially sighted skiers are going to Akaslompolo in Finland for the last week of February 2020. Ebony Hall of Tyneside Loipers has signed up as a guide for this year. Anyone else interested in acting as a guide should please contact Lyn Street as soon as possible.  Download the information sheet here. Alasdair Wilson volunteered as a guide in 2014 and his report is in the Feb 2015 Loipers newsletter. And here is another more recent article from 2018. Stop Press If you would like to ski at Akaslompolo for the last week…

Thanks to all who attended the AGM at the Northumberland Club in Jesmond on 8th October. What a surprise - the existing committee were re-elected unopposed (hopefully we will have some new faces one of these days)! We had some good discussion about club kit, Loiper activities and ski trips for this winter. Alan gave a quick demo of our updated website and Mike gave a nice explanation of our new club logo (both of which were well received). Thanks particularly to Neil for chairing the meeting and Charlie for the minutes and thanks to the Northumberland Club for the buffet (much better than last year!). The meeting rounded off with a few slides including some impressive photos of the Hetton roller ski event and race, plus some historic photos…

Congratulations to Alasdair Wilson who attended the Roller-ski Coaching Weekend at Lancaster on 5/6th October. A successful follow-up to the Snowsport England On-Snow Coaching course at Kvitavatn in April, Alasdair had to take a one-hour observed coaching session with a group of roller-skiers to satisfy senior tutor Patrick Winterton and pass his Level 2 On-Snow coaching qualification. He is already qualified as a Level 2 Club Coach for roller-skiing. Alasdair competing in the 2016 World Masters. Alasdair is now 'bang up to date with current best techniques' having also attended the 1-day coaching workshop with top quality teaching from Scott Dixon and Patrick.