Newbies

I've said it before and I'll say it again: the most important lessons we teach as ski and snowboard instructors are first-timer lessons. We have one chance to make someone's first experience on skis or on a snowboard a positive, engaging, fun experience and if we fail, if we have a bad day, we lose an opportunity to share our sports with more people. There is an internal industry corollary to the beginner's lesson, and it's how I spent one of my days last week.

During both of my annual ski seasons – here in Vermont and in New Zealand in "summer" – I spend a lot of my time on the clock training instructors. In the nuanced little corner of the world that is ski and snowboard instruction, ongoing instructor training is an essential component. In many ways, staff training is our best quality control method: we use it to make sure that our instructors are technically proficient, that they understand our particular view of the role played by guest service and a guest-centered teaching method, and that they continue to evolve as skiers and riders as well as teachers. Those of us who instruct for a living crave instruction ourselves, and so our training also forms an important part of how we think and feel about our jobs in ways that are hard to quantify. It is in this sense that the best and most devoted students make the best teachers. I enjoy training instructors a great deal – being a "clinician" in our lexicon – and it's one of the things I do that really enables me to continue my own development as a thinker about ski technique, ski teaching, guest service, and how people learn, move and function generally. Sometimes, however, staff training can become something far more basic and far more rewarding.

Recently, I've provided some training for instructors at a neighboring resort here in Vermont and I've been fortunate enough to spend a good chunk of it working with young and relatively new ski instructors. Last week, in fact, I spent a day with a young woman who was working as a ski instructor for the very first time. We covered the basics of ski technique, how we think about it in terms of skills, how we articulate it to adult and child guests, and how we consider what to teach and when. As part of our training day, I arranged for the "newbie" and the other young instructors to receive their uniforms and do some routine paperwork, immediately followed by a couple of free runs to shake out the cobwebs from the ski school jackets and to end the day with some vital fun.

On our first lift ride in the new jackets, a gondola, we chatted about everyone's nerves about being a new ski teacher and about the anxieties associated with caring for children in a mountain environment. I then realized that our "newbie" was fidgeting quite a bit and seemed a bit uncomfortable in her new jacket. I wondered out loud if we had decided on the wrong size and then it dawned on me: this was her first-ever ski instructor uniform and it made her a bit self-conscious and a bit more keenly aware of the new path on which she had set herself. It made me warm all over to look her straight in the face, confirm that it was her first uniform, and officially welcome her to a profession from which so many people I admire and care for derive such lasting satisfaction and enjoyment. Simply awesome! After a couple of runs where I like to think she was standing a bit taller and skiing a bit more deliberately, we walked into the staff room where a number of more senior instructors were milling about at the end of another day as ski and snowboard pros. As we entered, a number of them oooed and ahhhed at the young staff in their smart new jackets and I announced to everyone in the room that our "newbie" was in an instructor uniform for the very first time. Everyone cheered, congratulated, slapped on the back, and genuinely extended their heartfelt welcome to our newbie – old grisly mountain men, young dudes and babes, snowboarders, skiers, retirees, Americans, Europeans, kids and adult staff, instructors and supervisors alike shared in the moment to help her realize how much they all appreciated her joining them. It was really very cool. Our newbie may have been slightly embarrassed and self-conscious at first, but I'm confident that she understood why we all thought it was so cool. It was a wonderful moment, and was one I suspect is repeated in locker rooms all across the alpine world every year.

While I was kidding slightly as I told our newbie that I wished her a successful life as an instructor, filled with poverty and happiness, I was only partly kidding. It's a hard life, teaching skiing - long days out in the elements, little money even under the best circumstances, and peers who fail to understand why we've decided to spend our time as "bums" and not respecting that we're really professionals devoted to a craft. In the faces of the staff present on that day last week and on newbie's was a shared understanding of the inherent good in what we do, the simple joy of it, and the immense (if not monetary) rewards that we receive from it. As long as we all carry a little slice of what it's like to experience the joys of teaching skiing and riding to someone for the first time, we're bound never to become jaded and to continue our progress as skiers and riders, and as teachers. I wouldn't trade it and I was thrilled to be a part of a new beginning on that path. As we head into 2010, it's a wonderful reminder of what's really important here in the mountains.

Shaken From Slumber

Someone knocked on my door early this morning. Still in a slight daze, I opened the door just a crack at first to see who it was and not let in the cold. The person on the other side saw the crack, smiled with a broad grin and then pushed his way into my home with force, giving me just enough time to jump out of the way and get ready for the onslaught. No, it wasn't my neighbors looking for free ski advice or some extra flour for their breakfast pancakes. No, it wasn't my parents, driving up to see whether I'd had some overnight epiphany about getting a "real" job with some actual financial security and a good health care plan. It wasn't my friends clad in lycra wondering if I was ready to go cycling, and it wasn't the neighborhood black bear looking for some honey. Hey Booboo. Nope, it was winter, and he's got some pretty good spring in his step for an old man.

