Community
FEATURE RESIDENT
Simon Piney by KRISTA TURCASSO Our home is located in Parkland Terrace, overlooking Mount Fernie, the Three Sisters and Mount Proctor. Ascent Helicopters is just down the road from us. I am also an avid trail user and sit on the Fernie Trails Alliance Board. All of these things are central to my knowledge and understanding of how busy Fernie Search and Rescue (FSAR) is, and how this grows with each year. As a volunteer and a fan of ‘type two fun,’ I have immense respect for these individuals who dedicate their time to rescue those who need help in the backcountry. And like Simon Piney, Head of Operations at Fernie Search and Rescue says, as an active community that regularly explores the backcountry, eventually something is not going to go according to plan. Simon Piney grew up Geneva, Switzerland and spent a lot of time in the mountains and outdoors in his youth. “My dad was a big trail runner,” he says, which doesn’t surprise me as I know Simon continues to enjoy running up mountains to this day (as do his two sons!). He attended an English Boarding School, and with an interest in economics ended up at the London School of Economics. “Then, you go down that trail,” he tells me. “It led to International Finance, which was pretty fun. I worked raising money for companies around the world and was on a plane five days of the week.” But as you can imagine, this lifestyle can become tiring. Simon’s wife, Anna was also in finance and they decided that when they had kids, they would make a big change. “We didn’t have any great plans, but knew we loved the mountains, trail running and skiing. I had instructed when I was younger and was looking into instructing
courses. We had initially planned to go to Whistler but came across the Non-Stop Ski program in Fernie and thought, ‘we’ll do a season there and carry on.’ Like a lot of people, we didn’t make it further west.” Simon and Anna enjoyed the shift to Fernie. Simon was back doing the things he enjoyed as a kid, and Anna having
Photo by K.Vlasic grown up in the English countryside was happy to be somewhere more relaxed. They had just had their first son, Mac and Anna found engaging with the community of younger moms fulfilling and welcoming. Simon started working as a ski instructor, and also got set up with Search and Rescue right away.
