The Song of the Gondolier

Ahh, the romance of a gondola! Gently cruising down the waterways of Venice, sliding past old world art-filled villas, sipping a glass of pinot gris in the sunshine while a gondolier quietly sings Puccini in the background. Simply wonderful … Unless, of course, you prefer skiing or snowboarding.

It makes me giggle a bit to compare the romance of the original gondolas to our still shiny, new Chondola at Cardrona Alpine Resort - I don’t necessarily think of Swiss or Austrian mechanical engineers as purveyors of romance. Still, as an instructor, I’d like to wax romantic about that wonderful piece of Austro-Swiss engineering made for us by our friends at the Doppelmayr / Garaventa group that we call MacDougal’s. I know it’s an odd thought, but work with me here: there are things about our beloved Chondola and what it allows us to do that make this instructor’s heart swoon, and it's one of the many reasons Cardrona is such a wonderful place to become a skier or a snowboarder.

Cardrona’s chondola replaced an old, fixed-grip, four-person chair lift that was pretty typical of its vintage. It served us well but didn’t really suit our ambitions as a resort. Most of the advantages of the new lift, now almost done with its second winter of use, are obvious: speed, capacity, reliability, comfort, convenience, bling (it’s pretty shiny!). The details that make this piece of engineering so stirring for me, however, are a little less obvious to the untrained eye, and there are a lot of them.

Take the upholstery of the chairs, for example. Yes, the upholstery. The six seats on each chair alternate red and black. Conveniently, those are our Cardrona colors, but it’s far more than that.  When we’re with new skiers loading a chairlift for the first time there are an awful lot of details to the process that can make them nervous, not the least of which are starting at the gate and then stopping on the red line precisely when and where is needed, and then aiming for the correct spot on the chair with five other people. Scary, uncomfortable, and a little too personal at times. Now, it’s a simple ‘eyeball your spot’, or ‘you’re in that red seat on the end’. It’s a small but substantial difference that has pretty far-reaching effects on everyone’s confidence and comfort-level. Color-coded seats rock.

Next example, just to make us all feel better, is the safety bar. Every other chairlift safety bar I’ve seen that has a foot rest attached to it rests against the front of the chair with a metal bar on the outside of each rider’s knees. These work well for adults, but wriggly little kids who are excited to be skiing and who have trouble sitting still on the chair can make us pretty nervous. Leaving no detail to chance, the fine engineers of our shiny new Chondola created a solution: the safety bars on MacDougal’s rest against the chair in between each rider’s knees and lock in place. That means that even the kid with worst shpilkes (a/k/a “ants in their pants”) can wriggle all he wants and still remain safely in their seat. Phew!

And then, last in my hit list but first in my heart, are the gondola cabins themselves. Oh gondola cabins, how I do love thee; let me count the ways! The speed of MacDougal’s and it’s ease of loading means that we can stay with our guests practicing on our wonderful beginner slope with its tunnel-covered lift for far longer, generating far more confidence than before and then still have plenty of time to make the move to the top of the mountain when they’re truly ready to ski or ride on Skyline. More importantly, we can make that first trip down the mountain without having had to go through that harrowing first chairlift ride up it, and that’s been a real game-changer for our guests who are new to the sport. Loooove the cabins!

There is, however, one more thing about the gondola cabins on MacDougal’s that most people don’t consider; something hiding in plain sight. Like all things romantic it’s about inspiration, plain and simple. When we’re working with first-time skiers and riders, they usually are not ready to ski or ride from the top of the mountain during their first two-hour lesson. Often, making sure that they’re happy to do so, I like to take these guests on a ride to the top in a gondola cabin, leaving our skis at the bottom. We get off at the top, walk the few steps up to the ridgeline to see the stunning view of the Southern Alps and Lake Wakatipu, take some photos, and then enjoy the leisurely trip back down in a cabin. The view from up there is genuinely inspirational and is frequently shockingly gorgeous. Still, that’s not the best part.

