In The Beginning

In the snowsports industry, two major factors on which the success of a resort depends are the generation of new skiers and riders and the retention of existing ones. Far too many people try skiing or snowboarding once or twice and then walk away from the sports. For those of us who teach, this means that there is a very great burden to make certain that anyone trying skiing or snowboarding for the first time enjoys the experience enough to come back. Obviously, part of this entails their returning to spend more money at our resorts, but it also means an opportunity for us as teachers in the truest sense.

As I’ve noted in my description of this blog and in countless conversations with guests and other pros over the years, I view the job of an instructor, at its essence, as one of sharing our passion for our sports with as many people as we can. The best way I’ve found to articulate this is to explain that we should all strive to ‘make the answer to the question “yes”.’ By this I mean that after we’ve taught a beginner to ski or ride, when they are asked whether they ski or snowboard they should respond “yes”, proudly. The answer should not be “well, I did try skiing once” or “my [friends / family / spouse / etc.] took me on a ski trip and …”. The ideal answer is “Yes. I went to [Okemo, Treble Cone or another resort], I took a great ski / snowboard lesson, and now I am a skier / rider. I love it and I’m totally hooked.”

For the second season in a row, we here at Okemo Mountain Resort have had a free early season program for beginning skiers and snowboarders, inclusive of equipment rentals, a lower mountain lift pass, and a beginner lesson. While we do get some people who have skied or ridden before, nearly all of the participants are new to our sports. The program has been a resounding success and the numbers tell quite a story. Between December 1st and December 16th, 2008, the Okemo Ski + Ride School taught 1,651 people how to ski or ride for the first time, including 926 riders and 723 skiers. Last weekend, December 13th and 14th, we taught 782 beginners, including nearly 500 on Saturday alone. It’s a remarkable accomplishment and, judging from my observations, the overwhelming majority of our students have had a wonderful experience. It’s incredibly gratifying for all of us. We have created new skiers and snowboarders with each and every lesson and have shared our passion for our sports with so many.

I’ve been very lucky. Over the last several years of teaching skiing, I’ve worked with many of the same students year after year and have had the opportunity to see their skiing evolve over time – this is true of both kids and adults. The cold hard reality of working as a ski instructor is that we make a living by virtue of the request private lessons that we generate and the tips those lessons provide. Most of us find it distasteful to “sell ourselves” too much and, thankfully, we find that when we focus on the quality of the guests’ experiences during their time with us and on their growth as skiers, they tend to come back and our livelihood improves. Plus, we get to know some wonderful folks, spending our time together doing something we love in some pretty exceptional places.

There is, however, one unfortunate irony in this dynamic: as we succeed we teach fewer and fewer group lessons and fewer-still lessons for entry-level skiers. There is a risk, therefore, that anyone who succeeds at teaching skiing or riding will lose touch with the experiences of beginning skiers. This year, a combination of factors has brought me back to the lower level group lineup with far greater frequency. It’s a rebuilding year for me, having missed the last Northern Winter with injury, private lesson bookings have dropped considerably in the current economic climate, and our free lesson program has required that we have more staff available for the beginner lessons. For me, the result has been fantastic.

Yes, I still have many high-level skiing clients that otherwise keep me busy. Yes, I still teach many upper level classes and still focus on private lessons in order to make a living. But, I have been able to share in the excitement of introducing skiers to the sport, seeing the looks on their faces as they slide for the first time, and the pride and joy that comes from mastering the simple and yet difficult tasks of skiing. It’s awesome and, though it is my injury and the recession that have caused me to step back and participate in this process from the very beginning, it’s been worth it.

As an aside, today we skied in over a foot of legitimately dry, light powder at Okemo, and it isn't even officially winter until tomorrow. Beach? Who needs a beach? I’ll take the mountains, thank you very much, and some beginners with whom to share them.

We Interrupt This Winter for an Important Announcement

Summer is good. Yes, I know what you’re saying. Yes, I realize that I have chosen to go from Northern Winter to Southern Winter and back without so much as a heat wave in between. Yes, I have forsaken summer with my eyes wide open. I do not regret it, I have not second-guessed it, and I have no misgivings about it.

However, and that’s a very big ‘however’, do not confuse my forsaking summer with my having some sort of misbegotten ill will towards warm weather and sunshine. Quite the opposite is true, as a matter of fact. So, when one of my close friends decided to celebrate his wedding in the British Virgin Islands, did I resist out of some oddly philosophical rejection of physical comfort? Heck no. I went armed to the BVI with flip flops, sunblock, good reading material, a healthy liver, and a severe need to make the most of the glorious climate and beautiful surroundings for the entirety of my brief stay.

While there, staying at a remote and exceptionally beautiful resort, despite the array of activities available to me and the enthusiasm with which my friends pursued them, I stuck to my guns and did absolutely nothing. OK, well, not nothing exactly. I did go to the gym, I did start and make good headway in a new book, I did conduct a ritualistic baptismal in the Caribbean Sea every day, I did nap on a chaise, I did stroll back and forth for multiple meals, and I did conduct an oddly long and detailed observation of the feeding habits of the native pelicans. Who knew that pelicans could be so interesting?

So, without further or due, here’s a top 10 list. The top 10 best things about vacationing on a tropical island with your friends (a/k/a “life’s good when” …):

10. It’s hot, and the best way to stay cool is to move slowly, very slowly;

9. It’s hot, and the best way to dress is by wearing only loose, light and exceptionally comfortable clothes;

8. It rains every day for ten minutes in the morning, just enough to cool off the sand;

7. The fresh local fish is good for you and tastes impossibly good when prepared with the locally-grown fruit;

6. The old local rum is good for you and tastes impossibly good when mixed with the locally-grown fruit;

5. One has to slow down a lot and pay close attention in order to observe that the rays lay along the soft, sandy bottom of the bay in the shadow cast by the pelicans;

4. The only ice around is in the drinks and never, ever under foot;

3. The difficulty in deciding which is better: the gentle lapping of the waves on the beach as my friends say their wedding vows or the relaxed West Indian lilt of the minister performing the service;

2. Bare feet are not only appropriate footwear for most activities but are acceptable attire under nearly all circumstances;

And the Number One best thing about vacationing on a tropical island with your friends (a/k/a “life’s good when” …)

1. The color of the water in the coral reef-protected bay is precisely half-way between the color of the blue sky and the color of the green palm fronds whose shade cools the beach edge.