Okemo opened for the season today, three weeks later than originally planned and with what could charitably be called "sporting" conditions. We did have some die-hard ski and ride devotees who bought lift tickets today, took the bus up to the bottom of the summit lift and made turns on the top third of the mountain before downloading the same lift back to the base. I'm certain that they had fun and I'm certainly glad we were open, but I'll wait another couple of days for conditions to improve, thank you very much. I mean seriously, I do not work for the Okemo marketing department and though I prefer to remain positive and optimistic I have no obligation to do so. Which brings me to Old Man Winter's barging into my house.

While enjoying a nice lunch with my friends from the still dormant Okemo Ski + Ride School in the Sitting Bull, our base lodge bar and restaurant, it started snowing. Hard. Very hard. And it's been snowing like that all afternoon. And it's supposed to keep up all evening. Normally, one of the things I enjoy about snowstorms is the quiet that results when fresh snow blankets the world around me. In this case, however, the constant sound of our snowmaking guns hammering out their fluffy white product is far preferable. The combination of the two things going on at once – the snow storm and the snow making – has provided a much needed lift to my spirits and those of my friends, neighbors and colleagues. When we talk about the weather in a town like Ludlow, we're not just 'talking about the weather' in the Pygmalion sense. For the first time in a long time, those conversations have some real excitement in them. I expect that by mid-week conditions will be pretty good and by next weekend we should be off to the races.

The funny part is that the storm sort of caught all of us by surprise. It's not that we hadn't been watching the forecasts with great interest and with an odd level of detail. It's just that we (which is to say I) had all been lulled into a sort of malaise of waiting, watching, kvetching, worrying and idling about with less purpose than we'd prefer. So we cracked the door open a bit this morning to see whether winter was in fact here, and he barged right in like a college roommate carrying a six-pack or a six-year-old on Christmas morning. Phew. We may have been shocked for a moment, but we sure are grateful.

Hopefully, Old Man Winter found a comfortable seat on the couch, likes his surroundings, and will stick around for a while. I'll even let him have the remote if he stays.

This Is Not a Drill

Last night, at the end of the infamous "Black Friday" after Thanksgiving, here in Vermont the temperature dropped, the wind picked up, and a small storm blew in with force. There's nothing unusual about this except that the storm brought with it the first real snow of the season. More significantly, it also brought the best sustained snowmaking temperatures yet. Right on the heels of their Thanksgiving feast, Okemo's snowmaking team made a meal of it, rendering the upper mountain trails unrecognizable from the days and weeks preceding. I took this photo from downtown Ludlow at mid-day today, and it's certainly a relief to look up at our mountain and to see real progress towards winter. The forecast for the next ten days looks great for snowmaking, so our long wait for skiing and riding should be nearly over. So, break out the boards and pack your gear, I expect to get the green light to start sliding and we'd better be ready.

Godot

What is the meaning of life? What is the nature of death? Is there a divine being? Is there life on other planets? Did Shoeless Joe Jackson actually participate in throwing the 1919 World Series? Considering these fundamental questions is the luxury of people with spare time. Watching the world go by, studying the clouds, contemplating the nature of the universe and life without snow … Wait a minute. Contemplating life without snow is not an existential question. Not this year. And we certainly have the time to consider it.

There is no snow in Central Vermont. The weather continues to be warm and sunny – lovely, really – and Okemo has officially delayed our opening until conditions change. In our collective memories, there have been very few starts to a ski season as green and grassy as this one. We have one of the best snowmaking crews on the planet and can rely on them to keep us on track even in the worst case scenarios, except this one. Those of us who have been doing this for a while, who have depended on New England winters for our livelihood and our recreation, know that it will snow. It is going to get cold in Vermont, the weather is going to turn nasty, we will ski and ride, and I promise not to complain when the temperatures drop below zero.

In the meantime, those of us who teach skiing and riding here in the Eastern U.S. do have plenty time. I've got a couple of small projects going, I'm catching up on some reading, enjoying the sunshine while I can, and actually benefitting from the ability to consider ski technique and ski teaching in the big picture. Oops, I just looked at my watch and I need to run. I'm meeting Vladimir and Estragon for some more existential musings – Godot was apparently seen wandering the streets of Ludlow. I wonder if Samuel Becket skied …

Down in the Village

I've been living in Ludlow, Vermont to work at Okemo for several years now, and having returned from my southern winter in New Zealand and settled in for another season, I'm keenly aware of just how small a town it is. Like any small town, Ludlow has its characters and its idiosyncrasies, but the times when the smallness wears on me a bit are well-balanced by the times when the smallness and its familiarity give me comfort. It is, after all, one of the great strengths of our resort that it is located smack-dab in the middle of a real town, filled with skiers and non-skiers alike, and that all of the development on the hill has not totally overwhelmed the feel of the place or the ability of hard-working Vermont families to live and raise their children here.