The best part of the sightseeing ride up is that when our guests are on our bespoke beginner hill they are surrounded by other beginners and their instructors and usually are so focused on what they’re doing that they don’t really get to see much else. Taking that ride up the gondola often is the first time they gain a real sense of perspective on where they are and, more importantly, what skiing and snowboarding can be like. Athletes in the park, in the pipe, and racing down All Nations are all in immediate view, as are so many experienced skiers and riders of all levels just having fun on all sorts of terrain. Our first time guests really get to see skiing and riding outside the beginner bubble. With a little simple explanation from their instructor, they can attach what they’ve been learning to what they see happening all over the resort. And that’s when the romance hits. “Wow, I would love to be able to do that! I would love to ski or ride there!”. Suddenly, their learning has a clearer purpose and direction, as though they can step out and see the horizon and put it all in perspective. That shining moment of inspiration is worth its weight in gold, for us as instructors and for our guests. For me, it renews my passion for snow sports every time, it reminds me why I love being a ski teacher, and I fall in love with our MacDougal’s Chondola all over again. A little pinot gris and Puccini would still be nice, but then that’s why Cardrona put a café up at the top station! Glass of bubbly with a view anyone?

Kafka Was Not a Ski Bum

A little blue sky as one of this week's storms clears at the top of Cardrona.

Now that we’ve completed the very busy few weeks of the Australian and New Zealand school holidays, I’m finally able to slow down enough to take stock of the past year, and it certainly was an interesting one. At home in the USA, I had four or five different jobs (depending on how you count) across several mountain ranges and in several different uniforms in the 2017-18 season. In my two short stints away from home and in Aspen, I had to learn my way around four different mountain resorts that were totally new to me and had to adapt to a very different working environment. It meant a lot of long days, long trips, suitcase-living, cold, wet, unfamiliar territory, all while focusing 100% on honing my craft as an instructor and coach while providing the best guest experiences I possibly can, to say nothing of working on my skiing. And now I’m in New Zealand where I have one uniform, one workplace, and one home … Phew, I made it.

My life here so far away, living in Wanaka, New Zealand and working at Cardrona Alpine Resort is terrific but I do wonder from time to time about having been brought here, having traveled all this way just to work. It’s another dimension to a question that my time in Aspen brought to mind and that stayed front-and-center for me this winter in Vermont. The question is a classic Kafka’esque dilemma, and it’s not a particularly rosy one – not at first.

The overly-simplified description of the Kafka dilemma I have in mind involves considering, for example, a ride at the zoo: is it intended to give the people a view of the animals or to give the animals a view of the people. Kafka wrote about this sort of scenario as genuine dilemmas in the sense that there is not a concrete answer, only the discussion from which we learn. Yes, although you are welcome to see this as just another piece of hyper-complicated gobble-de-gook from me, I do have a point to make about skiing, ski towns, and our relationships with our guests.

This Kafka concept first came to mind during a morning bus ride from where I was staying in Snowmass Village to work at Aspen Highlands – a commute of about 30 minutes. My daily bus route was along the one highway on the valley floor that enters Aspen from ‘down valley’. It should be no surprise that Aspen’s an incredibly expensive place, so down valley towns like Basalt and Carbondale are far more affordable places for the working folks that provide all of the labor for the busy resort and all of its supporting businesses, and everyone travels this same road. As the resort began to get busy and crowded for the December holidays, one particularly Aspen-y aspect of the commute was the airport, right along-side the highway, which began to stack up with triple parked private jets, more than I’d ever seen in one place and at one time. Sitting on the bus, ogling the countless jets on one side while on the other was the slow-moving traffic of old Hondas, hard-working pickups, and late model minivans filled with the resort workers was what brought Kafka to mind. Are we all commuting in to serve the jet people or have we brought them here to provide us with work and an income?

