Hamish Acland
Tourparty Coaching Team (Skiing)

HAMISH ACLAND - was born to freeride! He recently beat allcomers at the Big Mountain competition at the 2006 New Zealand Open, internationally he ranked 5th on the IFSA World Tour in 2005/06 and placed 3rd at the IFSA World Tour Finals.

On the park and pipe side Hamish also has National titles from back in the day and still enjoys hitting the park up, but he is more commonly found in his beloved freeride terrain.

Coaching comes second nature to Hamish. He has coached or had a hand in developing many of New Zealand’s top skiers today.

A member of the NZ Ski Team and Volkl International team, Hamish will be again competing on the IFSA World Tour in 2007.

The Tourparty Camp at New Year offers a unique chance to ski with and learn from Hamish, one of the world’s best freeriders.

Darryl Ball
DirtTribe Coaching Team

DARRYL BALL - is a professional skier from the UK, on the international Völkl team and also riding for Anon. Apart from competing internationally (Most recently at the New Zealand Open 2006) and appearing in UK ski magazines (not only in the action shots but in the fashion shoots too!), he is an experienced coach.

Darryl is certified with the CSIA to instruct and coach in park and pipe, and he has a wealth of experience coaching freeride.

When he’s not coaching for Tourparty, Darryl spends the winter in Whistler, Canada coaching the Whistler Freeride Club and Tribal Freeride Team (www.tribalsnow.com). Yep, he’s gone all tribal on us both sides of the Atlantic! He also coaches freeskiing in New Zealand at both SnowPark and Cardrona. We’re stoked to have him on the Tourparty team!

Gavin Carruthers
Tourparty Coaching Team (Skiing)

GAVIN CARRUTHERS - we’ve known Gav for many years, since we started sponsoring the British Universities Snowsports Council (BUSC). Gav got into the finals at the freestyle Chamjam 2002 in Chamonix and ran the British Universities Snowsports Council (with a bit of help!) in 2002/3 but around the same time he had some bad luck (just after we started sponsoring him!) when he blew his ACL and PLC, so he knows what it is like to work his way back from injury. It was pretty painful and a really hard struggle to get back on to skis (he even had to learn to walk again) but he achieved his goal over New Year 2004/05 in Norway - a great way to celebrate the New Year!

Gav is quite a character and brought his own unique style, sense of humour and considerable knowledge of Les Des Alpes to our first Freestyle & Freeride Camp in April 2006, leading groups around the mountain, giving us a taste of the off-piste runs available etc. Back home in Edinburgh Gav is involved with race training a group of kids in Scotland and quite a few have broken through to the GB Children’s team.

Enrica
La Belle Etoile Hotel
Les Deux Alpes

ENRICA - is the General Manager of La Belle Etoile Hotel, in Les Des Alpes. She and her Italian team are super friendly, efficient and helpful. They work hard to ensure we have a very comfortable and enjoyable stay.

Andy Evans
Tourparty Staff & Tourparty Coaching Team (Skiing)

ANDY EVANS - has been skiing for 20 years, spending the past 6 years on twins having got into riding park and pipe, though freeriding remains his real passion and he had a great time last season exploring freestyle in the powder on his treasured LINE Elizabeth skis.

Andy qualified as a ski instructor in Whistler, CSIA Level 1 and 2 and has also done seasons in Montgenevre and Serre Chevalier being kitchen porter, night porter, chalet boy and rep!

Back in the UK, having graduated from Uni, Andy managed the freestyle and freeride specialist retailer www.SoulX.com for eighteen months. There’s not much Andy doesn’t know about ski brands, equipment etc and you’ll usually find him on the forums at www.Newschoolers.com or www.Skipass.com etc, debating the latest news in the freeride scene.

Andy has ridden dozens of resorts across the world but reckons Les Deux Alpes ranks as the perfect spot for Camps, with one of the largest and best maintained parks in Europe and legendary freeriding at La Grave… a regular in Les Deux Alpes thanks to Ryanair and Easyjet he’s looking forward to returning for Tourparty 06/07.