In all seriousness, I do miss experiencing summer. Despite all of my musings about the joys of winter, losing summer is a very real sacrifice for me. If nothing else, this recent trip made that clear. Maybe I’ll stop in Tahiti on my way to New Zealand next year. Hmmm, now there’s an idea.

Not Exactly Norman

Ski towns are a bit like college towns. Many people come in for the winter season and leave as soon as the grass turns green. Many people also arrive and stay for several years before moving on to other towns and other pursuits. In an industry that tends to be peopled with itinerant sensation-seeking young people anyway, there is little permanency in mountain-sport focused communities.

One particular result of this itinerant condition is that the holidays take on a not-particularly-Norman-Rockwell composure. In some ways this means that there is something missing from the substance of our celebrations – we do, after all, work all the way through the periods on the calendar when the rest of the world vacations. It also, however, means that we can celebrate some traditionally family-oriented holidays with a focus on the substance on the celebration rather than, for example, the logistics of assembling myriad family members with the requisite stresses and intrigue.

Please don’t read anything into this statement – I do very much enjoy when my entire family can get together at my parents’ house for Thanksgiving. However, even in the healthiest and most loving of families, when the kids all have grown up and left the house to start their own families, there’s always a certain amount of stress to be found in putting them all back into the house for a few days.

Every other year, my siblings celebrate Thanksgiving at their various in-laws’ houses and my parents and I are left to fend for ourselves. Each of the last few of these “off-years” we’ve held Thanksgiving dinner at my apartment here in Ludlow, Vermont. In each of these years also, we’ve been lucky enough to have assorted non-family guests join us for the festivities. This year was no exception, and it always emphasizes the real importance of the holiday. We give thanks for the people who are important to us and enrich our lives – both those present and those absent, those that have been in our lives since we entered this world and with those that are new acquaintances, young and old, friends and colleagues, American and foreign, skiers and snowboarders, instructors and coaches, all hosted by my parents incomparable hospitality in full flower (even though it is my house and I get the credit) and who invariably are resplendent in their Dale of Norway sweaters.

In ski towns, people come and go. Some of them are friends whose company we enjoy for a season or two and then move on, and some are friends who we take with us and occupy a special place in our hearts, whether we see them again or not. We grow as people, and at Thanksgiving we give thanks for that growth and the experiences we’ve shared above and beyond skiing and snowboarding. Then, still under the effects of the tryptophan, we ski and ride on Friday morning.

I hope each of you has had a great Thanksgiving, whether celebrated with your families or elsewhere. Now it’s time to get down to the serious fun of winter.

When? Now.

My last post, written on Saturday, November 15th, wondered out loud when winter would hit us here in Vermont. 48 hours later we answered the question. It's now Wednesday, it's been flurrying for three days straight, the snowmaking crew at Okemo has had guns ablazin' since Sunday night, and we'll be skiing and riding on trails from top to bottom on Saturday the 22nd. Perhaps, after all, my snow dance actually worked. Now if only I could remember which ski socks I was wearing so I can get it right next year.

When?

It’s November 15th, the original projected start date for Okemo’s 2008/09 winter season. This evening at about 7:30PM the temperature outside was somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 degrees Fahrenheit and it had been raining for most of the day. That’s good news if you’re knitting a quilt, writing the great American novel or doing the New York Times crossword puzzle. It’s not so encouraging if you work at a winter sports resort, especially if you teach skiing for a living as I do.

All kidding aside, the reality of the effect of the weather is that it makes all of us a little anxious, perhaps a little stir crazy as we wait for winter to arrive. With all of the concerns we have about what effect the receding economy will have on our business, more anxiety is not welcome. This is compounded by the fact that all of us who work in this industry share one very effective means of releasing stress - that is skiing or snowboarding – which is not available to us at the moment. Now that it’s so gloomy and wet, riding my road bike isn’t so attractive and there’s only so much time I can spend in the gym buried in my iPod without going completely out of my mind. So, what are we to do?

Warm, wet and snowless starts to the ski season are nothing new. Those of us who work in the mountains and depend on winter don’t need to read the scientific journals to be convinced that global warming is a reality, but the fact is that snow and snow-making temperatures in New England are always spotty at this time of year. The 2006/07 season was horrible in this respect, with a dismal early season and the first real storm not hitting us until Valentines Day. That year, those of us accustomed to the ebb and flow of New England weather spent an inordinate amount of time assuring our foreign staff that, yes, it would in fact snow. There were occasions when I wasn’t sure whether they or I really needed the reassurance but, as was the case in every poor season, we were right. It did snow. It snowed a lot.

So, once again we’re walking around in circles, peeking at our cold weather clothing still hanging in our closets, anxiously talking about the amount of early season ticket sales, getting taunted by friends in the Rockies, dialing in our equipment and chomping at the bit.

The only remedy that I am aware of for the resultant psychological condition is to do the snow dance. In my experience, though there are many varieties of the snow dance, there is one tried and true formula. It involves wearing a ski hat or helmet, goggles (down over the eyes), ski or snowboard boots, and pajamas (preferably flannel with some sort of snow-themed design) while dancing around the living room or watching ski movies while seated on the couch. Please understand that in no way do I think that the snow dance affects the weather. It just makes us all feel a bit funny and helps pass the time pass while it rains in November. When, oh when will it snow? Soon, that’s when. And at Okemo we’ll make winter, we always do and we’re the best at it.

Looking Forward, Listening Back

This is a blog principally about skiing and the experiences, exposures and opportunities it provides me. In the end, however, it is just skiing and sometimes more important events require, really demand my attention. This evening, as I follow the television coverage of our election and its results become clear, I am incredibly moved and I struggle to articulate what it means to me personally or to our nation. The best I can offer is to remember the words of President Lyndon Johnson. LBJ may seem an odd choice, but his vision for America sounds as fresh and a propos on this historic evening as it did in May of 1964 to the students of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. For now, I would like a glass of scotch, a good cigar, and the promise of a great winter to come.

---------------------------

I have come today from the turmoil of your Capital to the tranquility of your campus to speak about the future of your country.