The dilemma unnerved me a bit, and I arrived at the Aspen Highlands locker room early in a contemplative state. My morning locker room routine often includes tuning my skis, something that always relaxes me and clears my head, and a positive minded conclusion started to take shape in my mind as I chatted with Aspen’s Director who also was in there tuning his skis - he’s a gifted staff trainer that I’ve known for a while and he’s always supremely level-headed. He asked how everything was going for me there and I told him the truth: that it was a wonderful experience for me but that I’d had my uncomfortable Kafka thought that morning. As expected, he helped me put a fine point on the positive and sincere conclusion.

The answer to the dilemma was that it wasn’t ‘us and them’, nobody was there to serve or be served. The right mindset, the one that makes the incredibly wide financial gap between the wealthy visitors and the hard-working day laborers, is one of welcoming all comers to a shared mountain experience. We make them feel welcome – the ski towns where I ply my craft are sought-after by the wealthy for the same reasons I’ve made them my home(s), and whether I’m on the hill with my guests in a lesson or out and about in town, making them feel welcome makes me appreciate where I am and what I do all the more. The experiences I have working and spending time with our guests is at least as valuable to me as the experiences I help provide for them,. The guest and the staff experiences in great ski towns like Ludlow, Vermont, Wanaka, New Zealand and Aspen Colorado run parallel 100% of the time and, thankfully, it feels egalitarian in truth and in spirit for all of us.

We’re all in this together in our mountain communities, we depend upon each other for our safety and for the quality of our experience. Kafka was wrong in this way: it’s not that one is there to look at or to serve the other; it’s that we’re drinking from the same spring, basking in the same sunshine, and sharing with each other all that our mountains offer us.

My Career is a Team Sport

Brush Creek in Snowmass, CO

Last week was a pretty typical one for me at this time of year. I spent the weekend days conducting training clinics for the Okemo instructors and helping a young race kid to find his gas pedal without his hair catching fire; and I did an evening shift helping out at The Boot Pro. Monday I was out of boots, getting stuff done. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday I was at Mount Snow with the Professional Ski Instructors of America doing an understudy to get a close-up look at a new three-day combination certification exam and children’s accreditation. Friday, I was out of boots again, busy doing laundry, packing, getting my equipment dialed and generally dotting I’s and crossing t’s. And that’s where typical ended. Atypical began this past Saturday.

This past Saturday morning I drove to Bradley International Airport and began a long journey in the middle of the first big snowstorm of the season (yikes). The trip ended with a long van ride to the Roaring Fork Valley in Colorado on Sunday that was only slightly faster and more efficient than the original local stagecoach trip. 36 hours after my trip began, I arrived where I’m staying for the next month. In other words, it took 36 hours for me to land fully outside my comfort zone. Welcome to life as “the new guy”!

Change is good, but change is not always easy. I’m here in Aspen to gain some valuable exposure to how they do things here, to get some different perspective and broaden my horizons. Luckily, I do have some close friends here and the staff has been very welcoming. More importantly, I did not really make this trip alone. Along with me, riding side saddle to my experience here, are a number of people without whose support and encouragement, without whose tutelage and patience over the years I would not be in the position I am in the snow sports industry. I am indeed a very lucky man. They make it possible for me to do what I do, they keep me grounded, they’ve helped me carve out my own identity in the business and are an indelible part of who I am as a ski pro. Seriously, folks, they’re amazing. I can’t speak for everyone who does what I do, but for me, deep down in my DNA, my career is a team sport.

When watching an American football game, occasionally the cameras pan along the sidelines, shining the spotlight on the number and array of people it takes to do put teams on the field every week. For me, there is no spotlight and I have no teammates on the field with me, but I definitely have a team behind me 100% of the time. Mike Martini and my friends at Nordica USA provided me with new Dobermans that are simply the very best alpine boots available in the market. My friend Shon Racicot dialed in the fit of those boots in a way very few boot fitters on the planet are able to do, all from the bench in The Boot Pro in Ludlow. Rand Haskell may be the best ski tuner in America and does his miracle work downstairs at The Boot Pro to get my Nordica skis in immaculate shape. Not one member of my Okemo family flinched in encouraging me to come here. Tomorrow I’ll be on snow doing some training with the Ski Schools of Aspen and I’ll get an exceptional look at conditions through the latest POC lenses while protected by their state-of-the-art helmet. My colleagues in the Eastern Division of PSIA are all anxious to hear what I find here and are excited for me. My parents listen dutifully as I explain all of these relationships and how important they are. My Vermont housemates Jinx and Alex put up with all of my various neuroses in a way that boggles the mind. Coach Barb Marshall sits on my shoulder like Jiminy Cricket (only a but surlier) coaching me and keeping me honest in my dedication to our craft. And the echoing voices of so many coaches over the years inform all that I do and resonate day-in and day-out.

