![The Marchablanca Trail in August, 2008](http://images.fasterskier.com/2009/12/TrrMyr.Good_.jpg" "Argentina")
Skifire, Inc., the Club Andino Ushuaia, and Spanish coach Noel Marcen Cinca are working on a cross-country ski based camp for juniors paired with language classes to take place in and around Ushuaia, Argentina during the 2010 austral winter.
Skifire’s Matt Muir was in Ushuaia in 2007 when Marcen Cinca and one other Spanish coach led a group of Spanish juniors on a training camp trip there, Marcen Cinca and Muir stayed in touch, and are collaborating now on a plan to bring a group of about ten juniors each to Ushuaia in late July and early August 2010 for a two to four week camp. Marcen Cinca will handle most of the coaching and Muir will handle logistics and language classes.
Additionally, Club Andino Ushuaia Coach, Sebastián Menci, will mix his group of local junior skiers into the group and lead some sessions. “One thing I’d really like to eventually work towards is an exchange with U.S. juniors, kids here in Ushuaia study English a lot and an opportunity to ski and and learn English in the U.S. would be ideal,” said Menci.
Currently, Menci is in Finland with three Argentine skiers as part of a separate exchange. As part of the Finno-Argentine exchange, two or three Finnish juniors and one or two coaches will travel to Tierra del Fuego in late July and August 2010 as well and, hopefully, add another benefit for the visiting Spanish and American skiers who will perform daily on- and off-snow workouts including a time-trial or two.
Muir, who has worked in the region since 2002, said the schedule involves daily skiing sessions at the Francisco Jerman Nordic Ski Area or in the Valley of Tierra Mayor, afternoon strength or dryland sessions, combined bilingual language classes for the native Spanish and English speakers, and breaks in the routine in the form of day-trips around the region. Muir’s company, a small hobby-business named Skifire, has several years of experience and will partner with contractors in the region to provide reliable lodging, meals, ground transport, and grooming. Muir was a college Spanish instructor for several years and will focus the language classes on basic, structural differences between Spanish and English in a problem-based format that will let learners collaborate in order to solve linguistic problems. Alternatively, Muir states “there will be a natural focus on pragmatic language learning, especially for the English speakers who will be in a Spanish speaking environment.”
For more information on the trip, please contact Matt Muir at matt@skifire.com or 303-881-9890.