Since arriving back in town I've reconnected with a lot of people – friends and colleagues both. I haven't really been engaged in a formal 'doing the rounds', but together with a bit of catching up on the local gossip there is also an important element of catching up on what's happening in the business of Ludlow and at Okemo. All this faffing about, as the Brits would say, is relevant to my job and does have an impact on my role here. Simply put, my support from the resort staff, the ski shops and the other businesses in town, and my relationships with all of these people enables me to do my job better and to keep the work I do with our guests in context.

We're very fortunate in Ludlow to have a few full-service ski shops that are exceptional and I rely a great deal on the people that run them. In my mind, the singular element that makes our shops so good is that they all work hard to put each customer on the right gear for that person, not simply what the shops need to push out the door or what's hot. Whether it's Randy at Northern Ski Works, Shon at The Boot Pro, or Torin at Totem Pole, or the many returning members of their able staffs, they are all legitimate experts with many years in the business and I never hesitate to send any of my guests to them. Boot fitting is a serious craft, ski selection is like pairing wine with a meal, and tuning is an art, and there's an awful lot of bad information and folklore out there and in the popular press about equipment, so the role these guys and their staffs play is indispensable in making the Okemo guest's experience a quality one. No, I do not work for the Chamber of Commerce and I am not on the payroll of any shop. Yes, I depend on them for my own equipment needs. Yes, I work closely with Randy and his staff at Northern but not just because they are my local Nordica dealer – I depend on them for my own needs and those of my guests. The only thing I get out of sending my guests to any of these shops is the confidence that my guests will receive the same high level of personal service that I provide in my role as their instructor. Besides, I genuinely like all of the people who run and work at the shops, I enjoy stopping in to see how things are going, and the good-natured ribbing between the shops' team members on our locals' race day is always a focal point of the season for those of us who participate. With the exception of race day (officially called Innkeepers, affectionately known as "World Cup Tuesday"), my relationship with the shops makes me feel very strongly that we're all part of the same team, engaged in a truly collective effort on and off the hill.

The small town affect is by no means limited to the ski shops. The coffee house knows how I like my java, the postmaster remembers my box number and whether I need to have my mail held or forwarded while overseas, the realtors keep their eyes open for my guests, and the bartenders know what beer I drink - particularly useful when the watering holes are packed on holiday weekends.

Now that the leaves have all dropped and the snow falls with more frequency our mountain, there's a certain energy in town, a mix of last minute preparations and nervous curiosity over what the season will bring for us here. Okemo opens on November 21^st, the traditional opening on the weekend before Thanksgiving, and at the end of the day we all take comfort that each of us here in Ludlow enters the winter season together, sink or swim. If I'm going to be in the same boat with the population of a small town, there are few crews I'd prefer to set sail with in the ski industry than the one we have here in Ludlow. It will snow, and the sooner the better, for all of us.

Rounding the Corner

It's coming, nearly here, all lights are green, all systems go and I'm definitely ready. After a few weeks of spinning my wheels - literally on the bike and figuratively - the next ski season starts here in Vermont in a couple of weeks and it couldn't arrive soon enough. Fall here is glorious in October, but with all the leaves now off the trees, the weather turning colder and nastier, and everyone at Okemo and in the shops in town working hard to get prepped for the crowds we hope will join us, we're all getting anxious to get started. It will snow, we will ski and ride, and I'll be grateful to continue my endless winter!

The Other Side of the Coin

Since arriving back in the US from New Zealand, I've been a guest at a resort in the desert southwest. Why is this relevant to a blog about skiing, teaching skiing, and the many aspects of a life and career devoted to both? It's relevant because here I am the guest for a change. At Treble Cone and Okemo, and in the snow sports schools at both resorts, guest service is a major focus of everything we do - how we approach our jobs, how we dress, how we spend our time, etc. Once in a while, it's helpful to see how other people do it, and it helps to actually be the guest. There is an extent to which I feel like a carpenter entering a house built by someone else, taking a critical view of every service, every conversation, every system, but it's only a small extent. The reality of my stay here is the not-particularly-novel realization that good guest service works, it makes for a more relaxing, more enjoyable stay, and definitely makes me want to come back. While here it's been snowing in Vermont (and all over the northeast), ski areas have started up their snow guns, and the serious preparation for another winter season has begun. So I'll take a few more leisurely strolls in flip-flops and then it's back to the action, but it's been nice to see and experience the other side of the coin for a change.

Parting Ways, Parting Shot

I took the photo above on Saturday morning from Glendhu Bay, looking north across Lake Wanaka towards Mount Aspiring - 24 hours before leaving Wanaka at the conclusion of another winter season. I've seen the view hundreds of times and it still stops me in my tracks. I hope to see it hundreds more, but the photo will have to suffice in the interim.

I'm back in the US now, enjoying some down time before yet another winter season. I'm excited for it and for teaching skiing full-time at Okemo once again, but I'll enjoy my time in flip flops and warm weather while I have it. It'll snow soon enough and I'll be ready.