The point here is not simply to roll out the credits. The point is that I am not alone as I set about the very difficult task of actually making a living as a professional ski instructor. Not only do I have a team behind me 100% of the time, but the folks on that team are truly some of the best in the world at what they do. And I know that because I travel the ski world with their support. In New Zealand, all around the East, in the resorts around the country where I’ve been lucky enough to work from time to time, and here in Aspen and at Aspen Highlands where I’ll be based, I’m ready to go. I wouldn’t trade any member of the team that got me here and I’m grateful for each and every one of them.

Ooh, speaking of team support, can one of you send some of that snow Vermont's getting my way? Thanks a ton! In the meantime, I need to go and be ready for first chair or I’ll make coach Barb angry. And you wouldn’t want to see her angry.

Newton Was a Terrible Ski Instructor

Spring, last week, at Glendhu Bay in Wanaka, NZ

My seasons teaching skiing in New Zealand include an amazing amount of instructing mileage, most of it with beginner and intermediate skiers. Thankfully, it’s the best way I know to vet my ideas, shore up my understanding, and secure my belief in the fundamentals.

Each season, some theme seems to arise from the volume of work that I do which helps put skiing and teaching into perspective for me. That was certainly the case this past season, and that theme is still both cracking me up and informing my teaching. So, without further or due, Russ’s 2017 Big Picture Theme and Groundbreaking Thought About Skiing, drumroll please … wait for it …

Physics is only complicated when you explain it.

I’ve settled on the belief that once kids can run around, throw balls and catch them, annoy their sisters, and figure out that the stove is hot to the touch, their understanding of physics is perfect and all we can do as adults is mess that up. I’ll prove it to you with a few basic examples I’ve been using with guests – adults and kids. You’ll have to use your imagination (you were a kid once so you should have some imagination in there somewhere).

Example 1. First, a non-skiing example to keep it simple. Imagine a kid who’s learned to ride a bike with training wheels and who is heading out for their inaugural voyage without them. First, they adjust their balance going in a straight line. Then, once they're feeling good, they go around the corner. Now, imagine a kid going around the corner on a bike for the first time and tipping the bike the wrong way, to the outside of the corner instead of towards the inside. Huh? Exactly; it’ll never happen. They instinctively know how and in what direction to tip the bike. Now imagine what would happen if you tried to explain to them about tipping the bike going around the corner before they tried it for the first time. This is when you start to sound like the adults in a Peanuts cartoon (blah, blah, blah) and the only other sound you’ll hear if you’re paying attention is the sound of the fun getting sucked out of bike riding.

Example 2. Imagine that all five of us are in the back seat of my dad’s car on the way to soccer practice. Now, we all know that my father drives too fast, and today he takes a left turn way too fast. You, sitting on the far right side of the car seat as you are, get smooshed by the rest of us against the right side, don’t you?! Now, to stop you from getting smooshed will it work if we let our weight go to our right foot, stay strong on that leg and foot as the car goes around the corner? The answer is “duh”, of course it works. This is a good time to practice your quizzical kid, ‘adults are weird’ look – it’s very valuable.

