Isn't It Romantic?

These woods are almost ready for skiing

Fire everybody, all 320 of them. Hire them back six months later. See some move on and replace them with new people who have never done the job before, all of whom have to be trained to be the best at what they do. Implement a strategy to recruit employees for a job that pays poorly and is totally weather dependent - it’d be one thing to be weather dependent in San Diego, but Vermont?! Input everyone’s information into a byzantine computer system without which we’d be hopeless. Hone the enterprise’s message and communicate it to the world. Find a million little issues that need fixing, clean up the physical plant and make it shine, issue uniforms and passes to everyone. Stay true to who we are and what makes us special while keeping a close eye on our competition. Lose sleep, grind teeth, make a daily huge commute, lose fitness, pull hair out and turn grey. Somehow, some way, stay focused on why I do what I do, enough so that I can keep an entire staff inspired to bring passion and excitement to their jobs. Lean on my friends and family for support when I’m at my grumpiest and most downtrodden, find a persistent coach who reminds me to pursue my personal ambitions and can help me achieve them. And go skiing enough to let go and be in the moment despite being in the spotlight and under the gun 100% of the time. Ah yes, my job is so romantic. I do love it - genuinely, sarcasm aside, but how?

Yesterday, the Sugarbush Ski & Ride School held our annual fall orientation meeting. We gathered the staff in the Gatehouse lodge – a gorgeous edifice of a base lodge positioned to make the most of its location at the bottom of the natural bowl that is Lincoln Peak. After filling out reams of paperwork and drinking coffee, the staff paid attention through a range of presentations on hazardous materials, injury reporting, online payroll systems, financial results, operational projects, and company values, and amazingly they didn't lose their enthusiasm. We heard from a few execs from the resort who work hard to keep the staff focused on delivering their best for our guests, including our resort owner Win Smith, and we had a genuinely inspirational presentation about Flyin Ryans. And I spoke to the staff, poor devils, about what’s new, what’s exciting, and how important it is that we love it so much. No, “it” isn't the HAZMAT policy.

Then, in the afternoon, our supervisors and I sat with the new staff and actually talked about teaching people to ski and ride. We talked about how it makes them feel and, equally important, how it makes us feel. In this smaller group, I was able to look each of them in the eyes and welcome them to the profession, to the resort, or both, and to see in their faces their enthusiasm undaunted by the long day. Putting together the orientation was a lot of work for my supervisors and me and there was a fair amount of anxiety in doing so. Finishing the day with our new instructors made it all worthwhile. It’s not that they remembered why they were there yesterday, it’s that the reason they’re with us is live, present, and coursing through their veins every moment. They’re excited to begin the season, to learn a ton, to share a ton, to ski and ride a ton, and to have a blast doing all of the above. And, thanks to them, so am I.

Soon. Very soon. There’s snow on the summit already.

The Happy Luddite

During autumn, I spend a lot of my time honing our message for the Sugarbush Ski & Ride School. Hiring our staff, putting the finishing touches on new products, writing copy for the website and all manner of marketing materials, and developing the training focus for our staff for the season may seem like a lot of unrelated ministerial work, but it does help me put who we are and where I want us to go into clearer focus. One theme that is a constant in all aspects of what we do, that is an indelible part of our message, is the concept of ‘modern’ – modern skiing and riding, modern equipment, modern teaching, a modern experience for our guests. Can you imagine a resort or a teaching staff boasting about their antiquated methodology? There are some resorts for whom that might apply, some schools, and definitely some instructors. ‘Here at Mount Luddite you can learn to use your modern skis with technique that has been unchanged for decades.’ To those of us who work constantly to move our sports and the way we understand them into the future, ‘modern’ is simply consistent with our ethos as teachers, that of being engaged in a constant state of evolution. Yeah, well, sorry, I’m definitely in message honing mode. Interestingly, however, I spent this past weekend moving in precisely the opposite direction from ‘modern’, and I’m totally cool with that.