On the Valley Floor

Yesterday, Monday, after looking forward to it for several months, my friend and colleague Nick and I played a round of golf at the Wanaka Golf Club (Nick is pictured above showing the benefits of a youth spent in Scotland). In the middle of the day. In shorts. In the sunshine. With no responsibility for anyone or anything, for a few hours anyway. Sunday was the final day of the Treble Cone season and Monday on the first tee my off-season began in earnest. My tee shot traveled long and straight and landed smack, dab in the middle of the fairway – I can’t say that this boded well for my round but it was pretty cool from a metaphorical perspective.

The winter at Treble Cone is short and intense, lasting from the end of June until early October. With so many of the staff coming from overseas, there is a great deal of front-loaded work to do so we hit the ground running as soon as we get off our respective planes at the airport. We don’t really slow down until it’s all over, and then we start planning for next year. Thankfully, this season all of our hard work paid off in many ways big and small – for me, for Nick who runs our children’s programming, and for our director Klaus. We worked hard to effectuate a cultural shift in our snow sports school, generate more business for our staff and enhance the quality of our guest service while at the same time looking after the continuing technical development of our instructors. We succeeded at all of these things while generating a really good feeling among our staff. In the end, we solidified our place as the premier snow sports school in New Zealand, a tall order for a school with less than fifty instructors, something about which we are justifiably proud.

I do hope to return to Treble Cone next year – there are goals we’ve set for ourselves which we have yet to achieve and challenges we can better confront. Mostly, after it’s all said and done, TC remains an inspiring place to ski and ride and Wanaka remains a home away from home, so I’ll look forward to coming back. But for now, in the midst of the exuberance of spring, I can throttle back, walk a little more slowly, take the time to enjoy my friends and my surroundings, and breathe a little easier here along the lakeside on the valley floor. Like the winter season at Treble Cone, my off-season is short and I need to make the most of it. The next winter is right around the corner and my flip-flops need some outdoor exercise.

Out of the Mists

I recently made a trip from Wanaka to Christchurch to celebrate Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar (I love the irony of celebrating Yom Kippur in Christchurch). The five hour drive to Christchurch, the South Island's largest city, winds through some pretty amazing countryside. Among the many sights were the Lindis Pass, Lake Tekapo, Lake Pukaki and, best of all, Mount Cook / Aoraki, the tallest peak in New Zealand. It's Spring here and the two lakes are filled with glacial runoff that gives the water an iridescent blue quality. With sunlight breaking through the clouds of an approaching storm only intermittently, the views looking north towards Mount Cook / Aoraki from Highway 8 near the towns of Twizel and Lake Tekapo were particularly dramatic.

By way of explanation, as part of a larger effort to respect and include Maori culture, history and language as a part of modern New Zealand, many places go by both their English and their Maori names, hence the reference to "Mount Cook / Aoraki". It's a credit to the fruits of this effort that in NZ, dual names like this are a simple matter of course.

It's difficult to put the scale of Mount Cook / Aoraki into perspective, but it really is massive. I was fortunate to see its summit above the clouds for a brief spell on Sunday. Like so many of the world's natural wonders, seeing it in person is always more inspiring than in pictures. I do hope, however, that these photos convey a sense of the place.

Going Big, Starting Small

Treble Cone is a mecca for a great many big mountain skiers (and 'wannabe' big mountain skiers). Our expert level terrain really is exceptional - exceptionally steep, exceptionally exposed and exceptionally challenging (the photo is of me dropping into Indicator Chute, a front-side run, a couple of weeks ago). In the Snow Sports School we constantly work to make sure that the public knows and understands that TC also is a terrific place for families and for beginner skiers and riders to learn and grow. In the hands of our instructors, the difficulty of our mountain and the jump in ability required for a student to move from our beginners' teaching area to the green runs up on the hill becomes far easier. We like to think that the result is that first time skiers learning at Treble Cone do not stay beginners for long.

The combination of these two traits - big mountain mecca and leading snow sports school - means that some of our instructors have some legitimately great big mountain "creds". One of our guys, my Kiwi friend and colleague Alex Lynden, has been competing in the New Zealand big mountain scene for several years, has a lot of results on his resume, and is a well-respected member of the NZ freeski community. Another of our Kiwi guys, my buddy Campbell Smith, is relatively new to the scene but brings great technical skill and a bright future. Both Alex and Campbell are also great instructors and are just as likely to be teaching beginners on the their first-ever day on snow as they are to be hucking themselves off of Treble Cone's many cliffs, switch. I like to brag about all of our staff to our guests while they wait for their lessons at line-up, particularly considering that most of our intructors - and it's certainly true of Alex and Campbell - would never do the boasting themselves to their students. All the guests know is that they've got this cool Kiwi instructor (or Austrian, Italian, British, American, Canadian, Czech, French, Swiss, etc.) who is excited to share their sport with them.

