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Harald's article Sept 02
 
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Hello Friends,

Diana and I are back from our month-long vacation trip. Sorry that we have been out of contact for some time.

Our trip started at Mt. Hood, Oregon, where I was coaching the Sugar Bowl Women's Team with Hermann Goellner (Head Coach of the Sugar Bowl Women). Diana trained with the women. As a result, Diana is skiing far better then she has ever skied. She trained with some National Team Members and top US juniors. Now she can ski with them and is probably two seconds better than last year.

After Mt. Hood, we headed to Canada for biking, fishing, and the pursuit of skiing opportunities...

Ski News from Canada

We have lots of news from our trip to Canada. We visited Mike Wiegele (a leading Helicopter Skiing operator in BC, Canada) and did a two-day bike tour with him. He invited us for a day of summer Heli Skiing, and he showed us a wonderful summer glacier training location. The skiing was fun and the summer views of the BC glaciers were out of this world. Mike offers summer Heli Mountain biking and fishing as well. His facility is probably the most beautiful lodging I have ever seen in the ski world. The land, lodges and hotels are all five-star and the dining is the best. He has done an absolutely beautiful job with everything at the area. He is also building a new ski area right in the town of Blue River.

 

While we were there we made footbeds and did alignment for Mike. He is fascinated by our alignment system and by our operation and customer service model. He is totally sold on the alignment idea and wants to put it into his shop at Blue River. He has requested that we come to Blue River in early December to train his whole staff with our Student-Directed Service Model and his shop with our alignment system. He wants all of his guides to be trained in our system.
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We were also invited to stay and visit Al Raine and Nancy Green (Canadian World Cup winner and Olympic Gold medallist) at Sun Peaks, BC. This ski resort has great potential. We stayed at Nancy Green's Cahilty Lodge. For future camps (as early as next season) we are arranging lodging through Al and Nancy's Lodge and beginning negotiating the camps with that resort. The terrain at Sun Peaks would be ideal for a Blue/Dark Blue camp.

Diana and I are planning a Fernie, BC alignment center. We'd like to buy a building in town to house the center. We'd like to be running camps up there by next season. This facility would be in addition to the Kicking Horse center. Fernie offers a greater variety of terrain, and thus is more suitable for families and intermediate skiers. As well, Fernie offers a good supply of lodging both at the ski area and in town. The Kicking Horse, BC, facility operated by our licensees Peter Stone and Scott Burns had a promising first season last year. Kicking Horse is a first-rate, world-class mountain and a real adventure and very challenging, lots of powder, but it does not yet have a village at the base. Lodging is available in the town only five miles from the resort.

We are also training the Searchmont, Ontario, ski area, which is under new ownership. I know the owner and am working with him personally. He wants to develop the best ski resort in the Midwest and he has the mountain to do it. Searchmont has 700 ft of vertical, the largest in the Midwest. All of our programs including PMTS Direct Parallel and a Harb Skier Alignment Center will be offered at Searchmont. We will be traveling to Ontario in November to set up those programs. We are hoping to include Mel Brown as one of the trainers for Searchmont and in the future take advantage of the early snowmaking for early season training. Searchmont is within a one-day drive of Detroit and Chicago.
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New Location for Harb Skier Alignment and Footbed Shop!
Harb Ski Systems has leased a highly visible, easily accessible location just off Interstate 70, 30 miles west of Denver. It's located at the busy Conoco/Burger King/weigh station junction in Downieville, exit 234. Almost everyone who goes skiing in Colorado drives right by our location.

We'll be selling and demoing skis and boots and doing alignment, footbeds, etc. We are also putting in a ski deck to offer indoor alignment and lessons. Now more skiers will have access to our alignment and footbeds: "Systems that produce Results". We will be taking our alignment clients to Loveland for on-snow verification or we will have them ski on our ski deck to make any fine-tuning adjustment. We all know that alignment without a critical eye on snow is not as effective.

Midwest Instructor Alignment and Footbed Tour
We are traveling to Chicago, Madison and Minneapolis from October 9th to Oct 20th for our three-city instructor alignment tour. We hope to include the reps from Elan and Head in that area to do some flex sessions and boot fitting during the evening presentations.

New Book
My new book, "Ski Flex", is coming out this winter. This book is about proper pre-skiing warm-up and stretching, indoors and outdoors. It includes tactics for your warm-up on the first run of the day. Erik Schlopy (National champion in SL, GS and Super G, Olympian and US Ski Team member) was an inspiration for the book. When I skied with Erik he did an extensive warm-up every day on snow. I followed his lead and found I was more prepared for skiing than I have ever been, on any day. I use the program all the time now and have noticed a difference in my skiing.
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PMTS Instructor Camp and early Race Camp
Our first camp of the season is the PMTS Instructor and Training Camp at Copper Mtn., November 21-24. For more information log on to www.pmts.org . I am also coaching a Race Camp for Sugar Bowl Masters, November 10th to 16th. We are still hosting a race camp at Loveland, December 2-6. This camp is filling quickly, and with two groups with only six skiers per group, you can expect to make good progress.

Alignment and Footbed Technician Training
Our first session of alignment technician training is offered October 21 to 26th. Any instructors or interested skiers should sign up by contacting us at ask.us@harbskisystems.com . Schedules and info can be found on the web site, at www.harbskisystems.com/otherevents.htm

Summary
This is shaping up to be the most exciting ski season yet for Harb Ski Systems. As you can see this is a very busy time. We are growing, but at a controllable rate. High quality and customer satisfaction are our highest priorities. Therefore, we will not grow our operations faster then our ability to do a great job: providing results for each and every skier and instructor we work with in our systems.

Harb Ski Systems has many opportunities to expand with ski schools, resorts, and shops, but we are very selective committing our brand to those that have complete commitments to do the job with the highest regard to "Achieving results".

 

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