Passing an exam

In my last post, I mentioned the challenges of the PSIA in understanding the business changes between a destination resort and a non-destination resort. What I failed to bring into the picture is the resort personality. This is an extremely difficult value to quantify, entire departments (called marketing) at resorts are dedicated to creating or breaking these images.

What is resort personality?
Every resort in America has a personality regardless of what a marketing department may try to spin it as. A better way to describe personality would be the publicly perceived differences between resorts. There are a handful of key ingredients that help establish the personality which include (but aren't limited to):

1) Location - Without this it's hard to create anything else. Closer to a major metropolitan area or further, on a south or north side, or above and below the timber line. This is probably the base of any resort personality.
2) The terrain - The second layer to the base of any resorts' operations. Steeps, flats, rollers, cliffs, or bowls all help dictate what type of riders will be attending.
3) Snow - dry or wet, deep or shallow, it's one of the few things absolutely needed at every resort.
4) Staff - the folks grooming the runs, food service, ticket sales, maintaining the lifts, teaching lessons, fitting for rentals, or running promotions. They help make it fun by disappearing from your daily view. The less time you spend in lines, the happier you are to return to a resort.
5) Ski Patrollers - Because 98% of the time you may never need them, but the 2% of the time they are your first useful line of help. These are the people responsible for being the first visible help when needed.

This list certainly isn't complete, but shows just about all the portions that a resort can actually control to some extent. A resort owner can pick a location. The designers can create specific runs to some extent. We can make snow if not enough has fallen. Staff is selected for their given skill sets and knowledge. Patrollers are less selectable by the resort, more by the NSP, but still need to pass a rigorous testing process. What can't be controlled is the customer base. Enter marketing.

Some resorts are marketed more specifically towards family entertainment, some towards the "big mountain experience". Others might be known for having some of the best early and late season snow, while others may be known to have the steepest terrain, or the worst snow coverage. Yet others may best be known for their parks and pipes, which seems to be the current rage of younger riders. Each of these factors is heavily influenced by the ingredients listed above yet there is no greater influence than that of word of mouth.

Resorts are in this game to make money, and thus capitalize on the features given to them as best as possible. For example, a resort marketing itself towards a family friendly environment for learning and exploring with younger children will have smaller terrain features, possibly more gentle slopes, and alternative activities (sledding, sleigh riding, etc). With this kind of marketing, the clientele has been pre-determined before a season starts. Parents typically won't be taking a lesson, opting instead to enjoy their child's lesson time out riding on their own or tending to a child too young in the lodge. The children usually are eager to learn and take one or two lessons. After that you'll be lucky to convince them to take another lesson. Sometimes you'll find a handful of refresher classes, where someone skied years ago but stopped due to an event.

What does any of this have to do with PSIA/AASI?
The testing criteria for advancement is broken down into three sections. A paper test is administered, an on snow skills assessment, and finally the ability to teach the concepts. Passing the on snow is really dependent upon a rider being able to master the basic skills for balance (edging, rotation, and pressure). To advance on these skills often requires having the terrain available to practice with. It's hard to practice the diagonal extension needed for extreme inclines when your only black diamond is black due to its historical lack of snow coverage or bumps in a resort that regularly ensures the runs stay groomed.

Where should an instructor at such a resort practice an upper level class? One thought is to work on correcting the abilities of fellow instructors. There exists critical points though where this method won't work any further; Either a bad habit gets introduced into the self-contained system and furthered to each generation, or the upper limits of knowledge is reached (mistakenly thought of as perfection).

The PSIA and AASI solution to this is to attend yearly training with a DCL or attend one of their end of the year symposium deals. The symposium trips are extremely fun and rewarding experiences, where an attendee can get out as much and as little as they'd like. I attended my first one last season only to find many of the great tips coming too late in the season to be useful. A clinic session with your DCL can be a mixed affair from my experience. With any situation of instruction, it's possible to get good or bad rapport with a clinician. The good thing about clinician run sessions are they typically happen at your home hill, meaning you're comfortable with the terrain and the other students. You can make mistakes and have your own lazy moments that show up on familiar terrain cleaned up. These are two of the training portions I think the PSIA and AASI does extraordinarily right. The fact that both of these count as credit hours for towards yearly re-certification helps motivate even more. (Too bad they don't happen more than once a season.) Plus they give you a chance to meet and introduce yourself to various instructors, learn some new techniques that are working elsewhere, and possibly even find a better position for yourself.

During the on snow examination test is where I feel the system falls apart. The examiner has a checklist of items to evaluate each hopeful on, a list which does take into consideration the snow conditions of that day. What the examiner can't do though is change the testing requirements per student based upon their home resort style. So Johnny family-resort and Susie big-mountain will both have difficulties vs Pat the destination-resort rider. Why? Because Pat will most likely have access to terrain that pushes the skill-set on a consistent basis.

I understand the desire for a unified test. It's an attempt at leveling the playing field. I just don't believe it worked the way it was originally intended. I've no suggestions though on correcting this just yet.