The video linked here is from the recent Black Diamond Big Mountain Competition at Temple Basin here on the South Island, part of the Chill Series of events. Alex Lynden is interviewed, there is some awesome footage of Campbell Smith going very, very big in the competition, and many of the other athletes featured regularly train at Treble Cone. Big mountain comps like this one are an increasingly important venue for the industry, whether it be among equipment manufacturers, resorts, apparel makers, film makers, or kids who simply want to show their stuff and who drive their families' consumer choices in the snow sports business. Alex and Campbell, and many other serious athletes devoted to big mountain skiing, provide a great example of how being cool, going big, and being on the edge is not antithetical to the idea of being a great, modern instructor. Ok, well, not at Treble Cone anyway. Way to go guys!

Black Diamond Big Mountain Event from Temple Basin from Richard Sutcliffe on Vimeo.

The Whole Wide World

It’s spring here on the South Island of New Zealand, or rather it’s supposed to be. You wouldn’t know it from the amount of recent snowfall at Treble Cone and the quality of it. Rather than the usual spring-time corn snow which morphs into mashed potatoes by the end of the day, the cold temperatures are giving us snow that has remained dry, light and incredibly joyful since a series of storms dropped several feet of it on us over the past week-and-a-half. We’ve been kicking ourselves lately, and the number of people walking about the resort at the end of the day in a powder-induced daze with immense grins on their faces is a testament to the astonishingly good conditions. Looking briefly at the scoreboard, the stakes our ski patrol uses to measure the accumulated snow pack in the Saddle Basin (TC’s backside) had to be extended recently, several snow fences which normally protect some of our groomed runs from wind are now completely covered, and chutes and bowls that were closed a few weeks ago due to severe avalanche danger brought on by unusually mild spring weather are now fully open and providing the best skiing and riding of the season. Oh, and did I mention that we’re getting what seems like an additional ten minutes of daylight each day as we head into the last month of the season? For crying out loud, a week ago Treble Cone kept the lifts open until 4:30, a time that would have been nearly pitch dark a month before. All of this and TC in all of its glory makes for some pretty inspirational skiing, and I mean “inspirational” literally.

So, in a contemplative mode brought on by several days of continuous powder and a great deal of business for our Snow Sports School, I took advantage of a rare lull in the early morning grind to ride our “six-pack” chair lift solo this morning around 9:15.There were literally no clouds in the impossibly blue sky and I needed to find a place to sit and breathe in the day. Camera in hand, I headed towards a spot at TC called View Point. View Point sits at the top of the Matukituki Basin, which is the only section of our mountain facing north towards the heart of the Mount Aspiring National Park. To get there, one has to traverse a bit, round a sharp corner and go up briefly over a short rise before getting flattened by the view shown in the photos here. It’s shocking. Really.

The reality of my mornings at work is that I’m very busy, running from the moment I step out of the staff vans between 7:45 and 8:00 pretty much straight through until 11:00. I have a lot of ground to cover with my supervisory colleagues and a lot of guests and staff to look after, and frequently training clinics to run for our instructors. Rarely do I get the time to stop and really appreciate where I am and just how extraordinary it is. Thankfully, this morning I made sure to take the time to put it all into a clearer context, in the rarified light of the high alpine sunshine. My few moments sitting at View Point were well worthwhile, like a transfusion of clean air, quietude and a refreshed perspective. When working in this environment day in and day out, I’m busy enough that such moments are few, and I need to seek them out on occasion.

From View Point this morning, the whole of the Southern Alps seemed visible. In the photos here are great views of Mount Aspiring and its neighbors, Mount Earnslaw, several glaciers, and the whole of the Matukituki River valley. In the far distance I could see Mount Cook and it was so clear that I’m reasonably sure I could see the Eiffel Tower. Ok, maybe not Eiffel Tower but perhaps the Petronas Towers. The bright green valley floors, the vast and picture-perfect blue sky, the lake below, and the white snow-capped peaks are the stuff of childhood fantasy and, thanks to my good fortune, the stuff of my every day reality. I just need to stop and look every so often to be reminded.

Spreading the Gospel

One of the major downsides of working professionally as a skier, teaching and supervising teaching for ski schools year-round, is that there is a real danger of losing proper perspective. When acting as a supervisor and coordinator of programs, I find myself in the position of needing to keep instructors focused on what our goals and purposes really are and why we do it. I occasionally tell them that somewhere in the world there is a cubicle or an office for each of us, with a telephone, a computer, fluorescent lights overhead and our name on the door. We can choose to find it, to lead a more conventional existence with its particular rewards, pleasures and comforts, or we can choose to teach skiing and snowboarding for a living. Sometimes it works, sometimes the staff turns a deaf ear. Sometimes, I am the one who needs reminding and, luckily enough, I find those reminders frequently in many places, both expected and unexpected. I found one such reminder this morning, and a small chance encounter drove to the heart of why I love what I do and am so devoted to it.

