Seasonal Start

My trip overseas had me missing much of the planning for the new and returning instructors this season, so I got the opportunity to be an attendee this year. Sadly that status was short lived.

We've had some snow this season already, enough to create a thin base layer, but not enough to get any hard core snow fanatics yet. The 18" of base leaves plenty of ground breaks and obstacles in your path, requiring each rider to pay careful attention to where they are and where they are going.

I joined the team for a first day of ski instructor refresher training. As we loaded on the chair, the group of 9 split into 3 chairs of 3 people and spent the next few minutes enjoying the ride from bottom to top (where the better snow coverage is/was). It was a beautiful bluebird day, more than we can ever expect, some of us laughing as we met new friends and reconnected with old friends. Me? I got hassled for being broken on what was for the most part an epic season last year. As we got off the chair above the timber line, we were slapped back to reality.

The top layer of the snow was solid and slick. Taking a moment to realize the day before was a blue bird also, the entire top layer was a thick layer of ice that not even poles could chip through. The wind blowing hard enough to move us, we watched several rocks break free on the sides and slide down the entire face of the mountain. Since I was with the first time instructors, many of them were on shorty skis (123 cm) with me on my long boards (181 cm) as is our trainer, several warnings were immediately issued about keeping balance on the ice.

Shorty skis are great for teaching center balancing, which is why we use them a lot. They fall apart on non-ideal conditions. Powder they have no tails to ride providing any lift needed. Ice, they're so small it takes a lot of active control processing to ensure they stay underneath you. For several of these new instructors it was a first time in a long time that they've been on skis (snowboard instructors learning the cross-over instructing).

First run we decided to just follow the leader with slow turns to get everyone used to the snow conditions, their little skis, and skiing again. First turn we watched 4 of the 9 lose control, fall, and slide halfway down the run before they were finally able to catch an edge and come to a stop. The TI and I splintered the group even further to get those steady on their skis further along, and those with fresh ski legs a little practice first. I got to handle the fresh ski legs team and immediately got to work on side slipping with conversions into turns.

After two runs we were able to get some smooth turns on the edges of our skis despite the icy top layer. It took about 3 hours to get those two runs completed though, and we knew there would be a downloading/hiking requirement due to the lack of snow on the lower half of the mountain. Opting instead to break early for lunch, we downloaded, discussing how the day was going amid ourselves when we ran into one of the snowboard classes. The TI for the class looked a little pained and disappointed. When we asked what was up, we got the tally.

Two broken wrists, several knees painfully beat, and one tailbone that may or may not be broken. Overall his group of instructors (both old and new) tossed in the revolted a bit and tossed in the towel for the day.

Several of the new instructors with me were happy to have made it out with no damages like their follow snowboarders. Needless to say it was not a good day to be training. After lunch we agreed to take the lift halfway up to work on instructing and class management. We found a pocket of softer snow and spent the next few hours sliding down a total of 10 vertical feet over and over again.