Mike Hanley
Tourparty Coaching Team (Skiing)

MIKE HANLEY - has joined the Tourparty Coaching rosta for 2006-2007. Mike is from Southern California, USA. He was a US Freestyle Aerial Development Team member and NCAA diver before he got into new school skiing. Mike did stuntwork skiing for the movie Jonny Tsunami, before beginning his coaching career. His number one highlight was being asked to be Head Coach for the United States at the 2004 SAAS Fee World Cup Halfpipe. He has dual coaching certifications in Trampoline and Level 3 Aerials.

Mike is Head Coach for ISP at the Utah Olympic Park in the Summer and coach for PSI (Planet Ski International) in Whistler on the glacier in July. He coached Sean Field (2nd at the US Open and Top Ten at the Winter X Games two years in a row in halfpipe) and has worked with Tanner Hall, CR Johnson, Seth Morrison, Mike Wilson, JT Holmes, Matt Philipi and all of the Battersbies (Ashley, Tyler, Adam and Zoo) to name a fiew.

Pro riders usually call on Mike when they have something progresive they want to work on (spinning doubles & off axis doubles etc). If doing tricks in the park is your game, he is the man to see!

Rick Hutchings
Tourparty Staff & Tourparty Coaching Team (Skiing & Photography)

RICK HUTCHINGS - works for LINE UK and as a professional photographer. He has long experience in snowsports having worked as a ski instructor, ski guide, shop manager and sales manager. He is passionate about skiing and has an encyclopaedic knowledge of ski equipment - we challenge anyone to beat his knowledge of skis! His first love is freestyle and freeride, he recently gained an extra qualification while working as a freestyle instructor in Whistler in 2005.

Rick is also in the process of becoming a professional photographer and is responsible for most of the photographs on this site from the Tourparty Freestyle & Freeride Camp, April 2006. (If you want copies of the photographs or need a professional photograph for action, fashion, studio or brochure work see: www.rickhutchings.com to see Rick's work and contact him.)

Incidentally Rick also has a coach driving licence, an addiction to Nestle's Elevenses bars and sometimes shaves his head… together with his heavy Scottish accent this makes him seem a lot scarier than he really is. (But we still suggest you don’t get on the wrong side of him!)

Glen Lawley
Tourparty Coaching Team (Skiing)

GLEN LAWLEY - started skiing at 16 at Swadlincote Dry Slope and did his first ski season in 1995, touring Canada for 7 months. He then spent the next 5 years skiing in Andorra, France and Switzerland.

In 2000 he became head of the Ski School at the Sheffield Ski Village and began to develop the New School ski scene which was growing in popularity with local riders like Andy Bennett and Tom Last emerging as gifted freestylers coached by Glen and others.

Glen played a major part in initiating, organising and competing in New School events, such as the Mountain X Ski and Skiboard competiton, the Sheffield "FREEZE", the Val D'isere festival of riding and music etc.

More recently Glen has been manager of the LINE Ski team and personal coach to riders like Murray Buchan.

He combines an infectious enthusiasm with a natural gift for teaching and encouraging young riders and a thorough knowledge and understanding of freestyle skiing, backed by his own skiing ability.

Chris McGuire
Tourparty Staff & Tourparty Coaching Team (Skiing)

CHRIS MCGUIRE - started skiing at a very young age, infact a very very young age if you count riding in a rucksack aged 10 months on the back of his Ski Instructor Dad! Later, aged 12, having moved on to his own pair of skis and become passionate about skateboarding too, Chris began to look for more challenging skiing and discovered the adrenaline rush of freeride and freestyle skiing - he hasn’t look back since!

In Easter 2006 Chris decided to go on the first Tourparty Camp in Les Deux Alpes and made good friends with the other skiers on the Camp and the Tourparty Coaches. Returning home full of enthusiasm and with a big drive to ski as much as possible he decided to do a ski season in Europe after completing his A levels at School in the UK. As a result he did his first ski season in 06/07 as a Ski Instructor in Zell am Ziller near Mayrhofen, Austria. (He is heading back there for much of the 07/08 Season so look out for him if you’re over that way!)