Treble Cone closed today due to severe weather. It’s an infrequent occurrence here, but the resort does sit precariously on a shelf on the side of a big, high alpine mountain, so it is particularly vulnerable when big spring storms roar in off of the Southern Ocean. So, on days like today, all gray and stormy, the resort staff and guests wander aimlessly from shop to shop, drinking familiar espresso drinks with odd Kiwi names in the many cafes in Wanaka, grateful for an extra day of rest but anxious with the hope of a powder day tomorrow. It’s a nice vibe, in the way the occasional storm can enforce a mellow quietude on any small town. Even I succumbed to the impulse to buy something for myself, stopping into a sport shop in town

In the shop, I was surprised to be recognized by a guest right away, asking me “Are you Russ?” At first, I had no recollection of him – not unusual given the number of people I meet while working. Then he sprung it on me: I had taught him to ski from scratch two years ago during my first season at Treble Cone. Searching the mental rolodex, I remembered. He’s an Australian in his ‘30’s named Michael, and I remembered him in part because he is probably the tallest person I’ve ever taught skiing. His lessons presented an interesting challenge at the time because of his height – he is a good athlete, but lets just say that he exerts different forces on his skis and moves in a way slightly different from people who are under six feet ten inches tall. We had a lot of fun two years ago and, like many people hesitant to learn skiing at Treble Cone because of its reputation as an expert’s mountain, he stayed and enjoyed our resort because it is a very different and immensely more personal experience than beginners can have at our vastly busier neighboring resorts.

Michael is hooked on skiing. He loves it, and he told me that he’ll always remember having had his first ski experiences with me at TC. He now lives in the UK and has been skiing in Europe when he can during the Northern Winter. He is excited to be back in Wanaka and skiing at Treble Cone this week – returning to his roots in skiing, so to speak. I say it all the time: in my view one of the central tenets of our profession is sharing our passion for our sports with our students. It’s infectious, and when we welcome new people to our sports, get them hooked, and later have the opportunity – on the hill, in passing and in chance encounters in town – to see that they love it as much as we do, it reinforces what a wonderfully gratifying experience our jobs can be.

The storm will clear this evening and tomorrow we and our guests will ski and ride at Treble Cone in deep powder on some of the best and most beautiful terrain for it anywhere in the world. Plus, if I’m lucky, I’ll get to spread the gospel to more people and maybe even make some turns for myself.

Technical Difficulties

I'm currently experiencing problems with my internet access at home here in NZ. Please bear with me, as I have some insights, stories and great photos to share. I hope to have the problems resolved shortly. In the meantime, here's a recent photo for you to enjoy, taken on a recent morning as a storm cleared and left us with an inversion at Treble Cone.

Into The Light

I took the photos immediately above and below while standing in my backyard yesterday evening - no editing, filtering, tweaking or fancy camera settings required. In the far background is Mount Niger, which sits next to Treble Cone in the heart of the Mount Aspiring National Park. I took the bottom photos at sunrise on the same day, the first while in the middle of our morning commute and the rest from Treble Cone. On our commute as the sun rose above the horizon, Lake Wanaka turned to fire, and we stopped the staff van on the side of the road and all had a "moment of zen" as we took in the light show.

The circumstances of all of these photos are a sure sign that Spring is approaching here in Central Otago - the sun rises before we get to work and the sky is still light when we get home at the end of the day. I've said it before and I'll say it again: I may endure two winters every year, but I am blessed to be able to experience the joys of Spring, twice. It's already been an exceptional season of skiing and riding at Treble Cone. We've had an amazing amount of snow, we've been quite busy in the Snow Sports School, and the quality of the teaching and skiing of our instructors has been inspirational and quite gratifying given the hard hours put in by those of us responsible for the management and training of our staff. There's still over a month left of the season, and I'll enjoy all of it while looking forward to looking back on it from the warm embrace of Spring.

Line 'Em Up

A picture is worth a thousand words and, in this case, a lot of snow. We're in the middle of an amazing storm cycle here on the South Island of New Zealand. At Treble Cone, we had a big storm Thursday night into Friday morning, and another storm Sunday morning with some heavy snows and then sunny skies in the afternoon. There's a massive storm due to hit us on Tuesday morning, another on Wednesday morning, and (for those who are counting) a fifth storm on Thursday. At the moment, avalanche danger is pretty severe in the resort, so ski patrol is working overtime and we're all trying to temper the excitement of everyone anxious to head to the backcountry - a big task given the amount of backcountry access at Treble Cone, the large number of TC skiers who routinely venture to ski it, and the astonishingly large crowd that came to our resort today after word of our fresh powder spread.

The pictures here are from an awesome weather prediction website called MetVUW. They show the next three storms we're expecting on each of Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday mornings. It's a big line up of weather and, if all goes well and our hard-working patrollers can help keep Treble Cone safe from avalanches, we're in for some pretty serious powder.

