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.