The purpose of protecting the life of our Nation and preserving the liberty of our citizens is to pursue the happiness of our people. Our success in that pursuit is the test of our success as a Nation.

For a century we labored to settle and to subdue a continent. For half a century we called upon unbounded invention and untiring industry to create an order of plenty for all of our people.

The challenge of the next half century is whether we have the wisdom to use that wealth to enrich and elevate our national life, and to advance the quality of our American civilization.

Your imagination, your initiative, and your indignation will determine whether we build a society where progress is the servant of our needs, or a society where old values and new visions are buried under unbridled growth. For in your time we have the opportunity to move not only toward the rich society and the powerful society, but upward to the “Great Society”.

The “Great Society” rests on abundance and liberty for all. It demands an end to poverty and racial injustice, to which we are totally committed in out time. But that is just the beginning.

The “Great Society” is a place where every child can find knowledge to enrich his mind and to enlarge his talents. It is a place where leisure is a welcome chance to build and reflect, not a feared cause of boredom and restlessness. It is a place where the city of man serves not only the needs of the body and the demands of commerce but the desire for beauty and the hunger for community.

It is a place where man can renew contact with nature. It is a place which honors creation for its own sake and for what is adds to the understanding of the race. It is a place where men are more concerned with the quality of their goals than the quantity of their goods.

But most of all, the “Great Society” is not a safe harbor, a resting place, a final objective, a finished work. It is a challenge constantly renewed, beckoning us toward a destiny where the meaning of our lives matches the marvelous products of our labor.

So I want to talk to you today about three places where we begin to build the “Great Society” - in our cities, in our countryside, and in our classrooms.

Many of you will live to see the day, perhaps 50 years from now, when there will be 400 million Americans - four-fifths of them in urban areas. In the remainder of this century urban population will double, city land will double, and we will have to build homes, highways, and facilities equal to all those built since this country was first settled. So in the next 40 years we must re-build the entire urban United States.

Aristotle said: “Men come together in cities in order to live, but they remain together in order to live the good life.” It is harder and harder to live the good life in American cities today.

The catalog of ills is long: there is the decay of the centers and the despoiling of the suburbs. There is not enough housing for our people or transportation for our traffic. Open land is vanishing and old landmarks are violated.

Worst of all expansion is eroding the precious and time honored values of community with neighbors and communion with nature. The loss of these values breeds loneliness and boredom and indifference.

Our society will never be great until our cities are great. Today the frontier of imagination and innovation is inside those cities and not beyond their borders.

New experiments are already going on. It will be the task of your generation to make the American city a place where future generations will come, not only to live but to live the good life.

I understand that if I stayed here tonight I would see that Michigan students are really doing their best to live the good life.

This is the place where the Peace Corps was started. It is inspiring to see how all of you, while you are in this country, are trying so hard to live at the level of the people.

A second place where we begin to build the “Great Society” is in our countryside. We have always prided ourselves on being not only America the strong and America the free, but America the beautiful. Today that beauty is in danger. The water we drink, the food we eat, the very air that we breathe, are threatened with pollution. Our parks are overcrowded, our seashores overburdened. Green fields and dense forests are disappearing.

A few years ago we were greatly concerned about the “Ugly American.” Today we must act to prevent an ugly America.

For once the battle is lost, once our natural splendor is destroyed, it can never be recaptured. And once man can no longer walk with beauty or wonder at nature his spirit will wither and his sustenance be wasted.

A third place to build the “Great Society” is in the classrooms of America. There your children's lives will be shaped. Our society will not be great until every young mind is set free to scan the farthest reaches of thought and imagination. We are still far from that goal.

Today, 8 million adult Americans, more than the entire population of Michigan, have not finished 5 years of school. Nearly 20 million have not finished 8 years of school. Nearly 54 million - more than one quarter of all America - have not even finished high school.

Each year more than 100,000 high school graduates, with proved ability, do not enter college because they cannot afford it. And if we cannot educate today's youth, what will we do in 1970 when elementary school enrollment will be 5 million greater than 1960? And high school enrollment will rise by 5 million. College enrollment will increase by more than 3 million.

In many places, classrooms are overcrowded and curricula are outdated. Most of our qualified teachers are underpaid, and many of our paid teachers are unqualified. So we must give every child a place to sit and a teacher to learn from. Poverty must not be a bar to learning, and learning must offer an escape from poverty.

But more classrooms and more teachers are not enough. We must seek an educational system which grows in excellence as it grows in size. This means better training for our teachers. It means preparing youth to enjoy their hours of leisure as well as their hours of labor. It means exploring new techniques of teaching, to find new ways to stimulate the love of learning and the capacity for creation.

These are three of the central issues of the “Great Society”. While our Government has many programs directed at those issues, I do not pretend that we have the full answer to those problems.

But I do promise this: We are going to assemble the best thought and the broadest knowledge from all over the world to find those answers for America. I intend to establish working groups to prepare a series of White House conferences and meetings -- on the cities, on natural beauty, on the quality of education, and on other emerging challenges. And from these meetings and from this inspiration and from these studies we will begin to set our course toward the “Great Society”.

The solution to these problems does not rest on a massive program in Washington, nor can it rely solely on the strained resources of local authority. They require us to create new concepts of cooperation, a creative federalism, between the National Capital and the leaders of local communities.

Woodrow Wilson once wrote: “Every man sent out from his university should be a man of his Nation as well as a man of his time.”

Within your lifetime powerful forces, already loosed, will take us toward a way of life beyond the realm of our experience, almost beyond the bounds of our imagination.

For better or for worse, your generation has been appointed by history to deal with those problems and to lead America toward a new age. You have the chance never before afforded to any people in any age. You can help build a society where the demands of morality, and the needs of the spirit, can be realized in the life of the Nation.

So, will you join in the battle to give every citizen the full equality which God enjoins and the law requires, whatever his belief, or race, or the color of his skin?

Will you join in the battle to give every citizen an escape from the crushing weight of poverty?

Will you join in the battle to make it possible for all nations to live in enduring peace -- as neighbors and not as mortal enemies?

Will you join in the battle to build the “Great Society”, to prove that our material progress is only the foundation on which we will build a richer life of mind and spirit?