Sugarbush Resort lies in the very beautiful but small and slightly remote Mad River Valley, so it’s important occasionally to take advantage of opportunities to get out and see the wider world (yes, I did just return from New Zealand a few weeks ago, but work with me here). Last week, a few things converged all at once and I was fortunate to spend several days in the Boston area. Boston, for those who have never had the pleasure of driving there, was not exactly laid out in accordance with a grand plan by Pierre L’Enfant. There was no grand plan at all, in fact, unless there is some deeply laden secret effort to confuse anyone with less than several decades experience driving its roads. Between the twists and turns, the Charles River, the harbor, the interstate highways that run right through the center of the city, the fact that even experts in fractal geometry would fail to predict which roads are one-way and in what direction, and the fact that Bostonians are preternaturally aggressive drivers, driving in Boston can become a harrowing and quite confusing experience.

Thankfully, I’ve spent a reasonable amount of time driving in Boston over the past couple of decades and I have a solid general sense of the place. So, when I was driving into the city on my way to a pretty fun ski industry gala event last week with two friends in my car, I disdainfully dismissed the offer of help from a GPS mapping app on one of my friend’s iPhone. In fact, I can say with great pride that I was able to navigate to our destination despite not knowing its precise location faster than the iPhone would have, all while committing only one minor traffic infraction! We had some fun with it and it made for some entertainment, but it wasn’t exactly as though I was Boris Spassky beating a big computer at chess.

A few days later, however, the same issue sprung up again – my navigation skills and my apparent intransigent refusal to accept the assistance of satellites and computers. I headed from Boston to Marblehead, Massachusetts for a weekend-long series of celebrations. Driving around this classic Yankee seaport town, all craggy coastline and narrow streets surrounding the harbor densely packed with all manner of moored pleasure craft, was a very different kind of challenge to driving in Boston. Oddly, several people expressed genuine consternation when I would ask for directions or even simply and happily followed my nose. Why on earth would I not use all this wonderful technology at our finger tips? The reason given was not because it would distract my driving, at least not in the more common sense of it. The reason was that I genuinely enjoy the process of finding my way, of learning a place by sight and in the context of its natural environment, the buildings and the general ‘lay of the land’. It’s fun, and it gives me a genuine sense of a place. Besides, I never got lost even when I wasn’t precisely sure where I was, and I definitely got to see a lot of Marblehead.

I’m the same way when I ski somewhere new. I love poking around, getting a feel for the mountain itself, its rolls and gullies, its different exposures and their affect on the snow, taking in the views and getting a visceral sense of a place by skiing it. I don’t want to devolve my experience on a mountain into a quantitative experience - vertical feet skied, average speed, runs checked-off or acres covered - any more than I want to keep my nose stuck in the driving instructions I’m being given without a real awareness of the journey I’m making. Computer driven navigation can’t tell me about the cool sounds by the wind as it rolls over the summit rocks at Treble Cone, or the sounds of the cobbles under my wheels signifying the oldest part of Boston, or the smells of the sea. My point here is not merely that I want to stop and smell the flowers in the poetic sense, it is that I want the journey itself to provide stimulus, even when it’s a mundane trip. It’s about being present and aware, and it’s one of the great joys of traveling and of skiing. So, in this slightly odd state of mind, I guess I’m quite happy being a Luddite as long as I’m moving forward. And as ski and snowboard teachers, we are constantly in the wonderful mode of sharing that journey, making it about our guests and our own evolution.

Speaking of spinning my wheels, can I go skiing yet? I mean seriously, it’s been a month already and I have some exploring to do!

Marblehead, Massachusetts at sunset

Oxy-Moron

The Lindis Pass

Many years ago, I got to know an older gentleman who my friends and I quickly christened “Erhart, ze Happy Bavarian”. Erhart was a lovely guy and a beautiful skier by any measure despite his advanced age, and he had a wonderfully positive outlook at all times. Erhart grew up in Garmisch Partenkirchen in Bavaria – Garmisch is a legendary alpine town that was among the first places liberated by Allied Forces during World War II, and it remains today a major R&R station for American armed forces personnel. Having grown up in Garmisch during the difficult post-war years, Erhart developed a love for Americans and for the idea of America that he clung to with both hands when I knew him. He traveled to the USA often for work and, interestingly, the first thing he did each time he arrived in America was to buy a Hershey’s chocolate bar. In the context of his youth surrounded by GI’s who represented all that was great and good in America in that most optimistic time for our country, the symbolism of a simple Hershey’s bar is clear – its iconic packaging in the same way as a Coca-Cola bottle; its uniquely sweet, American-style milk chocolate; and the vivid olfactory memories it triggered of the friendly, outgoing, active and exuberant men in uniform who handed them out to the kids in the streets of Germany and who were his first exposure to the people of the New World.