Patience Rewarded

On Friday, July 31st, Treble Cone was closed due to severe weather. As is always the case when this happens those few times during a given season, the staff of the resort and the staff of our neighbors at Cardrona and Snow Park were all wandering aimlessly around town all day, sipping coffee at any number of cafes, and generally working hard to appear occupied. This morning, August 1st, there were clear skies in Wanaka as we left town on the staff transport, and the storm lifted from Treble Cone just as the crowds were beginning to line up for a great powder day. We conducted our regular morning instructor training clinics with the sun striking us head-on, making turns in a foot-and-a-half of fresh powder (on top of some already great conditions). I was fortunate to be able to ski all day - first while conducting a clinic and then with some guests who ski well and know the mountain's particular nooks and crannies. It was a terrific day without qualification, and we definitely reaped the rewards of patiently awaiting the end of the storm. There are another few storms literally lined up and waiting their turn to hammer us with snow here on the South Island of New Zealand, and the skiing and riding should continue to amaze even those of us who work here. I hope to post some more ski specific photos in the coming weeks, but today I was a little too busy actually skiing to stop and pull out the camera. This photo of skiers' tracks off the Treble Cone summit this afternoon will have to suffice in the meantime.

ABS, Again

Blah, blah, blah; yutta, yutta, yutta; ho hum. Ok, enough already. I get it, the sunrises from Treble Cone are absolutely gorgeous and the scenery from town is stunning even on the worst of days. I mean seriously, the beauty of the natural environment here really does get monotonous after a while.

I have a friend who grew up on a lake in Minnesota and lived most of his adult life on the coast before moving to Santa Fe several years ago. When we first met he explained to me that he had been reticent about living in the high desert of New Mexico because he thought the landscape would bore him compared to the ever-changing views on the shore or the lakeside. What he found was that the quality of the air and the sunlight in the high altitude mountainous desert meant that the views of the landscape around his home changed every minute of every day, just as on the water, and that it never got old for him. Here in the Southern Alps it's much the same. The biggest problem is deciding whether to take photos and with whom to share them.

Here are a couple of photos I took this past Friday from Wanaka and on a recent morning from Treble Cone. Please understand that no photo can adequately capture the scope and beauty of the place. I hope you enjoy them nonetheless, '"another bloody sunrise".

Change in the Air

After weeks of the same drudgery, day after day of stunningly gorgeous weather with blue skies, no wind, and no precipitation to speak of, we've finally got some change in the air, literally. On Saturday evening, the wind is blowing at Treble Cone and if all goes well, it'll bring with it some weather bearing some snow for us. The skiing remains outstanding, so perhaps we're being a little selfish, but a powder day would go a long way to bolster the spirits of a resort staff that has just completed the busiest two weeks of the season.

Schnitzel Fest 2009

Take a fillet – sometimes pork but traditionally veal, pound the heck out of until it is flat as a pancake, dust it with flour, dip it in egg, coat it in breadcrumbs, deep or pan fry it, douse it in lemon, serve it with spaetzle or potatoes, accompany it with a good beer, and you’ve got the Austrian national meal and one of my favorite words these days: schnitzel. As in “that’s not exactly your Uncle Hans’s schnitzel”, “the light this morning was as flat as your grandmother’s schnitzel”, or “I’d take that meal over your schnitzel any day”.

In Austria, being a ski professional – whether as an instructor or as a coach – holds a vastly different status than in the US. Skiing is, after all, the national sport there and its importance is such that government funding is an essential component of the national sports institute, the national instructor certification programs, and many of the resorts. It’s not an accident that the highest level of instructor certification is the “statlicher”, meaning state certified. What this means, in my experience, is that the Austrians I’ve worked with both on the race side and on the instruction side of the business take a vastly more career-focused orientation to their jobs than their average American counterparts. While it is true that many of our best instructors at Okemo and elsewhere in the US only teach skiing part-time or do so either before or after other careers, the fact is that few people choose ski or snowboard teaching as their dedicated vocation. Given this professional view, it’s no mystery that the Southern Hemisphere resorts often have Austrians at the core of their staffs, and here at Treble Cone that’s certainly the case. In the Snow Sports School, we have a few Austrians this year, including our new director, and the immensely successful Treble Cone Race Academy has quite a number of them.

Despite our view at Treble Cone that we are and must remain a Kiwi organization, we have precious few Kiwis on our resort staff, and the rest of us occasionally feel quite foreign despite our best efforts and our love for the place. Sometimes we all simply need a small slice of home, and it is for this reason that a little over a week ago I attended what I have been referring to as “Schnitzel Fest 2009”.

