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.

Back In Time for Dinner

Ah yes, the lazy days of summer. For most of us in the adult world, those days are gone completely. Unfortunately, for most children, those days are gone completely as well. Unstructured outdoor playtime was the hallmark of summer, though not limited only to summer, and was when I really explored the world outside, made stuff up, built forts in the woods and hung out in them, developed strategies to contend with mosquitoes, sadistically plotted the mass destruction of the tent caterpillars that carpeted the street I lived on, and played soccer in the neighborhood with my friends until it was either too dark or one of our parents finally had had enough of our shenanigans. I didn't need a day planner and none of us even knew what a cellphone was. If our parents wanted to reach us, they had to yell very loudly, call someone else's house, or send out a search party. Nobody ever worried whether we were being properly supervised and we never were. Amazingly, as kids, as long as we were outside and it was summer, we were never bored even if we had nothing in particular to do. How cool was that!

As a ski instructor, I am a very big proponent of unstructured outdoor play time. Yes, when I am conducting all-day lessons for kids we do learn a bunch and I do use certain activities for their technical merit and with specific goals. But, as I often tell my students, it definitely is not "school". It is not unusual for parents to express dismay that their children were able to pay attention in their "class" for an entire day. What those parents fail to realize, and what I take great joy in explaining to them, is that there is no one thing to which their kids need to pay attention constantly throughout the day. The amount of sensory input and the variety and quantity of stimulus is incredible and, of yeah, it's a ton of fun, it's active and it's thought provoking. It's just like summer, only it's winter. Our skiing becomes a vehicle for all manner of exploration and, if I'm doing my job right, the day becomes much more than a mere ski lesson - for me and for the kids. Oh, and by the way, it's also true for adults, but don't tell my adult students that.

As a proponent of unstructured outdoor play time, it is at the core of my beliefs about childhood development that over-planned, over-structured, antiseptic, hyper-scrubbed, danger-free childhoods are actually bad for kids in ways physical, psychological and sociological, and that they are also bad for our society as a whole. Wait a minute, you may say, isn't this just about ski lessons? You're darn right it's about lessons, but it most certainly is not about skiing. We're not all winners, we're not likely to make the Olympics, there is sometimes scary stuff out there, falling hurts, skiing in the woods is dangerous, sub-zero weather stinks, rain is wet and nasty, and icy bumps are really a challenge. Sweet!

There are many facets to this way of thinking and many tangents I can explore which really get me up on my soapbox. Suffice it to say that there is a subtle and very interesting sociological movement afoot about child-rearing in the modern hyper-scheduled world. Thankfully, you don't have to take the word of a ski instructor who doesn't have his own children on this subject. In yesterday's New York Times Magazine, Lisa Belkin wrote a good piece which highlights some of the evolution in parenting over recent decades from this perspective ("Let the Kid Be", by Lisa Belkin, The New York Times Magazine, May 31, 2009, p. 19). Another good work on the subject that really got me thinking about my role as the pied piper of unstructured outdoor play time for kids (and adults) is Richard Louv's book Last Child Left in the Woods (Algonquin Books, 2005).

Regardless, in good times and bad, good weather and bad, summer, winter, morning, noon and night, the resilience and creativity of children never ceases to amaze me. It's a good lesson for all of us. So, go outside and don't come back until it's time for dinner. And make sure your little sister gets to play.

Ease of Green

Spring is almost at full strength here in New England. The hard wood trees have yet to reach their complete cover of deeper, darker hues, but there are buds everywhere in the fields and on the forest floor. The hillsides at this time of year in New England have a pale, almost yellowish green aura about them, well-matched by the pale, almost yellowish green of the pollen which is wreaking havoc with my eyes and nose. Despite that, the sounds and smells of Spring, almost more than the sights of it, are what really brings me joy after a long winter. I'll take the pollen, the occasional drenching rains and the emergent bugs along with it all because, hey, after all, it's not easy being green.