The men and women in uniform that inhabited Erhart's childhood memories precisely matched his movie heroes and, therefore, his media exposure to Americans – Gregory Peck, John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Jimmy Stewart, and the like. They continued to inform his view of our country and to stoke his imagination of it, and this was downright inspirational to me at the time we met. Unfortunately, my experience as an American overseas makes clear that young adults around the world take a vastly different view of who we are as a people. I am certain, however, that most people around the world who have any substantial and substantive interaction with Americans abroad continue to have a generally positive view of us as a people. By ‘substantive’ I am not referring to the Americans on tour in a bus, rather the Americans who take the time on the ground to experience the places they visit. We are genuinely friendly, inquisitive, confident and easy going. So what’s my point? About what am I groaning this time?

The problem for Americans at the moment is that, in my view, most people around the world do not have real interaction with Americans but they do see a lot of America on TV and in the media. And by a lot of America, I do not mean that they see a good cross-section of our country. I meant that they see a high volume of some parts of America, and those parts are not generally positive, not indicative of who we are, and definitely not flattering. Jersey Shore is not what 99.9% of Americans would choose to show to the world as an example of who we are as a people, but that type of exposure is precisely what most of the world sees of us. It may be hard to stomach, but The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills reaches homes around the globe and Prairie Home Companion does not. Entertainment Tonight, not Walter Cronkite. Swamp People, not Newhart. Baseball made the news here in New Zealand when A-Rod’s steroid use and his lying about it became such a big story this year, but the terrific resurgence of the Pittsburgh Pirates and what it says about small market teams and our love of the national pastime was nowhere to be seen.

Thankfully, there are enough people around here in New Zealand who have some inkling of the sea change as between their parents (and grandparents) understanding of who we are as a people and modern, media-fueled tom-foolery. They often ask me to explain things to them that they hear from the media, and I do my best to be honest about our strengths and weaknesses as a nation and as a people while making clear my unvarnished and unapologetic love of my country. Still, the whole process does leave me a bit uncomfortable. Snooky definitely is not Jimmy Stewart, and it’s not always clear whether I’m clinging to out-of-date concepts of who we are or there really is a gap between media and reality. Let’s call it ‘reality TV as oxymoron’, with the emphasis on the moron.

By calling ‘em like I we ‘em, by expressing who we are and what we think, by being opinionated but informed and liberal thinking (with a lower case ‘l’), we Americans who live here in Wanaka do provide a living example every day of the kind of nation we are and aspire to be. Warts and all. Some days, the mighty Casey does strike out and there’s just no joy in Mudville, but I do always end my days confident that open-minded people understand who we are, how different we are from place to place in America, and how it can be that the things that we share across our country are those things that make us great as a nation.

I do love Wanaka and New Zealand. I feel very welcome and comfortable here, and I enjoy my time here immensely. Still, I miss home while I’m away and I’ll be glad to get back to America soon. In the meantime, it’d be a lot easier for me down here if only I could get a decent sandwich, for crying out loud. How are those damn Yankees doing anyway?

North Otago high country near Omarama, NZ

Lake Ohau with Mount Cook / Aoraki in the distance

Hanging in The Ozone Hole

The view from the middle of Wanaka looking north into the mid-winter sun.

There’s a hole in the ozone layer. Setting aside my views on global warming (duh!) and those who believe that it’s a liberal conspiracy to deprive the energy business of their deserving profits (huh?), there is literally a hole in the ozone layer above New Zealand. No joke, solid science.

On a gloriously sunny day-off like today, where I get to roll around beautiful Wanaka and get some errands done, that little nugget of climatology has a direct impact on me and shines the light of day on a couple of funny tidbits about life here on the South Island. The immediate and most obvious result of the ozone hole here is that the sun is strong. Very strong. Couple that with the largely Northern European and Celtic lineage of the mostly pale folks that live here, and the residents of the towns in the Southern Alps have to be particularly vigilant about wearing sun block and sunglasses. This is true up at the ski fields, where the absence of tree-borne shade and the snow renders the effect like that of standing on a mirror. We’d all fry and go blind without protection, even on slightly overcast days at Cardrona. George Hamilton might have loved it but we need to be more careful. This is true even in town, particularly so along the lakeside, which is everywhere.

