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Symon
“Festa” Dent
Symon is the founder of BDS. With a passion for the mountains,
Symon wanted to share his knowledge of the club fields &
encourage skiers and snowboarders to enjoy the club field
experience because “once you try it you never go back
– no queue, no hassles and a real New Zealand experience”.
He is a 5th generation Kiwi & raised with the Southern
Alps at his back door. Symon has the amazing ability of reading
the weather & knowing when to be in the mountains &
when not to be. Everyone loves his charming personality &
makes his customers feel like they have made a new best friend.
Symon is the type of person who can make any job seem effortless
weather it be skiing a new line, fitting chains for the trucks,
bulldozing the access roads on a powder day, entertaining
his customers, or just general maintenance on the ski field.
He is the head guide for BDS & you are always guaranteed
an adventure when you are in his care.
Heather "Mother
Eagle” Dent
Heather has been the mother to BDS since it originated &
is the other owner/operator as well as Symon’s wife.
Born in California & living in NZ since ‘94’.
Heather comes from a strong skiing background & has the
calm reassuring voice to talk to anyone through terrain they
never thought possible. She is multi talented with BDS &
fills the role of administrator, truck driver, chain fitter,
food caterer, mountain guide, mountain staff & that is
just during the southern hemisphere winter. Come summer time Heather migrates back to the northern hemisphere to ski patrol at her home mountain, Kirkwood Meadows in California. This girl has put some quality years into hunting down the best snow on the mountain. Heather puts the ski into skiing, and has put confidence and passion into many young skiers and woman that see her laying down her tracks. If you are with Heather you can be assured the hunt is on....
Kazuya Furuse ‘Kazu’
His international experience in the USA, Canada, Japan and NZ amounts to 12years back to back winters. Having guided for B.D.S. for 5 years, he also is guiding full time during the Japanese winters for Color- Sports, Hakuba. Kazu started his sking career as a childhood racer. He was first introduced to the Back-country aged 18 and has never looked back. His love for the back country keeps bringing him back to the Craigieburn range which he says is “The only place to feel the NZ ski history and experience NZ” most extreme terrain. Kazu is happy to guide from the novice rope tow skier to back country legend. A day with Kazu will have you safely pushing your sking to new levels.
Markus Woertler
Markus came to NZ five seasons ago to have a look around and do a bit of skiing, he decided to visit Craigieburn and well... it just didn't seem right to leave. So Craigieburn is where he spent his first ski season and ended up patrolling there for another two seasons before he moved over the range to Mt Olympus. Since Markus has such style on his chosen skiing destinations, BDS decided they could do with a big friendly german skiing machine. Markus has spent another 2 years patrolling at Lenzerhiede and has just wrapped up a season as snow saftey officer at Berguin, Switzerland. Once you get over the fact he is skiing on skis larger than most main stream family vehicles you will have a safe and exhilarating day, packed with local knowledge of the area.
Charlie
the mountain parrot Kea
Charlie & his friends share the same passion for the mountains
like the rest of us. Charlie’s role with BDS is to meet
& greet when we arrive at the club fields. He is always
keeping an eye on anything left behind, opened or unattended.
There is no one better at weather observations than Charlie
Kea & always seems to know when the storms are coming
, what to do & keeping a watch over the crew at BDS. Cheers
to our NZ native mountain parrot.
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