There are those timid souls who say this battle cannot be won; that we are condemned to a soulless wealth. I do not agree. We have the power to shape the civilization that we want. But we need your will, your labor, your hearts, if we are to build that kind of society.

Those who came to this land sought to build more than just a new country. They sought a new world. So I have come here today to your campus to say that you can make their vision our reality. So let us from this moment begin our work so that in the future men will look back and say: It was then, after a long and weary way, that man turned the exploits of his genius to the full enrichment of his life.

Thank you. Good-bye.

American Fantasy

My hometown occupies the very northwestern corner of Connecticut, with Massachusetts to our immediate north and New York to our immediate west. It is surrounded by steep, green hills and filled with rivers and lakes. With all of the recent political rhetoric about “real Americans” and the media emphasis on blue versus red states, those of us who call this hard-to-get-to and harder-to-leave slice of America home defy easy pigeon-holing.

The town, according to its 2007 Annual Report (which all Connecticut towns submit to the state government each year), consists of 60.65 square miles or 38,761 acres and it encompasses 2 villages and 3 hamlets. Of the total population of approximately 4,100 people, as of September 2007 there were 1179 unaffiliated registered voters, 706 registered republicans, 970 registered democrats, 6 voters registered with the Independence Party, and 2 voters registered as Socialists. There are equal numbers of farmers and second home owners here, and many fascinating retirees who enrich the intellectual and cultural life of town. The “business district”, such as it is, is bounded by a Congregational church on one end and the Episcopalian church on the other (with other denominations not far away), there’s a graceful old inn on the green, and soldiers from conflicts dating all the way back to the French and Indian War (a/k/a the Seven Years’ War) are buried in the cemetery behind town hall. We have not one, not two, but three highly reputable private preparatory schools in town along with the excellent regional public school district. We’re not without our social tensions, we have our share of hardship and poverty, and we definitely are not immune to the other ills of society. As far as I know Jimmy Stewart does not operate a Savings and Loan here, but you get the picture. Many families over the past 350 years have staked out their piece of the American dream here – some have made it and many haven’t, but all have a pride of place and of their association with it.

I have just spent four months on the far side of the world during the most vigorous portion of the now-completed political campaigns, literally as far from home as one can get without leaving the planet. Whether in spite of or as a result of that great distance, and coupled with the events and conditions affecting our nation at home and abroad, I have felt moved by the current election in ways both cerebral and emotional to an extent I have never before experienced. Certainly, the frequent and sincere queries from Kiwis and others looking for some insight into our national consciousness and our political process kept events in the forefront of my mind and required that I be able to articulate my own views to others, with all the requisite careful consideration. Imagine a casual, polite dinner conversation where I am asked to explain the Electoral College, the role of US monetary policy on the world economy, the defining events in the lives of the Presidential candidates, why Texas is so different from New England, and what’s so important about Brett Favre playing for the Jets and you get the idea.

One particular comment from an older friend in Wanaka struck an interesting chord with me, one which has been on my mind quite a bit as the second Tuesday in November has approached. My friend is classic Kiwi: he’s an octogenarian, fit and mentally sharp, a retired and quite brilliant psychiatrist who immigrated to New Zealand from Scotland with his young family in the 1960’s. His comment to me (which clearly struck a nerve) was that the American Dream is really just a fantasy, noting that he’s “an expert on fantasies”. The problem is that my friend, like so many British, doesn’t get it. A fantasy, as he considered it, is not grounded in reality. In America, because we have and continue to create our own reality, we are free to dream of a nation and a world which may seem far-fetched, which may seem beyond our reach, but towards which we can dedicate ourselves, our resources, our efforts and our hopes – “our sacred honor”, as it were.

As Americans we are aware that the American Dream is a representation of our aspirations as individuals and as a community. We understand that there will always be a gap – sometimes large and, hopefully, sometimes small – between our abstraction of America the dream and the reality of America the nation. My friend failed to grasp that the dream was born of the confluence of the flowering of the liberal concepts of the great enlightenment philosophers, the antithetical relationship of their philosophies and an oppressive colonial power, and the destiny of a people empowered by their own natural inclination towards self-expression and self-betterment. Our “inalienable rights” arose out of the ether and took root in each and all of us. Believe me, I’ve seen the soil in New England up close and anything which is going to take root here and flower for generations had better be stubborn.

My intention is not to preach about how right we are, nor is it my intention to lecture on the merits or nature of the American Dream. My intention is to take a moment on the night before Election Day, at a time when our concepts of who were are as Americans and our goals for our country and its place in the world find challenges at every turn, to consider the essentials. There are many attributes we share with people on the other side of the world and I am blessed to consider so many of them my friends. They have and continue to enrich my life. Still, there is no place I’d rather be on Election Day than in my home town, among my own people – farmers, teachers, doctors, retires, and even ski instructors - considering our common aspirations and our differing opinions over a cup of coffee and a ballot box.

Putting It All On the Line

It’s coming. It’s in the smells in the air, the nervous energy in town and the thick frosts and occasional flurries whitening the mountaintops here in New England. Another winter and another ski season are nearly upon us. I’m excited. Each time I’ve spent the “summer” working in a Southern Hemisphere winter, I’ve had a little anxiety about whether I’d be able to share in the excitement that comes to skiers and riders after the leaves have fallen and before the cold really hits. Each time, as I’ve dealt with the inevitable logistics and pre-season planning, I’ve been gratified to find that I am genuinely ready for another winter, I am genuinely psyched. This year is no exception.

At Okemo this coming winter I’ll be back to my normal role on the line as a ski instructor and I couldn’t be happier. Yes, I still will have a lot of responsibilities off the hill. Yes, I still will be supervising a couple of days each week. Yes, I’ll be conducting a lot of staff training. But, at the end of the day, I’m a ski instructor. I love it. Skiing, as an Italian colleague of mine once said, is not rocket surgery. Even at its most technical level of analysis, the movements are simple (though not necessarily easy) and the nature of the job also is simple. What makes it a challenge is working to understand each person we teach and articulating to them (verbally and otherwise) the technical aspects of skiing in a way that they understand and can replicate. Sometimes this means being direct and technical and at other times it means using a little guile and creativity to reach the desired result. Make all of this fun and keep the guests safe, and the challenges multiply. It’s immensely gratifying and a lot of fun.