There are, however, some benefits. In winter, when so many of the storms that drop snow on the mountains drop rain in town and so many of the houses are not insulated, none have central heat, and most are damp, the very sunny days warm things up and dry them out. Imagine throwing open the windows and doors in the middle of winter! It's a definite refresher, like a sunlight transfusion.

One of my favorite things, oddly, about the ozone-free power of the sun is the opportunity to do laundry (“washing”) and have it dry before the end of the day. Electricity is outrageously expensive down here despite the fact that the majority of it comes from hydro-electric plants. That means that even in those homes that have drying machines, we all tend to place our wet washing on drying racks and leave them alternately near the wood stove or next to a window in the sun. As such, drying out our clean clothes can take days. So, when the weather and my work schedule cooperate, I luxuriate in the act of hanging my washing to dry outside in the warm sunshine on one of the permanent outdoor drying racks that are so ubiquitous here. Yes, it means that I can strip my bed, clean the bathroom, wash just about everything I own and have all of it back in time for use that evening and for wearing the very next day. It may sound like a small thing but it’s a big deal down here when we've all been so busy over the past few weeks of holidays and the days are shortest.

There are many things about New Zealand that are very different from Vermont. Pies are savory, the faucets are reversed, the light switches are reversed, the driving is reversed, the water drains in reverse, and Kiwis reverse their vowels and dispense with some of them altogether ("sex" is a half dozen, "yiss" is an affirmative answer, and “chups” are fried potatoes). Those differences are what make it fun and always interesting to spend time on the other side of the planet. More importantly, the wonderfully warm and sunny nature of both the people who live here and those who come here for the winter are what make it so joyful and make it feel like home for me. And, every so often, even the houses themselves are warm and sunny.

Excuse me while I open the windows so I can let the sunshine in and listen to the birds chirping in the middle of winter. There may be a nap on the porch involved.

The location of my upcoming nap.

Committed to the Core

A typical sunrise at Cardrona Alpine Resort.

Commitment. It’s a theme I hit on frequently as an instructor and trainer. As skiers and riders, we make movements that commit us to each new turn, to moving down the mountain while to staying in balance and control. In many ways, committing in this way is totally counter-intuitive – prudent or risk averse people don’t exactly find it natural to hurl themselves down steep icy mountains with long boards on their feet. Balancing our need to commit in this way with the messages coming from our stomachs (‘Don’t go there, it’s dangerous’) is the very crux of our sports, and it’s what makes them so thrilling.

There is another type of commitment that is a major factor for us in the big picture, and that’s the commitment made by people who come to our resorts to ski and snowboard for the first time. It’s one thing for an experienced skier to have a little anxiety about confidently moving downhill as terrain gets steeper or icier. It’s something far more complex and far more of a leap of faith to travel to a far away mountain, spend a boat-load of money and put your faith in the idea that putting on ridiculous clothing and uncomfortable equipment to slide around on snow under the tutelage of some unknown odd-balls will be a fun and rewarding experience. The National Ski Areas Association, our industry advocate in the USA, has rightly been preaching the gospel to all of us for some time about the need to market to and retain new skiers and riders. Our resorts and PSIA have worked hard to develop programs to attract them and to make people’s first experiences a success, and that’s certainly a big focus for us at Sugarbush. Making sure beginning skiers and riders feel strongly that they receive good value for the substantial amount of money, time and effort they spend, to say nothing of the anxiety involved, is a huge responsibility for us. It’s an important gut check and litmus test for those of us who make teaching and coaching our sports our vocation as well as our passion. Failure to fully grasp the essential role of teaching beginners represents a fundamental failure as a pro, pure and simple, and I believe to my core that this is true for coaches and teachers of all levels.

This is a simple enough issue for those of us in the Eastern US – simple as distinct from easy. Families easily make the drive from New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Washington to spend a day or a weekend learning how to ski or snowboard. Even the most skeptical folks can chalk it up to a rosy-cheeked, healthy, outdoor weekend in the country, whether they fall in love with the sports or not. Yes, it’s a huge commitment, but there are a lot of other aspects of the adventure where they can find value with ease. Besides, they’ve all gone sledding together or ice skating, walked around in the snow at home and certainly talked with their friends who have no problem disappearing to the mountains from time to time and are happier for it.