Meantime Chris has got more involved with Tourparty and LINE Skis (one of Tourparty’s sponsors) and helped run the first Tourparty Summer Camp in Les Deux Alpes in 2007. He is now working to help develop the Tourparty programmes and promote the Camps as widely as possible worldwide.

His other interests include trampolining, basketball and music (another passion as he arranges gigs in his local area for charities like “Love Music Hate Racism”). As well as being a former World Champion in Archery, Chris can also balance spoons on his nose...

Pat Sharples
Tourparty Coaching Team (Skiing)

PAT SHARPLES - is well known in the UK and Internationally as a Pro freeskier, Head coach of the British Freeski camps, Director of the Grom Freestyle camps, and Oakley UK Team manager.

He is an accomplished Freestyle & Freeride skier himself as a Former England ski team captain, European mogul Challenge champion, England mogul champion, 6th in the Courchevel Freeride and 1st in the British Articifical Skiercross Championship 2005. (Pat is sponsored by Oakley, Salomon, Snow and Rock, Ignite, Ortovox, Giro, Natives.)

For more info on me check out: www.patsharples.co.uk.

Lyndon Sheehan
Tourparty Coaching Team (Skiing)

LYNDON SHEEHAN - is one of New Zealand’s best freeskiers, ranked No 2 in pipe and park in NZ and like many of his Kiwi brethren he can rip the Big Mountain too.

Lyndon has risen through the ranks with his style growing along the way and with a big of tricks. Recent international results include 5th in the Halfpipe at the World Cup (Apex, Norway) and a top 20 placing in the US Open.

He has just come off an epic New Zealand season which saw Snow Park boasting its most innovative jumps and slopestyle courses to date, plus many a powder day at neighbouring Treble Cone. A member of the NZ Ski Team, Lyndon has a full competition schedule ahead this season, competing around the globe in Halfpipe and Slopestyle events.

Lyndon’s experience and ability, his love for the sport and easy-going manner show in his coaching style. Don’t miss this opportunity to rub shoulders with one of freeskiing’s most talented riders at the Tourparty New Year camp.

Paul Telling
Tourparty Coaching Team (Skiing)

PAUL TELLING - is well known throughout the UK and Internationally as a racer, coach and freeskier. Over the 2006-2007 season he was Head Youth coach at the British Alpine Race Academy, and for the 2007-2008 season he will be running the International Junior program for Ambition Racing.

Paul is an accomplished race and freeride skier himself, having captained the England Racing Team on many occasions, including team victories in the European & British Artificial Championships. He has won numerous titles in both racing and freestyle (Skiercross), including 1st in the British Artificial Skiercross Championship 2006 and University Alpine Championships in 2004. He has repeatedly finished as Britain's top skier in numerous international competitions, including reaching the semi-finals of the Saas Fee Ride 05 and the French Regional Champs 06. Paul is sponsored by Salomon, Scott, futur-3, Reusch, Ambition Racing and Swix.

Jossi Wells
Tourparty Coaching Team (Skiing)

JOSSI WELLS - is rapidly becoming a household name worldwide as one of the breakthrough performers of 2006. He will be riding at the Camp as one of our guest Pros, sharing his experience with everyone participatiing in Tourparty.

Jossi has achieved some big results, 12th in the US Open Slopestyle, 2nd in the Aspen Open Slopestyle and 7th in the Halfpipe at the Orage European Open. Adding to this he threw down at the Candide Thovex invitational being the first to hit the massive 140 feet booter switch and winning the 7’s comp at the Jon Olson.

His form has continued this year, taking 2nd in Halfpipe and winning the Slopestyle at the New Zealand Open 2006, with flawless tricks including a switch 630 to gap down box.

It would be easy to assume Jossi would have an ego to match his results, but the reality quite different, he is very down to earth and just loves skiing. A member of the NZ Ski Team and the Atomic and Oakley International teams, you will see Jossi throwing down at all the major events over the 2006-2007 season. Come and meet him at the Tourparty New Year camp!