Example 3. A common thing that ski instructors do when skiing with kids across very flat ground is the game of world-wide fame called “pole basket slingshot”. It’s simple: while sliding along your most despised cat track have a kid behind and slightly offset to one side of you grab hold of the basket of your ski pole that you’ve extended back towards her while you keep your hand on the grip, right pole if she’s on the right side, left if on the left (without poking her with it – safety first). Once she’s got a firm grasp, pull the pole quickly forward so she rockets forward. As long as kids understand the goal (e.g. going fast) they’ll know precisely when to let go of the pole so that they slingshot past you. Mix it up, change speeds, sides, facial expressions and you’ll all have a blast as long as you make appropriate sound effects. Explain the physics of the slingshot to them and they’ll suddenly miss their parents and will dread skiing with you forever.

I love talking to adults about skiing in this way, using these examples about our natural understanding of physics. I particularly love it when there’s a kid available to prove the point. Telling parents that their 6-year-old child has a perfect understanding of physics and then proving it never ceases to entertain me, although I usually have to redeem myself with one of my celebrated uncle jokes (“Hey, kid, snot funny. It’s, just, snot, funny.”).

Remember when Bill Clinton addressed the Democratic National Convention as keynote speaker when Dukakis was nominated? He droned on forever and then got resounding applause when he said “In conclusion”. We’re at that point here, which is to say that I’m getting to the point.

Isaac Newton was a great physicist and one of history’s greatest minds but he’d have made a lousy ski instructor. Newton wasn’t the first person to notice that apples fell from the tree to the ground. His contribution was in providing the correct explanation of why and how in a way that allows science to analyze, predict, and precisely calculate the effects of gravity. Without Newton, we’d never have flown in airplanes, launched satellites, or been to the moon. Still, without Newton apples would still fall, our kids would still tip their bikes the correct way going around corners, and skiing would still be awesome with awesome sauce on it.

My second theme from the season is apt here: clarity is more important than detail. Yes, that means clarity in explanation, but more importantly it means clarity in our students’ understanding. When we’re careful about digging further into the details and judicious about letting the curiosity of our students govern how deep we go, we’re more likely to keep things fun and make our teaching more effective for our guests. So, ski teachers, don’t mess with anyone’s clear understanding of something by explaining it. And this also goes for chefs, because I don’t want to know how much butter you’ve used when I’m eating birthday cake.

Our ski season here in Vermont begins in a few short weeks, and I’m looking forward to feeling gravity and lots of other principles of physics without having to explain them too much. Did someone say cake?

Rounding It Out

Have a listen to the sounds from the shoreline near the confluence of the Clutha and Hawea Rivers outside of Wanaka, New Zealand in October.

I have some stock responses to the questions my guests ask about my endless winter. There are the sincere: "Sometimes it's hard to tell whether I chase winters or they chase me;" and "I do miss summer but I gladly sacrifice it for more winter." Then there's the clearly exaggerated: "Winter here is just like the summers back home." I guess there's some truth in each of them. Still, the most important response, and the one that is most relevant now, is this: I may have two winters each year and no summers, but I do get to experience spring twice! Consider whatever poetic line you prefer about spring being a season of renewal, life springing eternal, or the birds and the bees, and remember just how wonderful spring can be. Here in Wanaka, it's ever more the case.

With the business and the renown of Cardrona Alpine Resort growing as rapidly as the town of Wanaka itself, my winter season here is neither marathon nor sprint. It's more of a 440, putting everything we've got at top speed, 100% of the time for four months, without much letup. It's awesome, I love every bit of it and it'll only get better as we continue to evolve, but it can be pretty tiring. Thankfully, spring here hits like a tidal wave of quickly lengthening days, an enormous number of birds that make more and a greater variety of noise than anyone at home can imagine, and gardens that out of nowhere seem to explode into amazing greenery over night. Where I'm living this season, we've got two large bushes an either side of our front door that greet us daily with an amazingly pungent, vaguely fruit-like smell that is so impossibly fragrant that the only apt comparison is to the smell of citrus-scented cleaning detergent, only better, naturally. I am aware that the amount of time I spend in the cold and the snow heightens my appreciation for all of the joys of spring, but I'm equally confident that any sentient being would have the same response upon arrival here at this time of year.