Imagine, then, the kind of commitment it takes for a family from a country with no mountains, no snow, and a tropical climate, people who don’t own warm clothing and have never seen snow in person, to get on a plane with their passports, land in a foreign country, eat strange food and drive up a crazy mountain road just to get to the snow on the off-chance that it’ll be fun and rewarding. Imagine skiing for the first time when you've never, ever, held snow in your hands or felt it under your feet. Imagine if you've never had to wear a hat or gloves. And then you arrive at a resort only to see three-year-olds fly around as comfortable as could be without a moment’s hesitation. And then some instructor asks you to take your life in your hands and slide down the damn mountain! Now that’s a real commitment, and that’s precisely what we've been asking a lot of people to do here at Cardrona Alpine Resort since we opened a week ago.

For the past week, the schools from Brisbane, Australia have been on break. For reasons I can only imagine and admire, many families decide each year that what they really should do with their precious family time together is to get on a plane and come see us. It’s amazing. It’s our first week of business this season, and the requisite amount of instructor training going on changes the dynamic slightly for these guests. Those of us who are more senior and typically spend most of our time teaching private lessons end up teaching beginner classes side-by-side with younger, newer instructors. It’s awesome for those teachers, for our guests, and for us. Just yesterday, I had an entire group of adults for two group lessons who had never seen snow. In this particular group, English was a second language for all of them, it was their first time in New Zealand, and all put their faith in Cardrona and in me, for crying out loud.  We laughed, we crashed, we took in the amazing view, we made snow angels and snowballs, we stopped, we turned, and we all found the unique and astonishing joys found in skiing. I clearly learned more from them than they did from me, and I’m grateful for it. We all learned how to say “ready” in the five languages represented.

As devoted skiers and riders, we’re committed to the core. Our choices of what we read, what we  wear, how we speak, how we dress, who our friends are, where and how we vacation, all reflect our commitment to skiing and riding and it’s all quite foreign to those outside our little bubble. As instructors and whose job is to share our devotion with others, we have a daunting responsibility to those who make the enormous commitment to join us for their first experiences. The good news – great news, really – is that the rewards for us and for them are equally enormous. High fives and hugs abound, smiles match the vistas, and the sense of satisfaction and accomplishment is a truly wonderful thing to see and to feel, for all of us as skiers and riders, whether it’s our first day or our millionth.

When’s the next lineup? I’m ready. “Pronto!”

Which Vegas?

Downtown "Rut Vegas" - Rutland, Vermont

I’ve just had two great days off in some spectacular spring weather. Though I have been able to enjoy some down time, including some terrific cycling on my home roads and making good headway on a new book while dozing off in my favorite old beach chair, I’ve had a bunch of errands to complete. Around here, that means driving. And it means driving back and forth across the Connecticut River that separates New Hampshire and Vermont.

The uninitiated often lump together Vermont and New Hampshire, as though they comprise one big, green swath of land north of Massachusetts. For those of us who live here, and for our friends and neighbors who grew up here, confusing Vermont and New Hampshire is cause for serious disapprobation, even scorn and ridicule. “Jeez ‘em crow! Don’t you know what side of the river you’re on?”  It would be like asking a Kiwi from Dunedin how long their family has been in Australia. Or a Welshman whether he puts ketchup on his haggis. You get the idea.

Obviously, the two states have a funny relationship. Sitting on either side of the Connecticut as though spooning each other, these two small states complement each other like yin and yang. Vermont remained steadfastly agricultural through the 19th century, while New Hampshire became the cradle of the industrial revolution. Vermont is not one of the original thirteen colonies - much to Vermonters consternation, the place was actually an unincorporated part of the New York crown colony and was cleared and cultivated in summer by tenant farmers from that state. New Hampshire, with its many navigable rivers to bring its natural resources to mills and markets, was one of the original thirteen and developed as a major player in the international trade of our young country. One of legends of the American Revolution was Brigadier General John Stark, a New Hampshire native who turned that state’s militia into an incredibly effective fighting force for the Americans. Naturally, General Stark’s most famous actions took place in Vermont, but that’s a whole other kettle of fish. New Hampshire was where Hannes Schneider came when he fled the Nazis and brought his modern ski teaching to America. Vermont is home to the legendary Cochran family, boasting several Olympic ski champions and numerous U.S. Ski Team members among them. The Green Mountains are in Vermont, the White Mountains are in New Hampshire, and both sets of peaks are smaller and less numerous than their vastly larger neighboring states of New York to the west and Maine to the east. At least the people of Vermont and New Hampshire don’t have complexes about that. Ok, maybe they do, but just a little.