Boundaries & Borders

This week, like most during my “shoulder season” in between winters, I’ve spent a lot of time riding my road bike. My much beloved bicycle was manufactured in Spain (the Basque country, actually, if you ask the good folks who made it). I ride on tires made from South American rubber by a Dutch company, on wheels made in France, using a drive train made in Japan, with handlebars and stem made in Italy, and with several other bits and pieces from here in the United States and elsewhere. On a good day, when I have fresh legs, the right combination of food and drink in me, the right amount of sleep, and the right frame of mind, this model U.N. of components and pieces works together in perfect sync, translating my effort to the Vermont tarmac smoothly in a way that allows me to work my body, clear my head, and enjoy the beautiful countryside. On a good day, the origins of the various components fade away with the stresses of everyday life. Don’t worry, I’m not about to break out into song here but I do have a point to make.

In the coming weeks I’ll be traveling overseas a bit, passport in hand. When I arrive at JFK airport in New York City for my flights, I’ll be with the largest number of people I’ve been amongst in several months, converging there from all over the globe. It’ll be like a human version of the international flow of commerce. Having not had a sniffle all Spring apart from some hay fever, and having survived the long winter without having gotten sick at all, I now am a little concerned about the current swine flu scare. I’m not worried about actually contracting swine flu, but I am a little nervous about the perception of illness. What if I forget to take Claritin and display cold symptoms on the flight? Will we be forced to land in Nova Scotia and be quarantined until after the minimum incubation period has passed? Should I wear a surgical mask to protect myself from the rest of the traveling throngs? I have places to go and people to see, and I have no interest in being a news story or a case study. Should I be pounding some sort of cocktail of Magnesium and Zinc? Gosh, the folks reading the “news” on TV certainly make it seem as though I should consult with the Center for Disease Control before going anywhere or doing anything.

Enough already. No, I’m not going to worry about it. No, I’m not going to do anything or take anything out of the ordinary to protect myself. No, I do not have swine flu and, odds are, definitely will not catch it. My lifestyle, moving back and forth between winters in the U.S. and New Zealand, spending my time with guests from all over the world and a largely itinerant collection of staff, puts me four-square in the modern realm of people taking advantage of the blurred lines of demarcation between countries, economies, languages, and cultures. Heck, getting ready for the approaching season at Treble Cone in New Zealand, I’ve had several conference calls recently with our Austrian director, who has been in California, about hiring staff from more countries than I have fingers, all conducted in English for free using an internet phone service. Swine flu is the least of my concerns.

At the end of the day, I rely on all the various, minute facets of this cross-border existence to work seamlessly together in order to do my job, enjoy my time, and live my life. On a bad day, I may feel every cog in the chain as I work to do what I need to do. On a good day, I won’t be aware of the chain at all, and the components will free me to look to the horizon and enjoy my time on the road.

Mud Season Be Damned

As in any community that depends on tourism and second home ownership as major components of the local economy, the building trades in Ludlow are very active and employ an awful large number of the residents, even in a down economy. Now that the winter is over and our resort has closed, the sounds of hammers and saws resonate throughout the woods all over town, all day, every day. There is a “but” coming here, and the “but” is mud season.

Mud season is not a joke, it is not merely some folksy Vermont reference to April showers, and it is not a relic of a gentler time relegated to Norman Rockwell prints or the conversations of old-timers in the village cafes. Mud season is real and we’re in the thick of it, literally. With so many of the roads up in the hills around town remaining unpaved, they can get pretty nasty when the snow melts – worse so after a particularly snowy winter like the one just passed. Ruts that can run up to my car’s wheel wells, pot holes big enough to curl up in and take a nap, and mud that splatters everything in sight and then coats everything with a thick layer of dust when it’s warm and dry are the norm this during time of year. It’s a good time to head for more temperate climes.

The “but” problem for the building trades is that during mud season, the town officially closes many of the dirt roads to commercial traffic over a certain weight. What this means is that if you’re in the middle of a building project and you haven’t had the foundation poured or you haven’t had your lumber delivered before the roads close, you are likely to spend your time sitting and twiddling your thumbs until things dry out at the end of April or early May. Projects ill-timed to accommodate for mud season can really cause headaches for the unprepared builder. There is one set of notable exceptions. Let’s call them “Nature’s Carpenters”, at the risk of being too cute. I’m talking about beavers, lots of them. And they definitely have been busy.