My role at Treble Cone coordinating programs for the guests and running the training for the staff is a great gig. Our operation in Wanaka, New Zealand is small enough that I do get to teach a fair bit, and the whole experience is a wonderful counterpoint to Okemo – the two places are different and complementary in many, many ways. Notably, each of the three of us who run the TC Snow Sports School - me, my counterpart Nick who runs the children’s programs, and our director Tim – think of ourselves as instructors first and last, and we view it as an important facet of our jobs that the staff knows it.

Now that I’ll be back in my spot at Okemo, sitting on the bench in the Wernick House locker room, booting up next to Joe, Courtney, Fred, John and the rest, comparing notes on the weather, judging how to dress by how many layers Fred is wearing that day and dividing it by five, laughing constantly and grumbling occasionally, and heading out on the hill to teach everyone and anyone who comes our way, it’ll be a wonderful way to spend my time. We have an exceptional collection of instructors, exceptional teachers and exceptional people, and I’m glad to be home and to be back amongst them.

One More Look

Just as I couldn't resist one more look back over Lake Wanaka before leaving town on Tuesday, I couldn't help posting one more photo taken last week from right outside my back door. I'm glad to be home in the United States and to be headed to another winter in Vermont, but a piece of Wanaka will stay with me. Until next time ...

Somewhere Over the Pacific…

I’m committed. I’ve just crossed over the Equator on my way from Auckland to California. There will be no going back to summer this year.

The past week has been a bit of a whirlwind, both in the bubble in which I’d been living and in the world at large. I’m not yet sure if it will turn out to have been a blessing or a curse to have been isolated from the barrage of media surrounding the current international credit crisis, but I’m certain the ramifications of it will be immediately apparent and deep seeded at home upon my arrival. At present, however, I’m sitting in a more than half-empty, brand new Boeing 777-200ER, I’ve watched an episode of Top Gear where the hosts sped around Europe in three different “supercars” looking for the perfect driving road and spending fuel like there was no tomorrow, I’ve eaten what likely will have been my last lamb meal for a while, and I am half-way through this week’s Economist, trying to put everything in perspective. The number and size of the advertisements from banks now in financial distress provides some intensely ironic gallows humor.

To say the least, the places I’ve been over the past several days would have been distracting to even the most serious of people in even the most dire of circumstances. On Saturday, I drove for five hours from Wanaka in the heart of the Southern Alps, to Te Anau, a large town on the shores of Lake Te Anau surrounded by mountains, and then on to Milford at the head of Milford Sound, a fjord on the West Coast of the South Island. The road from Te Anau to Milford, paved only since 1996 and called, nicely, the Milford Road, is 100 kilometers long but takes at least two hours of driving, in part because it’s windy and mountainous and in part because it’s so beautiful that it hurts. My neck was sore when I arrived, literally. I spent Saturday night along the banks of the Cleddau River, explored the fjord by boat, making it out to the Tasman Sea and back, enjoyed lunch with good friends with no concern for the viability of the Western capitalist system, and then drove the five hours back home. Milford Sound was justifiably called one of the eight wonders of the natural world by Rudyard Kipling himself. Milford Sound and the Fjordland National Park generally are as remote and as beautiful as I could imagine and left me absolutely distracted, leading to some of those lucid moments that may or may not result in a better understanding of the world but which provide a welcome cleansing from the hustle and bustle of the mind.

What effect the current financial crisis in the world will have on the Vermont ski industry is uncertain, in both nature and extent. It won’t be good, regardless. Though I try at all times while working to focus on the positive, the many benefits of skiing and teaching skiing, at the end of the day it is my job and it is a business. It is also a luxury. The seals lolling about on the rock ledges surrounding Milford Sound may not care whether the Western democracies can stave off financial collapse, but as I head across the ocean to an uncertain future at home it is foremost on my mind. Regardless, Okemo will open in time for Thanksgiving and I will be there, ready to share, to teach and to enjoy with all that come my way. How many do so remains an open question.


The photos appearing here, all taken within the past week, are, from top to bottom: the Aspiring Range as seen from Glendhu Bay on the Western shores of Lake Wanaka (above the text); The Aspiring Range looking up along the Matukituki Valley; the Eglinton River Valley seen from the Miford Road; Mitre Peak at sunset, seen from the boat basin in Milford Sound; Milford Sound looking out towards the Tasman Sea from the deck of the Milford Wanderer; and one of the remakable rock formations in The Chasm along the Cleddau River near the Milford Road. Given the difficulty in choosing which photos to post here, I've made two photo albums posted on facebook available to anyone interested in viewing them. Many more photos are available, and worthwhile, at the following links:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=43641&l=bdc59&id=642938180

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=44023&l=699e0&id=642938180

In Cognito

Kiwis have a very disarming love of wearing costumes. Any party, any event, any occasion is reason enough to dig into the back of the closet, head to the recycle center for something second hand and a bit odd, or go all out and hire something exceptional. This reflex is not in any way limited to the young party crowd – older (for Wanaka, that means older than 25), completely respectable, professional people will grab hold of a costume theme with the same if not more enthusiasm as the cool kids. It really is amazing.

Sunday, October 5th was the last day of the season at Treble Cone, and it brought out everyone in the finest. The retro ski gear that showed up (clothing and ski equipment both) brought back many memories and, in some cases, made all of us cringe. The sheer numbers of people in tropical prints, funny hats, odd ensembles, gorilla suits and the like was incredibly funny. This included the staff, the managers, the medical personnel, everyone. If you had arrived from Vermont without being prepped for it, you might have thought someone spiked the morning coffee. It was an incredibly funny and exceptionally fun display, and a great way to finish the season.

At the end of my second winter season here, I’ve concluded that this costume phenomenon is the result of the combination of two related factors. First, New Zealand is very far from everyone and everything else on earth except Australia (which Kiwis probably wish was further away anyway) and Antarctica. Anyone not able to get enthusiastic about the next themed party is destined to end up grumpy and alone that evening, not a happy state of affairs when marooned out here in the middle of the Pacific. Think about the funny madcap evenings spent on Gilligan’s Island and you get the idea.