My favorite little tidbit about the people of both Vermont and New Hampshire is their strong sense of irony as it relates to the towns where I’ve been doing my errands this week. If you’re on the Vermont side of the river, “Vegas” is a reference to “Rut Vegas”, a/k/a Rutland. While a perfectly nice town, Rut Vegas isn’t exactly a major destination for family fun or high culture. If you’re on the New Hampshire side of the river, “Vegas” is “Manch Vegas”, a/k/a Manchester. Also a perfectly nice place, Manch Vegas is home of more abandoned 19th century textile mills than active ones, though they are quite beautiful as they line the river banks.

I’m a native New Yorker, which grants me outsider status in the mountains of these two states. I have been known to remind the folks in the ski industries of both Vermont and New Hampshire how many Winter Olympics we've had in New York in an effort to put them in their place. But, as both places are so beautiful, filled with such fiercely independent people, prideful of their places but cognizant of the remoteness of them, my effort fails. In the end, my outsider status allows me to have equal affection for both Vermont and New Hampshire and both sets of people as I make my way back and forth across the river that divides them. Besides, I’ll always root for the Knicks and neither the citizens of Vermont nor New Hampshire can convince me otherwise.

Confetti

It’s snowing in Vermont. It’s snowing very hard. It has been since the early hours this morning and is supposed to continue snowing for another couple of days. When it’s all said and done, Sugarbush is supposed to end up with over two feet of new snow. This would be terrific even during the heart of the season, and for a mid-week storm towards the end of March it’s absolutely fantastic. To put it in perspective, and to gain some perspective on our season generally, by this time in 2012 resorts throughout the Eastern USA were barely hanging on to a very limited trail count, many had already started to close, and all were winding down the worst season for snow in decades. And now, this year, it continues to snow.

I’ve been focusing so much time and energy on my work this season that there’s been little left for anything else. Working on my own skiing and on my continuing goals for my own skiing, free skiing for the pure love of it, my life outside of work and off the hill, and certainly my writing have all taken a back seat if not fallen off the wagon altogether. Thankfully, the results of my efforts and those of my staff at Sugarbush have paid off and by mid-April we’ll have had a great season as a resort and as a Ski & Ride School. Just as we are about to begin properly taking stock of it all and begin turning our attention to next year, the whirlwind of the past four weeks in particular has provided me with some truly inspirational moments that will to inform and energize me.

These last four weeks have included an amazing succession of events. Our resort had a very busy Presidents Week followed immediately by a very busy Vermont schools vacation week. A few days later I made, a short trip to Montana (if there can be such a thing as a 'short trip to Montana') where I participated in a truly remarkable conference alongside a small number of some of the leading lights the North American snowsports teaching business. Shortly after returning home from the rarified air of the Rockies, I had a rigorous and stressful couple of days with the Eastern Division of PSIA in the Catskill Mountains of New York. In between all of this, I was able to watch my instructors at Sugarbush step up their game and continue to provide exceptional lesson experiences for record numbers of guests in some pretty harsh conditions, all in a way that makes me proud to be a ski instructor. It’s been awesome (in the sense of being filled with awe as much as in the ‘Like, dude, that’s totally awesome’ sense). It’s been exhausting. And it’s been genuinely inspiring in ways big and small.

I am trying to be careful to not stop pushing myself and those around me to achieve and to excel. Along those lines, it’s important to me personally that I not commit the cardinal sin of complacency as a manager, though I have been allowing myself to feel a little bit more confident lately that I’m steering our school in the right direction. I have many big and thorny issues that continue to challenge me as I write, and many of the changes that I began and issues I uncovered when I started in September are ongoing and by no means resolved. Still, tomorrow will be my second consecutive day off in what will be my first five-day work week of the season, and I’ll make some turns in deep, dry, soft snow, out of uniform and out of my office as this storm continues.