I took the photos below yesterday, April 15th, alongside Route 100 between Plymouth and Bridgewater, Vermont. The valley floor there is narrow in spots with lots of running water that feeds the many lakes with clean, clear runoff from the surrounding mountains. It’s the perfect spot for beavers to go to work, mud season be damned (pun intended). The conical shaped stumps are characteristic, and the sheer size of the dam and the volume of timber felled by the critters is remarkable but typical. In some of the photos here, look carefully and you’ll see the tooth marks in the stumps. I’m not certain whether dam building is a more effective way of catching fish than dropping a line or casting a fly (the methods preferred by biped carpenters), but it certainly is enough to leave me marveling at the beavers' handiwork.

Throwing Out the Book

Among the many subjects that ski and snowboard instructors study as part of our professional development, to say nothing about the certification process, is the nature and stages of childhood development – both physical and intellectual. Piaget’s Stages of Development, Maslow’s Pyramid, the CAP Model and other scientific theories form an important part of these studies and of our understanding of what we do and the people with whom we do it. It’s interesting stuff, if not a bit dry and occasionally as effective as an Ambien. On the ground in the day-to-day work of an instructor, there are more basic and obvious concepts that play a more immediate role. Simply put, there are some well-known truisms about teaching kids and about childhood development that we encounter frequently. On Saturday, I ran smack dab into one of these.

Girls generally develop certain fine motor skills earlier than boys. As instructors, it is widely accepted that girls who participate in certain specified activities - gymnastics, martial arts and dance in particular, more so than common sports - take to skiing and riding faster than their peers. While we hate to classify kids and try our best to assess each child on their on merits as athletes and students, sometimes we just can’t help ourselves when we find one of these rare children whose rapid progress through our sports can be bewildering to even the most seasoned teacher.

At Saturday morning’s group ski lesson line-up, I was assigned to teach a 12-year-old girl on her first ever morning on skis. A family friend had taken her up our Magic Carpet beginner’s lift for a few runs before the lesson started and informed me that the girl – we’ll refer to her as “RockStar” – had successfully made linked wedge turns down from the top of the carpet with virtually no instruction. Bear in mind that it is not uncommon for a beginner’s lesson to end with successful completion of a run from the top of the carpet with linked wedge turns. My first question of RockStar was, naturally, what other activities she likes to do, anticipating the gymno-taekwon-dance-alete response. I was not disappointed. The next noise was that of me tearing up the level 1 lesson plan and moving into the accelerated “when are the next Olympics” mode for RockStar.

RockStar and I had a ball skiing together for two hours that morning. We skied a ton, explored terrain and saw some views of the surrounding countryside rarely seen by novice skiers. By the end of the lesson, she was skiing parallel on some of our more challenging green trails, using her super short rental skis in what quickly became shin deep slush as the day warmed up to near 60 degrees Fahrenheit. Honestly, making slow parallel turns in shin deep slush is hard enough on the long, wide skis and perfectly fitted boots I was using, so RockStar’s rental equipment, perfect for a true beginner, quickly became a handicap which, amazingly, did not seem to hinder her progress much. You try skiing in slush on a pair of 120’s!

There are two things that I try hard to bear in mind when teaching kids like RockStar. The first is to get the heck out of the way – if kids like this are going to succeed, a lockstep, technical ski lesson with drills and exercises thinly veiled as kids games is the very last thing they need. The second is to be patient and not get overly ambitious or exuberant - RockStar may have been a rock star, but she was still a nervous kid experiencing a lot of new stuff in a strange environment with a strange and scary-looking man as her guide. A little tweak here and there, some fun, conversation on the lift about what we’re doing and how it relates to something with which they are familiar, checking out the view, giving a tour of the ski mountain (no, the half-pipe is not a “ditch”), and enjoying our time outside in the mountains is what they really need to do once they get rolling. That, some mileage and strident avoidance of the Siren-like smells coming from the Waffle Cabin, and we can successfully welcome great kids to our sport and prepare them for a lifetime of sliding on snow. The sky is the limit.