This remoteness results directly in the second factor, the determined and refreshing lack of pretension in all aspects of life here. Nobody is above getting all gussied up in costume. It also means there is a certain lack of apprehension about getting drunk in public, but that’s another story. Regardless, if coming to New Zealand, definitely leave your stiff upper lip at home. It’s as though, having left behind the social rigidity of Great Britain, those first immigrants to the South Island, many of whom were from Scotland, saw the perfect grazing land, the salmon and trout-filled rivers, and the massive peaks, breathed a deep sigh of relief, and decided to let fly their inner comedy. It’s contagious, I must say, though it creeps in slowly. I’m not expecting “fancy dress” parties at Okemo this coming winter, but I haven’t minded dipping a toe in the costumed waters while here in Wanaka. At a minimum, the costume phenomenon and all the energy that goes with it shows the spirit and enthusiasm of all those Kiwis and those who travel here to dedicate themselves to the pursuit of a life in the mountains.

Insert Toes in Sand Here

This past Monday, I traveled to the city of Dunedin to celebrate Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year. Dunedin is a small port city here on the South Island of New Zealand that was a bustling commercial center in the nineteenth century and which now has a pleasant mix of industry and shipping, together with all the trappings of its modern role as an important university city. Dunedin has little pollution, lots of parks, no traffic, and lots of bungalow style single-family homes and tidy little retail buildings along the sea wall in the St. Clair neighborhood where my friends live. Consider that all of this is a short stroll from a great surf beach and it’s all a three hour drive from the great skiing at Treble Cone, and Dunedin certainly provides its residents and visitors with a balance and a lifestyle rarely found. In many respects, these factors combine to make the place feel a bit like Seattle and other towns on the Pacific coast of the US. Dunedin may not be the coolest or most moneyed city in New Zealand, but the residents are justly prideful of their home. As was the case for me Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning, any place where I can insert my toes into the sand of an ocean beach less than twelve hours before skiing in a couple of feet of fresh, light, dry powder in high alpine terrain gets my vote.

Traveling the three hours to Dunedin from Wanaka by car, one stays on “major” roads. That is to say that the two lane road that snakes through the rolling hills, orchards, vineyards and pasture-lands of central Otago is a major thoroughfare for the South Island but certainly does not qualify as a highway. Imagine if US Rt. 100 in Vermont were the only means of travel from one end of the state to the other and you’ll be able to put this in perspective. The surrounding countryside (as seen in the photo above) is, like so many places here, astonishingly beautiful. On Monday driving to Dunedin and on Tuesday evening driving back, it was a very green and very welcome relief from the jagged peaks and wind-swept highlands of the Southern Alps where Wanaka is located.

In the few days since returning from celebrating the new year, I’ve been trying to put the holiday and its meaning into perspective in light of the interesting experience of celebrating it with ex-pat English friends in a tiny synagogue on the South Island. I have failed to do so, or at least I have failed to draw from the experience something instructive about it for anyone taking the time to read my blog. Ultimately, my conclusion is that the celebration of Rosh Hashanah, and of Yom Kippur next week, are by nature personal. As Jews, we celebrate them as a community and as congregations, but the High Holy Days for me are a collective way of engaging in personal experience. I am exceptionally grateful to have been able to join my friends, to celebrate the holiday in a congregation which consisted of twenty or so people and may be the only dedicated synagogue on the South Island. Given that my friends are returning to the UK after five years here and are grappling with all that they will be leaving behind in Dunedin and all that they will be finding back home, it was particularly rewarding to visit with them at home as a means of appreciating all that I have been fortunate to see and do over the past year and all of the people who have enriched my life, both here and at home.

Tomorrow, Sunday the 5th of October, is the final day of the 2008 ski season at Treble Cone. There are a lot of the usual festivities on the program – pond skimming, costume wearing, live music, various drink promotions – all of which seem to pale in comparison to the natural signs of Spring’s arrive in full force here in Wanaka. Daylight now extends past eight o’clock in the evening and waterfalls seem to emerge each night from all corners of the mountains we pass to and from work. Ultimately, for me, the High Holy Days are an opportunity to move from one year, one season, one set of circumstances to the next and a joyful way to contemplate what came before and, certainly, what will come next.

The Kindness of Others

My first season teaching skiing at Okemo was also the first season that the resort began to hire foreign instructors, all of whom were Australian at that time. Since then, the number and diversity of our foreign teaching staff has grown and evolved considerably. Apart from fulfilling an important role in the business of running our resort – we depend on international recruiting for housekeeping, lifts, snowmaking, hotel staff and others in addition to instructors - our international staff does a great deal to enrich the Okemo experience of our guests and our American staff alike. My purpose in writing about this is not to address the issue of visas for temporary foreign workers, though that is a major issue for the entire snowsports industry this year. Rather, it’s to note that what goes around comes around.

Not surprisingly, at home I own a car which I drive to get to and from work, to do errands around town, to conduct my social life, and to get the heck out of Dodge when needed (Ludlow is a small town, after all). Okemo is very close to downtown Ludlow by car, and Ludlow has a very compact town center with the market, bars, restaurants and necessary stores all very close to each other and to staff housing. The five minute drive from the resort to town, however, involves a very long, very steep access road with no sidewalk. So, over the years I’ve always made sure to give friends and colleagues a ride home when needed and the occasional early morning pick-up on powder days, and I try to shrug it off insisting that it’s no trouble.

Here in Wanaka, New Zealand, I do not own a car. Today, my day off, I’ll walk from the house where I’m staying into town which will take about half an hour, then to the gym from town which will take another 20 minutes, and then back home, another 45 or more. Thankfully, after several gloomy days up on the hill, it’s sunny and warm outside and the long walks along the lakefront will be most welcome today. I may stop by an outdoor café where I’m likely to see friends, pop into an internet café to check email, read the newspaper and check on the Vuelta a Espańa. I’ll generally enjoy the slow pace, making the walk more about strolling along than about locomotion or transport, in particular given that I’ll likely be stopped in my tracks by the views of the Buchanan Range from across Lake Wanaka.

There are many evenings, however, after the staff transport drops me off at the gym after a long day of work, when the long walk home on an empty stomach is the last thing I want to do. When I need to do my grocery shopping, I arrive at the market with a backpack and only buy enough food to fit in it without turning my walk home into the Long March. Especially when the winter days are cold and short (and they are very short this far South), I frequently get lucky and find friends willing to give me a ride. I try not to be a burden and I do ‘hem and haw’ about asking, but I find people are very happy and willing to go a little out of their way for me. In this way and in so many others, folks here in Wanaka and at Treble Cone specifically understand that many of us travel a great distance to spend time here. They are prideful of their place and genuinely excited to share it with us, and assisting with a lift here and there is therefore a natural thing to do.