We're in the final stretch now at Cardrona, with less than a week to go until we close for skiing and riding until next year. The remaining resort staff is in high spirits, we've got ample snow to end on a great note, and though we're all ready to stay out of our boots for a while we are all still enjoying our remaining time up the hill. Thankfully, unlike the end of the season at home, we come down at the end of the work day to the valley floor, to the lake side, and to the banks of the river and get to immerse ourselves in all that spring has to offer. Thermals and ski boots and shorts and flip-flops in the same day, every day, is a pretty wonderful thing and is a normal part of my life here.

When there is no obvious end point of one ski turn and the beginning of the next one, when they move and flow from one into the next, it's a good sign. And right now, the same can be said for my seasons, as another Cardrona winter melds into a Wanaka spring in seamless fashion. And it's working for me. Big time.

The Albert Town Lagoon in Wanaka.

Brown Bread

Actual brown bread found in a Wanaka super market!

The skiing at Cardrona has been terrific lately. We had several storms in succession followed by some pretty stunning sunny days on the heels of four consecutive weeks of very busy Kiwi and Australian school holidays. I’m fortunate to have some friends who have nudged me into free skiing with them in “civies” (meaning out of uniform) instead of putting my feet up at home on my days off, and it’s been oodles of fun. Invariably when this happens, our conversation turns to food.

On a recent awesome day of skiing awesomeness at Cardrona, my friends and I took a quick lunch break at the Captain’s Lodge on the far side of the resort. Among my companions that day were a couple who are long-time Wanaka residents and ex-pat Germans who, naturally, brought their own snacks. Out of their backpack came some cheese, sausage from the local butcher, and slices of homemade brown bread. What’s the big deal? No big deal at all, if you’re accustomed to being in the Alps or in the Eastern USA. Still, here in New Zealand, it was a revelation, albeit a small one. Eyes rolled as we all talked about how much we miss brown bread, how much our favorite mountain meals include brown bread and, invariably, soft cheese. I talked about my very vivid memories of a ski trip in remote Alberta many years ago where lunch typically consisted of sandwiches of fresh baked pumpernickel, strong-flavored spreadable cheese, and a tin of sardines. Open the tin half-way, squeeze the oil out into the snow, place those little delectables in a row on the brown bread, and enjoy. Eyes rolled, groaning ensued, and we were all transported for a moment. Then we promptly returned to New Zealand and enjoyed the rest of the day in this incomparably beautiful place that we all love so much.

Of course, this is not merely about food. Time and again, Kiwis amaze me with their keen interest in trying new things from far away places, food in particular. It’s not tough to imagine that in the early days here on the South Island, without the large Maori populations that they have on the North Island, the people here were pretty isolated and it shows in their cuisine, which is acutely Anglophile. Think hard cheese, soft sausages, and, yes, white bread. Things are evolving quickly here given their openness – Kiwi-style cafes serving barista coffee and panini sandwiches are ubiquitous enough to have become an essential feature of everyday Kiwi culture, where a few decades ago it was all tea shops and scones. It’s a young country that embraces this evolution, and it’s one of the things that makes the place so compelling for me. Bear in mind that in Vermont, I happily will drive twenty minutes to get to my source of authentic New York black-and-white cookies.

The butcher in Wanaka now makes some pretty wonderful hard sausages. Kiwi dairies are doing well bringing to market an ever expanding variety of cheese. And last night, while doing a typical big shop at the big box local super market, I found fresh made brown bread made with rye flower and molasses. Add some local salmon and dill mustard, or some salami and soft cheese, or maybe even some warm pastrami … The future looks bright here in the Land of the Long White Cloud and I’m ready to taste what the future brings.

August 1, 2017 at the close of another stunning Cardrona ski day.

Who's Your Boss

Early season at Cardrona means arriving each morning at sunrise - it's worth it!

Here's a little ditty I wrote for Cardrona recently: Who's Your Boss.

https://www.cardrona.com/winter/our-latest/posts/who-s-your-boss/