AJ Bell 3 Valley Rally becomes Snow Camp’s biggest alpine fundraiser to date

After over a year of planning, Snow Camp’s biggest ever alpine event came together in Val Thorens last week. The 3 Valley Rally delivered 6 different alpine challenges across 2 fun filled days for 24 intrepid teams – each taking on a biathlon, a snow shoe hike, an orienteering challenge, a team distance challenge, an alpine zip wire and a downhill parallel slalom race.

Founder of Snow Camp, Dan Charlish, said, “We have been running alpine fundraising events for many years. They have always been great fun and a fantastic way to bring supporters together and help raise funds for the charities work – but in our 20th anniversary year, we wanted to take it to another level. Exclusively taking over a 5* hotel in the heart of Val Thorens was the first step, so that all teams could be together under one roof, creating a fantastic atmosphere thanks to first class hospitality, service and dinners delivered by the wonderful team at Le Fitz Roy. Then you add the 6 snow sports challenges, apres ski parties to remember, great snow conditions, some celebrity sparkle and some amazing young people from Snow Camp to bring it all to life – and you have the makings of a very positive few days and event to remember.”

Long term friend of Snow Camp, James Cove from Planet Ski, was on hand throughout the event documenting all the action – and his report here contains a huge amount of detail, stories, photos, videos and thank you’s – we wont duplicate all these here! Huge thanks to Planet Ski for all the support.

The overall event combining 6 snowsports challenges worked very well – and after Day 1 it was very close at the top. At the finish, there were just a few points separating the top 3 places, and in the end it came down to perhaps one extra checkpoint, one missed flag, one missed target or perhaps a few seconds on a snow shoe hike…all of which kept the event exciting until the end.

Many congratulations to our overall winners, Free Sprit Alpine, closely followed in 2nd by new Snow Camp supporters Galen Lech with The Stragglers (formed of 4 individual Snow Camp supporters brought together ‘One Direction style’ just for this event…) coming in an awesome 3rd.  Huge congrats to all teams; everyone took on each of the challenges with great enthusiasm and it was wonderful to see.

Full scores and positions for each team can be found here…

Of course the main reason we brought everyone together was to help raise funds for Snow Camp’s ongoing work with young people. To help bring to life how the charity works, four young people from our Scotland and London programmes, Milana, Max, Lamar and Danni, came out to Val Thorens be part of the Snow Camp staff team – and they threw themselves into the opportunity.

They helped with all the activities, spoke movingly about their Snow Camp journeys and danced with everyone at the 80’s apres party. They did themselves and Snow Camp very proud and they made a lot of new friends with our supporters. They also had a fantastic experience visiting Val Thorens at its best – including deep snow, some blue sky moments and so many firsts and new experiences…here they are about to set off for a quick ski before the first guests arrived.

As well as a full schedule of non-stop skiing and snowsports activities, teams were also rewarded with some fantastic apres-ski events – including a private terrace party at the famous Folie Douce and an 80’s extravaganza on the terrace of Le Fitz Roy. Thank you to Xavier for delivering the music, the table dancing and the crazy madness you get at the Folie. So much fun – and made even better by fresh snow falling as the dancing continued.

Back at Le Fitz Roy, thanks to the generosity of our friends at Retro Rentals, we had 80’s onesies for all, and guests dived in to choose their costumes. Our 80’s DJ kindly provided by Apres Ski Bands kicked off a memorable couple of hours.

Check out Andy Bell, and Team Summit Special at the 80’s Apres Party…

..and Team Snow Camp joining in!

We have to say a huge thank you to our wonderful Patrons, Chemmy Alcott and Graham Bell for all their support throughout the event. Here they are leading off the conga…

The true heroes though, were our teams, who collectively put in so much effort to raise an astonishing £320,000 for Snow Camp’s work  – making the 3 Valley Rally our biggest and most successful fundraising event over the last 20 years. Our sincere, genuine and heartfelt thanks goes out to all our teams, with a special mention to our top fundraisers Team Delanski (raising over £22,000), our 2nd place fundraisers Team Galen Lech and our 3rd place fundraisers, Team Apres Ski.

Andy Bell of AJ Bell spoke movingly at the closing dinner about Snow Camp’s work and why he and the family continue to support the charity. Andy said, “We have been supporting Dan and the team at these events for many years now, but I think it goes without saying this has been the best yet. The organisation has been brilliant and of course we are delighted so much has been raised to support Snow Camp’s work. We feel very close to the charity and the work the Snow Camp team deliver really does change lives – as we have heard straight from the young people themselves at this event.”  Andy went on to announce the plan was to run the event again next year – same time, same place – to loud cheers from all in the room!

The staff team at Snow Camp, Dan C, Dan K, Lara, Paige, Daisy, Guillaume and our 4 young people would like to send a huge thank you to everyone for their support. This event has been a huge boost to the charity, at a time when charities are facing many challenges, but with such fantastic supporters behind us we know we will be able to continue, and indeed expand, the work we love doing with young people.

Here are the full Snow Camp staff team together with the wonderful team at Le Fitz Roy – who together with the huge support of  our friend Eric Darde at Beaumier, helped to make it all happen. We are so grateful.

For a full list of all partners and supporters, please see the Planet Ski piece above. And for all the wonderful teams who took part – we look forward to seeing many of you at the Snow Camp 20th Anniversary Ball on October 12th 2023.