It’s funny being on the other side of this equation here and, while do I occasionally drive around Wanaka in a borrowed car reveling in the freedom it provides, it’s a nice reminder of how far a little help can go to make visitors feel welcome. For the next month until I depart New Zealand, I’ll continue to benefit from the kindness of my hosts here in many ways large and small. Once I’m back home in Vermont, the coin will flip and I’ll be able to return the favor. When that happens, I’ll enjoy not having to bring a backpack to buy groceries and I’ll still insist that providing a ride is no problem at all.

One brief note about the photo above: It’s not unusual to have a herd of cattle or a flock of sheep in the middle of the road on our way to or from Treble Cone. At least the cows are on the correct side of the road. Would they be on the right hand side in Vermont?

Sounds of Spring, Redux

As would be the case in any mountain range, Spring here has been moving it's way from the valley floors and the lakeside in Wanaka up in altitude a little at a time. In town, trees are budding, the pastures are green, the birds are in good voice, and the local residents are wandering about in lose clothing with grins on their faces. Up High at Treble Cone, we've had some good recent snowfall and conditions remain excellent.

Consider that I took the photos appearing here and the video below within a few days of each other. The video includes audio, so while you listen to it consider that at one thousand meters higher in altitude the sounds are quite different. The video was taken from the top of Bald Peak, a large hill rising from the valley floor in the Matukituki Basin which separates the Harris Range (where Treble Cone is located) from Lake Wanaka. Towards the end of the video are views of Treble Cone for some perspective.

The most important aspect of the evolving change in seasons is that here on the South Island we gain three minutes of sunshine every day in September. That makes up a lot of ground in my endless winter

Head Space

One of the aspects of skiing that I enjoy most in my role as an instructor is that it is thrilling for people when they slide on skis for the very first time and that it remains thrilling even for we who have been skiing for a very long time or who ski for a living. It allows those of us who teach skiing to really understand and appreciate the excitement of those first few moments. That thrill is what separates skiing from other similarly social sports and is part of what makes it so appealing and so rewarding at the end of the day. We can share our ski experiences with others of different ability levels because this essential component is always present.

This past week I watched some of the finals of the Big Mountain portion of the 2008 Völkl NZ Freeski Open at Treble Cone. The competition was held in the Motatapu Chutes, a lift serviced area adjacent to the Saddle Basin which is accessible, conditions permitting, to anyone skiing at TC. It’s an enormous area of extreme terrain, some of which is outstanding terrain for people looking to try this type of skiing for the first time, and some of which is truly, exceptionally steep, narrow, and difficult. Skiing in this area has been one of the great joys of my experience here, and it’s always a welcome challenge. The photos here are of the Motatapu and of a competitor in the Open in order to put their scale in perspective.

For the Open competitors, among whom were a couple of friends of mine, the need to focus on what was necessary to not merely ski in the chutes safely but to compete in them successfully often is referred to as the need to be in the right “head space”. It’s a funny term but it is apt for the idea of the thrill that is present for all of us in skiing. Obviously, dropping cliffs on skis is dangerous business, requiring skill, confidence and, errr, spinal chord, working accurately and in harmony. The reality is, however, that the process of arriving in the right head space to ski at that level is really no different than the process of someone driving up the precarious road to Treble Cone, seeing snow for the first time, and then learning how to ski with us in the Snow Sports School.

Improvement as a skier necessarily brings with it an expansion of the type of terrain on which one is comfortable and able to enjoy skiing. Our head space changes its literal and figurative location, but the principle, how it makes us feel about the activity we’re doing, and how we feel afterwards, remains the same. It is what links the beginner’s Magic Carpet to the Motatapu Chutes and brings us all together in shared experience on the mountain.

Day Off? Day On!

Yesterday, Friday was my day off. It also was the best day of skiing at Treble Cone all season - epic by any standards. Even the old timers were giddy in the powder. Our wonderful mountain really reminded all of us just how great an experience skiing can be - me most particularly.

Yes, it was a great powder day. Yes, I skied all day on the terrain that justifiably gives TC it's reputation as a great and challenging mountain. Chutes, gullies, bowls, ridges, drops, rolls and awesome steeps all were covered in a blanket of a nearly a meter of dry, light powder. And the sun came out. And I made turns with good friends who appreciate skiing for real and substantive reasons. And my knee wasn't a factor. At all. I'm not as strong as I will be when the Northern Winter begins in November and I'm not quite yet where I'd like to be in my skiing. But, I hammered it all day nonetheless, "wrecking myself" in the way a long brutal bike ride does (a good thing). Having started the day in the lift line as it opened at 9:00, having gotten on the second chair in the Saddle Basin and having gotten many first tracks, I ended the day sitting quietly alone in the sunshine on the porch of the TC Cafe, totally exhausted, incredibly happy, and exceptionally grateful.

Fasten Your Seatbelts ...

So far this season, we've had a regular diet of smaller storms that have left Treble Cone with some pretty good conditions overall. This morning, for example, I skied in some wind-blown drifts of some very dry powder that was up to my knees in places but which amounted to only four or five inches overall. All of that should change tonight. Following a morning of blue skies and great conditions, a storm blew in very quickly in the afternoon, reducing visibility to next to nothing in the Saddle Basin. By the time I left the base area for home a little before five o'clock, the snow had already been hammering us for some time. Driving down from TC took an exceptionally long time on our road which is treacherous in even dry conditions.

All of this is relevant for a few reasons. First, the last time I skied in deep snow was the day last year when I blew out my knee. Second, I'm supposed to be on a day off tomorrow but will be skiing with a bunch of pretty good skiing journalists, ripping around the hill instead. Third, I have a pair of fat powder skis that I've never used but which sat right next to my bike on the trainer all winter at home as a motivator. Finally, fourth and most importantly, it's going to be a big powder day. Right now it's not clear how big, but it should be awesome. The storm is dropping snow on town as I write - a rarity - and is supposed to keep up until mid-morning. I hope to capture some good photos of the action tomorrow - I'm not too bashful to ask these journalists to take my picture skiing in uniform (they are journalists, after all). I intend to send a good powder shot to my surgeon, to my physical therapist, to my friends who are enjoying summer, to my friends who are not enjoying summer, and to anyone else who might or might not care.