I do enjoy skiing in storms as much or more than I enjoy skiing after they’ve gone. Tomorrow, with a significant amount of humility and a smile on my face, I think I’ll permit myself to make my freeskiing in the fresh powder a small celebration, with the falling snow feeling just a little bit like confetti being thrown to mark the coming end of my first successful season at the helm. But I’ll do so just long enough to make note of it before putting my foot back on the gas and looking out to the horizon.

Icelandic Forests

January 5, 2013 at the top of North Lynx at Sugarbush

There’s an old joke about Iceland and the absence of trees in the countryside: What do you do if you’re lost in an Icelandic forest? Stand up!

I often make reference to altitude when teaching skiing. For me it’s about how close to the details we are and the need to rise to a higher elevation to make sure we can put the details into proper perspective lest they become pixelated. It's not just about effective teaching: striking a balance between being down in the details and being high enough to see the big picture is absolutely essential if we’re going to continue to share in the joy of our guests' skiing.

The truth about this idea of altitude adjustment is that it’s also a cautionary piece of advice generally for those of us who have made our passion for skiing and riding our careers. Too often professionals in the industry either lose sight of the real reason that we’re all here in the first place or we simply lose the ability to find that joy in skiing and riding. I’ve written about this on several occasions before, but for me this year it has particular resonance and I have found that perspective, that view from a higher elevation, in some places that I might not have expected.

At Sugarbush, we have a great program for new skiers and riders. It’s called First Timer to Life Timer and it’s a lift, rentals and lesson package that includes three two-hour group lessons. What makes it unique in the industry is that upon completion of a guest’s third lesson, they receive an all-mountain season pass to the resort. There are a number of aspects of the experiences we and our guests have with this program that are really terrific, but none more so than the celebrations that spontaneously break out when people receive their first season pass after only a few days of skiing and riding. Spouses, parents, children, friends, instructors, supervisors, sales staff, random passers-by and even the Director of the Ski & Ride School give and receive hugs, high five each other, make funny faces when posing for pass photos, and generally have an amazing time with what has become a sort of joyous initiation rite for new skiers and snowboarders. It’s absolutely fantastic, and even the most jaded, downtrodden old pro who has been too close to the details for too long would find the experience elevating. It definitely is a wonderful perspective-refreshing tonic. And there are others.

I have several friends around the industry and at home who have been going out of their way to make sure that despite the amount of work I’ve been putting in and the size of the challenge I face in my new role that I continue to be able to see the big picture. Some young kids who made their way with their parents to Sugarbush from Okemo specifically to ski with me over the holidays all drew crayon pictures of our time on the hill together, made thank-you notes on them, and then sent them to me via FedEx last week. A couple of my new colleagues in particular have proven to genuinely interested in making sure that I remain true to principle, that I can keep the big picture in focus, taking in the view from 30,000 feet, so to speak, and it’s been much appreciated.

And occasionally, on days off like today, I get to free ski, out of uniform, at home and away from the resort where I work. Today was like a one day vacation where I was a simple skier, enjoying an awesome morning of making relaxing turns with a good friend, occasionally bumping into other folks that I was genuinely happy to see, who were genuinely curious about how things are going for me, and who did not under any circumstances want to talk about work. Together with great conditions, a quiet day around my old stomping grounds, and beautiful weather, and it definitely provided a mind clarifying bit of skiing that was gobs of fun and rejuvenating to my spirit. My point is definitely not to be taken as a negative comment about where I work (or about any other work place), but more about the benefits of taken a step back, or a step away, from them from time to time.

There’s nothing quite like high altitude to engender a philosophical mindset. Whether it’s astronauts on the moon looking back to the earth, mountain climbers at the summit of some great peak, or even weary travelers simply gazing out of airplane windows, elevation provides a big picture view that puts things in perspective. In Iceland, that may mean simply standing up when lost in a forest. For me in the ski industry, it means lots of little things and opportunities that I need to take hold of and appreciate.  And most of them involve simply skiing and spending time with people who love it simply. I find that, more and more, I’ve been seeking out those moments, I’m very grateful when I find them, and that they definitely make me better at and more appreciative of my job and my place in the industry.