Imagine a large great-room of a lodge, one of several in town normally used to house our many overseas athletes enrolled in the Treble Cone Race Academy, filled with a convivial atmosphere, jolly conversation, real gemutlichkeit, and only three non-native German speakers in the place. Beyond the twenty or so Austrian coaches and instructors, diversity was provided by me, Kiwi big mountain skiing legend and TC ambassador Geoff Small, my friend and the TC race administrator Megan from the US, a Swiss couple, and the German lodge manager. Yes, that’s right, the German and Swiss people made it diverse. The schnitzel was flying, the homemade strudel was outstanding, and my friends from Austria could relax, speak their own native dialect and feel that they had a little slice of home before the season at Treble Cone got really busy. For me it was a fun evening even without any real understanding of the language. It was really great to see my friends and colleagues in easy, native conversation.

I should note, selfishly, that Schnitzel Fest 2009 was followed a few days later by a proper July 4th BBQ at my house with real hot dogs, hamburgers, yellow mustard, actual Heinz ketchup and my annual ribbing of any and all of the British people present. Hey, that’s America, even if it is in Wanaka. And a little slice of Austria too.

Holidays

We're in the middle of a two-week holiday period for the schools here in New Zealand and in Australia, so it's the busiest two weeks of our season. It is a strange and challenging thing for us that the holidays fall so quickly after we open for business, so there's an enormous premium on training our staffs, working out all of the kinks, and getting ship shape. Thankfully, Treble Cone seems to be working like a well-oiled machine and our Snow Sports School is providing some of the real highlights. It's a wonderful thing to be at least partly responsible for what, so far, appears to be a remarkably gifted, hard-working, cohesive and fun group of instructors providing an exceptional product for our guests.

The long busy days mean that I arrive to work in the dark and leave in the dark, but at least I get the chance to see the sun rise and set in stunning surrounds each day. The photos here are of a sunset a few days ago. Enjoy.

Inversion

Up is down. Right is left. Young is old. Fast is slow. Steep is flat. Deer are raised in paddocks. Driving is on the left and steering wheels are on the right. 'Tomato sauce' is used on french fries, which are called chips anyway. We look north to the sun. 'E' is pronounced like 'i' and 'i' is pronounced like 'e'. Summer is winter. And, for the last several days, the sky has been below us and looks like the ocean, the weather on the top of the mountain has been warm and sunny while town has been gray and gloomy, and the inmates are running the asylum.

At Treble Cone and in Wanaka, we've been "stuck" in a weather pattern known as an inversion for several days. Technically, an inversion occurs when warm air rises and sits above a layer of cold air, meaning that it's warmer at higher elevations. Often, the air layers are separated by a dense layer of clouds. What this means for us is that in town it's been very gray and very cloudy with not a hint of blue sky. In the mornings when we collect the staff in our vans and make the drive to Treble Cone, twenty minutes from town and another twenty minutes up our rather crazy access road that winds its way up the mountain, we're in the dark until the point on the road when we rise above the clouds. At this time of year, with the days as short as they are, it means that we rise above the clouds just as the sun rises above the horizon. It's amazingly dramatic, incredibly beautiful, and frequently stops me in my tracks. Fittingly, given that it was the first day of a new ski season, today we departed as the sun dropped below the clouds in perfect symmetry.

We've opened with better conditions that we have in decades, so regardless of whether the moon is upside down in the sky or not, it's already a great winter and it's only just begun.

Rocket Surgery

Treble Cone is an industry-leading mountain resort here in the Southern Hemisphere, there’s no doubt about it. We are justly proud of the quality of the services we provide to all of our guests – whether in the café, the car park, the lift lines, or in lessons with our award-winning Snow Sports School, and that doesn’t even take into account the incredible terrain we have at our disposal. One of the more challenging aspects of working here, however, is that we are only open for about four months of the year. Combine that short season with the fact that the overwhelming majority of the resort staff comes from overseas, and it means that at this time of year, in the weeks before we open to the public for skiing and riding, there is an awful lot of work to be done. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that we get fully up to speed from a standing start in a matter of just a few weeks. The metaphor that I’ve been kicking around is that it’s like getting a Ferrari ready for Le Mans after it’s been sitting on blocks in the front yard over a Vermont winter.

There are many, many details that we need to get right in order to set our Snow Sports School in motion in a way that meets our expectations for excellence. Policies have to be articulated and the processes of scheduling, selling, setting up, organizing and executing ski and snowboard lessons have to be ironed out in ways that are consistent with our ethos of guest service. Schedules and systems need to be established, uniforms issued, passes provided, and the staff must be trained and joined together into a cohesive team of professionals. It’s a bit of a mad rush, but it is a forced reevaluation of our priorities and our philosophy which in the end is rewarding to those of us responsible for setting the tone and running the business.

At the end of the day, as I always like to point out, our jobs are about sharing our mountain, our passion, and our sports with all comers. It may not always be easy but, as an Italian colleague of mine in Vermont so aptly pointed out to me a few years ago, “it’s not rocket surgery”. Our lifties, baristas, patrollers, ticket sellers, parking attendants, groomers, snowmakers and, yes, instructors are all pros, we’re all anxious, and we’re all excited. Treble Cone has more pre-opening snow than we’ve had in several years, and it is, without qualification, going to be a great season.