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.