Out of the Chaos ...

For people who have never experienced a busy holiday period at a Northeastern ski resort, I happily provide the picture to the left. I took the photos from near the base area of Okemo on Sunday, December 30 at about 10:15 a.m. The crowd includes the lift lines for two separate quad chairlifts, the line for the base area magic carpet lift, people emerging from the base lodge for a late start on the day, and numerous ski and snowboard classes having just left line-up for the start of their lessons. On that day, Okemo sold somewhere in the vicinity of 11,000 lift tickets (not including a few thousand season pass holders). I'll report in later on the final numbers for what is turning out to be a record-breaking holiday season for us, but for now I'll just say that it's amazing that those of us in the Learning Center have been able to pull off what we've done given the resources available.

Over the last few years, as my book of clients has grown, I have rarely had to be in the base area for either our lower level ski group lesson line-ups or for the 3:30 p.m. "Kids Corral". They're impressive, if not a little nuts. Kids Corral is a little like being on the deck of a busy aircraft carrier in wartime, with the occasional jet 'coming in hot'. We literally set up a landing path with cones and waive in all of the ski and snowboard kids groups as they come down to the base, all the while trying to make sure that the children don't disappear until we've 'handed them off' officially to the appropriate parent. Our lower level ski group lesson line-up, while actually quite organized, looks absolutely chaotic to the untrained eye. OK, maybe it looks chaotic to everyone (see photos below), but at least those of us running the show understand what's going on and that all will be safe and sound. I've been running lower line-up with my friends and fellow supervisors Herb and Curt. We may keep it to ourselves, but we are a little amazed each day that we pulled it off. So far we've done so for our guests without a hitch (which I can't say for the other areas of the Learning Center).

My recent columns have not been particularly positive about my current role as a supervisor or about some of what I've seen from the staff, but this week I've been very proud to be a part of things around here. I've seen some amazing things from instructors. Several of our less experienced staff have been teaching an astonishing number of first-time skiers in lesson groups whose numbers often have exceeded our policy for the maximum. One sixteen year-old instructor, who had been a Junior Instructor with us for a few years, taught a level 3 adult group that was so big before we were able to split the group between her and another staff member that I gave her a commendation for teaching a group containing more adults than she is years old. In her case and in so many others, the staff's enthusiasm has been contagious, they've been good humored amidst some difficult circumstances, and most of them are continuing to give 100% while exhausted after having been teaching non-stop for over a week. It's wonderful to see, it has reaffirmed my faith and confidence in the people who teach here, and it leaves me wishing I were out there in the trenches with them.