Skill Levels

One of the first things asked of a student signing up is "out of a scale of 1 to 3, what skill level are you?". Most first time skiiers get this correct answering 1 to being the lowest (many jokingly ask for a level 0). Where this range falls apart are the more advanced skiers.

Level 2 and Level 3 are hard to define exactly but things (within the ski school) typically fall into the range of a Level 2 has successfully made it up and down the chair lift a few times, mostly on their own. Level 3 falls into the usual line of you're making parallel turns and feel comfortable on most runs.

This falls apart in two places.

First the rental shop. Most rental shops will fix your bindings for Level 2 as being an intermediate rider, meaning you ride blues. While on a snowboard this isn't a big deal, as a skier this changes the binding settings to hold on a little harder. This can be good or bad depending upon how you look at it. Level 3 is an automatic "does black diamonds or higher" setting. Granted at times there is over lap between the ski school's view of the world and rental shops view, but not often enough.

The second place this falls apart is on the student ranking themselves. Students with a high opinion of themselves will often rank themselves at a L3 status when they can barely link turns. I've also had students rank themselves at L1 or L2 when they readily admit to their regular enjoyment of a few black diamond runs.

I understand that 3 types is a lot easier to think about and comprehend for the non-skier (this typing started before snowboarding became popular). Unfortunately, it does not lend itself to really describing what skill level you really are at.

I've been advocating a 5 level rating system for the past two years to help ease these problems.

Level 1 = Never skied/snowboarded before
Level 2 = Can do basic turns and stops
Level 3 = Can ride up the chair and down green runs
Level 4 = Can ride down blue runs
Level 5 = Can ride down black runs

So far I've not seen any interest in such a system, but I feel that little bit of detail helps prevent injuries to students who are over confident.