State of the Art

Yesterday and today I enjoyed one of the privileges of being on the Snow School staff here at Treble Cone. I watched up close as Bode Miller, several men and women from the Austrian World Cup squad, and a number other world class athletes trained super G yesterday and this morning, I helped slip a slalom course where Bode was training. The photos and video I took and have posted here are the result.

As I noted in a recent post, some great ski racers ski in a way that we as instructors use as a model for recreational skiing, as is the case of the two Austrian women pictured here. Some great ski racers ski in a way that is different from and in many ways totally beyond the reach of the average skier. Bode is clearly one of those athletes, and he routinely does things on skis which defy convention and yet make him, at present, the best ski racer in the world. He simply can do things others cannot and having watched him ski a bit recently, the gap between Bode and others is instructive.

One thing to note as you watch the video of Bode training slalom below is that the hill where he skied this morning had been "injected" the night before. For the uninitiated, "injecting" a trail is exactly that: water is infused into the snow on a race hill so that it freezes solid overnight, created a rock-hard surface, uniform through the whole length of a race course. Such a surface, despite the fact that it would frighten even the most stalwart of New England recreational skiers, is perfect for racing. "Slipping" a course is the act of skidding sideways through a race course to remove the excess snow from the path racers will be following. As you watch the video, bear in mind that Bode was the only person training on the hill this morning, that as a result there were no ruts in the snow other than those he created, that the course had been slipped by several very excited Treble Cone instructors (myself included), and that what he skied on was as hard as a marble countertop. As for his skiing, I'll let the video tell the story. Enjoy.

The Deal

One of my favorite things to do at Treble Cone is to explain to guests who are good skiers and who have arrived at our resort for the first time precisely what the deal is, why our mountain is so different. It's hard to articulate so often, simply and with enthusiasm, I merely give them directions to the Saddle Basin: get off at the top of the Six Pack chairlift in the Home Basin. take a right and follow Saddle Track back underneath the lift, across the top of Powder Bowl and all the way to the Saddle Basin. The ridge line that separates the Home Basin (which has extraordinary terrain and definitely can stand on its own) from the Saddle Basin is quite sharp, so as we ski along Saddle Track, the basin doesn't come into view until we're practically on top of it. Then we see the whole thing, the whole deal, arrayed before us. It's absolutely breathtaking, and that's before making a single turn in it.

This morning I was able to escape the world of the Snow School for a couple of early morning runs, just after Patrol had dropped the ropes which had closed the Saddle Basin for the evening and morning sweeps. The photographs here show most of the skiable terrain there, looking from left to right from the ridge line entrance. There are more great steeps in between where I was standing and where the ground disappears in front of me which cannot be seen in these photos. The pictures also don't do justice to the Motatapu Chutes and Hollywood Bowl, home of some truly awe inspiring steeps.

It's difficult to really capture the scale of the place and the quality of the ski terrain in a series of still photographs. My hope in posting these is to give you a small sense of it and, therefore, a small appreciation for why I enjoy skiing and working at Treble Cone so much. Click on the photos for a full-size version and please don't blame me if you get caught day-dreaming in your office while looking at the Saddle Basin.

How Good is Great?

One funny phenomenon I find with ski instructors is how we react when asked whether someone is a good skier. We often respond with what is referred to in the communications business as a “poop sandwich”. Ok, we don’t use the word “poop”, but you get the idea. An example of a poop sandwich would be telling a student “That was great, really great. You didn’t really do what we set as our goal, but that was great.” So, when asked whether someone is a good skier, being instructors we cannot resist the urge to say yes but to qualify our affirmative response with some professorial analysis of how the person in question is deficient or needs improvement. I’ll leave it to the psychoanalysts to explain why this phenomenon occurs, but I do find it funny. Of course, there are exceptions.

This week, a number of people began to arrive at Treble Cone who would cause even the most jaded of instructors to remove the poop from the sandwich. First, Julia Mancuso, the 2006 Olympic giant slalom gold medalist among many other wins as a member of the U. S. Ski team, arrived to do some training on her own. There are some racers who we admire for their athleticism, for what they can accomplish and are willing to do on skis, and from whom we can learn a lot. Not all of them ski in a way that we can use as a visual model for our students. Julia Mancuso is the type of racer who, despite her obvious and exceptional strength, quickness and precision, skis in a manner which is a wonderful image for our students in its efficiency, balance and, well, tidiness. It’s been great watching her ski around the hill a bit.

Over the next few weeks, the amount of ski racing talent arriving at Treble Cone for training is somewhat staggering. In addition to Julia Mancuso, Bode Miller arrives here shortly. For the uninitiated, Bode is the 2008 Men’s World Cup Overall Champion. He may be just a kid from Franconia, New Hampshire, but Bode is simply one of the most talented ski racers in history. Further, the Austrian men’s and women’s alpine teams arrive over the next few days, the Norwegian men’s and women’s national teams arrive next week, and the German women’s national team shortly after that. Imagine summer league basketball with LeBron, Shaquille, Kobe, and others all playing hard on an asphalt court at the beach, and you get the picture. I try not to gawk, but sometimes I just have to stop and watch. Yes, there’s a fine line between gawking and ogling and I’m keenly aware of it.

Occasionally, one of my students or people in passing will make the mistake of referring to me or my colleagues as “great” skiers. I typically respond that I may be good enough to have skied with great skiers, I may be able to coach great skiers, and I may understand what makes for a great skier, but I have no delusions of grandeur. These athletes training at Treble Cone are truly great skiers, and it’s a pleasure to have them here to show us why.

View Point

At Treble Cone, in between the Home Basin and the Matukituki Basin, is a place called View Point. It's a high ridge below the summit which affords an incredible view looking North into the Harris Range, including the Rob Roy Glacier and Mount Aspiring (namesake of the Mount Aspiting National Park). Recently, during the first sunny morning in several days, we enjoyed some really astonishing views. Enjoy.