World class skier Markus Eder has paid a surprise visit to Kendal Snowsports Club.
The top Italian freestyle skier – who is regularly hailed as one of the world’s best skiers – visited the club, based on Canal Head North, while he was in the area for Kendal Mountain Festival.
Karen Wright, committee member and volunteer at the club, initially invited Markus to visit after spotting he was attending the festival.
She reached out to The North Face, who represent Markus, hoping there was a chance he would be interested in visiting.
She said: “I saw that he was coming down and I thought oh my god! His short film The Ultimate Run is the best film ever and it’s the sort of film that reaches out to older and younger generations.
“He has also done the same as many of the kids have at our club starting with racing and moving onto freestyle and I thought it would just be amazing to have him visit and meet with our members.
“He had also done the same as many of the kids at our club, as he started on racing and moved onto freestyle.
“So I got in touch with The North Face and spoke with them and they said he had a really busy itinerary. They are really protective of their athletes, but I said well if you don’t ask, you never get!
“I told them the kids would just love him to come down and that we would really love to see him here, but they said they couldn’t make us any promises.”
The North Face later gifted the club two tickets to meet with the athletes including Markus behind the scenes at the festival’s Snow Night – which features some of the worlds biggest snowsports stars.
Two club members were able to meet with Markus and Karen said they also invited the 27-year-old to visit the club.
She added: “It was a bit of a three pronged attack! I had invited him, we had one of our club members invite him and then we had one of the mum’s slid in his DM’s and sent him a really lovely personal message.
“He actually responded and said he would love to chat with the kids in a break while he was at Snow Night and he sat and talked with them, signed autographs and took loads of pictures with them.
“During that break both some of the younger and older ones invited to come and ski at the club, and he said he didn’t have any skis, so my son’s friend said he could borrow some of our skis.
“He said he couldn’t ski on anything but Völkls because they’re his sponsor, but luckily my son and his friend said that they had Völkls and that he hey could borrow them!
“So between us all we had hatched a plan for him to come along to our Sunday freestyle session.”
Karen said at first they were left wondering if it would really happen but on the Sunday night, The North Face got in touch to say Markus would be coming to the club.
She added: “We responded and said we’d love him to come to our 6pm to 8pm freestyle session and we then didn’t hear anything for a while, so we were all thinking is he going to come or is he not but then about half an hour before we started, we got the message to say he was coming down.”
Karen said Markus spent time chatting with members, signing autographs and taking pictures and he also had a go at riding for his first time on a dry slope.
She added: “I cannot tell you what a nice guy he was, you could just see he was completely genuine. He came down and he was like oh my goodness, how did you build the this place and asked all about how long it has been here for.
“You could see the wonderment on his face, we’re really lucky to have an interesting terrain slope and you can tell he loves his sport through and through because he was so interested in it.
“Because we do freestyle here we have some jumps on the slopes and we have an 80 metre long slope with a quarter pipe and two jumps, rollers and moguls built by Briton Engineering. It was done as a showcase site so they bring people here to see what they can build.
“But the kids said to him after he’d arrived are you going to ski then? so we lent him some boots and made him wear a helmet and take his Redbull beanie off, but he didn’t question it at all!
“He then spent the night on the slope with the kids filming and chatting with then and even more impressive he helped carry the rails we have off the slope. He was a total superstar.”
Karen said the visit meant a lot to the club – which just celebrated 40 years of running.
She said: “It was an absolute joy, he was just a lovely person and everyone still couldn’t get over excitement the next day, everyone just thought he was brilliant.
“He even put us on his socials and said that next time he would bring his own skis and we said yes, please do come again!”
Kendal Snowsports Club was first formed in 1984 by John Lowther who decided he wanted to built a slope and club in the area after spending a year travelling backwards and forwards to do lessons in Carlisle.
While it started out life with 200 members, it now has over 1,300 members and has been a registered charity since 2020.
It is also home to dozens of talented skiers including Alice Sanderson and Josh Wright ranked number one female and male in the UK for freestyle skiing
Fifi Turner, who is ranked as the number one under 16 female in freestyle skiing and Fergus Allen who is ranked number three male in the UK, also ski at the club.
The club also has seven athletes who were selected for the Snowsport England Park & Pipe Squad – the pathway to Team GB.
These include: Jay Hebblethwaite, Josh Wright, Fergus Allen, Dan Louden and Alice Sanderson, Fifi Turner, Cameron Field
The club is also able to offer more slope time for Adaptive Skiers than any other Snowsport England affiliated Club and it is open to people of all ages and levels of experience.
It is entirely volunteer run and led and any money made by the club is put straight back into its facilities.
Karen said that the club is aiming to build its community even more in years to come.
She added: “We’re working on getting our message out there, but we would love to do more and would be delighted to have more people come along.
“People are still going on skiing holidays, but if things keep getting more expensive and things keep melting abroad, the club won’t survive if people can’t go ski anymore.
“But we really have an amazing community here and we’re keen to build that up, people don’t have to be going on holiday to come along, it’s a place people can come to be part of a community and have fun.
“We just want to keep pushing forward for the next generations.”
