Adrenaline and LIFE.
Being the first to float above the powder snow, descending a freshly trodden track first thing in the morning, wanting to chain a climbing project, riding a bike downhill with the terrain in perfect condition, giving up EVERYTHING to take advantage of those 17 knots, paddle the best wave of the series.
“The idea”
Since I was little I started skiing, and then sailing. I used to combine skiing and windsurfing, and later I started climbing and biking.
Sports progression with different coaches and groups of friends. I’m going with the windsurfing “group”, the climbing group, the skiing group, the bike group, the gymnastics group… No complaints, I’ve been lucky. But little by little, very little by little I became more of it: I was able to share the bike, the climbing, the kite and the ski with the same group of friends.
Something unusual and VERY valuable, so much so that when you find it you call it family.
At that point, after making the costly decision to separate the world from biomedicine, leaving it as “plan b” and focusing on education and sports, I asked myself: what if I managed to go further?
To provide a sports community with the opportunity to share the mix of sports we have been practicing for decades.
Merge our passions and be able to transmit them with professional quality to the students, to provide the opportunity to practice more than one sport with the same community and the same sports coaches. A multi-sport club 365 days a year.
A family of ski, climbing, bike, sailing and high mountain technicians who end up creating the identity of: Nomad. A school in motion, which pursues the optimal conditions to practice different sports in the same setting: nature.
“The goat throws the mountain” they say. And it is that no matter how hard we try to get around our roots, they are still there: Daffi was one of the first to merge snow and wind sports in the same physical store. Were there other windsurfers and skiers besides him? We considered that same reflection a few years ago, and we decided to add our greatest passions to the equation.
Craziness? Delusion? Passion? Any of them is welcome and is accompanied by the transmission of knowledge, quality, community, close treatment and a strong intention to care for nature, which is what allows us to experience these sports, what we love the most.
“Nomad People”
Laia Sol: the idea.
I suppose that this “hook” and fanaticism with the snow and the sea have followed me since I was little, so I was not of legal age and had already decided that I would be a ski and windsurf teacher. I considered it a tool to complement my student and professional life in Barcelona, and above all an excuse to allow me to go skiing every weekend. “I had to go up because I had a job” the best excuse!
More than 6 years combining my professional life in the city with my professional life in the world of sport, but the same approach was always repeated in my head: what makes me really happy?
I convinced myself that it was going to be just one year… a kind of sabbatical year in which I would spend the winter season in the Valle de Arán. And that’s how he excused it: “it will only be a year”. I still remember a conversation on the chairlift with a great skier friend who told me: be careful, Laia… once you start, you can’t stop!
I climbed professionally in the world of Biomedicine and teaching, but I put more enthusiasm and passion into the world of skiing, and that is how the mountains and teaching through sport made me change the course.
Ana Picher: elbow to elbow.
My passion has always been the natural environment, the mountains and the sea. I studied environmental engineering to turn that passion into a profession and I work in the environmental sector, but not in the natural environment. I have been spending 8 years in Baqueira, a place where I have found a “family” of which Laia is a very important part. Last winter, talking with her, she told me about the project she had in mind, the embryo of Nomad. Many nights talking about her idea and how to make it a reality, so much so, that little by little I began to feel part of the project. A school with illusion and values that go beyond selling products, with the essence of sustainability, companionship, learning by growing and sharing.
Nomad is “that project” that I had been looking for all my life, which was given to me as an opportunity to stop being a dream and become a reality.
Xavier Raventós: the guide.
When I was very young, my parents taught me to love what I do and advised me to look for a job I was passionate about, so I would never get bored. I always loved sports and nature and I was looking for ways to combine these two areas. I started with cycling and skiing, then came climbing and finally university. It was there that I discovered the true potential that sport has to help people grow personally, and to become aware of our body through our thoughts.
Then came the opportunity: Laia asked me to start the project together. I didn’t have everything… I didn’t feel fully prepared. Would I overcome the situation? “You have to be brave and overcome those fears” I said to myself, so I took the plunge. It was the opportunity I had been waiting for to be able to work in what I like, transmitting the knowledge that I am most passionate about, and being able to help people to know themselves a little more (those who want to).
“The blog”
Through this blog we intend to share the ski, mountain and sea adventures that happen in Nomad. Bringing you our best experiences in the world of sport, from adventures lived in the mountains, news of the sector, conversations with important people, issues related to the resort of Baqueira Beret… plus anything else you suggest!
The intention? To try to inform and spread the happiness that sport and its adventures generate in all of us.