Melting Away

The 2007 ski season is very rapidly coming to an end. The weather for the last week? Highs in the mid to upper 60s. 60s! How hot is that? Today I had a class with clients from Texas, Florida, and Tennessee. They all commented that it's hotter here than it was at home. Fantastic. (A quick aside: I met one guy who was attending college at MTSU (Middle Tennessee State University). A name like begs for a little more research and, sure enough, MTSU is located in Murfreesboro, TN — smack in the middle of Tennessee).

Oh, and 60 degrees is really, really hot when you're wearing snow gear. We're required to wear our jackets to help maintain our professional image, which means we get hot and sweat. A lot. Right now my outfit consists of shorts, a t-shirt, my snowboard jacket and pants. Pretty much everyone else is riding sans jacket. We've even had a few bikini sightings already. :)

So back to Park City. Skiing is strictly limited to the main runs now and even that's not a sure thing; patches of grass, dirt, and rocks are popping up everywhere. And the slush is something else. You basically can't ride after 1:00pm or so because the snow is so wet and so slushy that your board (or skis) get completely stuck. I learned this the hard way by attempting a few jumps in the terrain park in the afternoon a couple of days ago. I landed the jump cleanly but my board hit the ground and didn't move. Sadly I still had forward momentum and continued head first over the board.

It's also a little hard to stay motivated this time of year. Aside from wanting to improve a killer raccoon tan, most instructors are ready to be off the mountain. As one of my friends said, "You know when you're driving on the freeway and you realize you're sick of driving so you hit cruise control, kick back, and tune out? I hit cruise control a few days ago."

But the big question is how long can we stay open? No one really knows the answer, but we're all pretty sure it's not going to be April 18th (as originally planned). So we're all anxiously checking the forecast and watching as the snow continues to disappear.

Shaun White







Park City is home to the world's largest superpipe, which is great for a lot of reasons. Aside from the obvious benefits like attempting to survive a 22 foot drop in one piece (successful so far!), it also means we get to host events like the World Superpipe Championships. Today the best snowboarders from around the world were on hand. I've seen a million halfpipe competitions on TV, but it doesn't come close to capturing the experience. Standing 5 feet from the lip of the pipe as snowboarders uncork huge spins 10 feet above your head is pretty awesome.

Of course, pictures don't can't do the experience justice either. I took a bunch, though. Shaun White (who may be the world's best snowboarder) ended up winning, and deservedly so. He jumped way higher than anyone else, spun more times than I could count, and just looked plain smooth. You can see most riders make small adjustments (especially after they land), getting themselves ready for the next jump. But Shaun lands his tricks so cleanly that he's in perfect position for the next move. I never though a halfpipe rider would be graceful, but he definitely is.

The Bird







I finally made it over to Snowbird today (after calling ahead to make sure the pass was open...). The west side of the Wasatch mountains (where Snowbird is) is surprisingly different compared to the east side. They're steeper, more jagged, and kind of remind me of the Alps (well would remind me of the Alps, if I had been snowboarding in the Alps before...). The resort is divided into three huge bowls and, like The Canyons, insists on trying to service each bowl with as few chairlifts as possible. Which means if you want to go anywhere than right underneath the chair you have to traverse over to it. Not exactly the snowboarder's dream resort it had been made out to be.

It doesn't have some pretty unique features, though. Most notably is the tram that takes you directly from the base to the peak. It was my first time on a tram and I'll admit that it was not the most relaxing trip. For starters, they really pack you in there (max capacity of about 130 people), so you get to become extremely familiar with the people in your immediate proximity. Secondly, you know how a chairlift rocks around a little bit? Well when an enormous people-mover/death-box starts swaying around, things get decidedly uncomfortable. And did I mention we're a few hundred feet in the air? All in all, I was happy that I managed the 8 minute ride without screaming once (out loud, at least).

A short hike from the top of the resort opens up some pretty impressive terrain. I certainly thought twice before dropping in to a couple of the snugger chutes. It wasn't that I didn't feel confident, it was just the realization that if something went wrong I would be falling for a long time. Fortunately I managed to keep my feet under me when it matter. Unfortunately, two days of sun and warm weather have turned 3+ feet of fresh powder into 3+ feet of the thickest, most viscous snow I've ever seen. My leg and foot muscles have never been so sore in my entire life. At one point I had to stop in the middle of the slope and take my boots off so my feet could stretch. It was a bit too intense.

I've been to three resorts in Utah now and I'm still pretty happy that I'm working at Park City Mountain Resort. But I'll give Snowbird a second chance, just as soon as that concrete they're passing off as snow subsides a bit (and when I work up the courage to tackle the tram again...).

Oh, so this is why I'm here







Remember my last post, when I complained that I just missed out on the best powder day ever? Well it turns out that last Tuesday wasn't even the best day of the week. In fact, it's probably the 4th or 5th best day of the week. Let's recap the days since:

Wednesday: The storm on Tuesday lasted well into the night, leaving lots of untracked runs available Wednesday morning. Even better, the sun was out, making everyone happy. I was schedule to work Wednesday but managed to get the morning off. After a few runs I decided that there was almost too much fresh snow (about 11 inches), as I kept getting stuck on any run that wasn't a black or double black. Checking back for work in the afternoon, I got to teach an advanced lesson, which meant the afternoon was pretty much just like the morning. I came home and thought, "That was the best day of riding I've ever had."

Thursday: However, the best day ever was soon replaced. Another storm came in Wednesday night and by Thursday morning we already had 10 more inches of fresh snow. Again, I was scheduled to work but managed to sweet-talk my way out of it. With the entire day off I was free to hang out near Jupiter Peak, way at the top of the mountain. Jupiter Peak is about a 20 minute hike up from the highest chairlift and is always slow to open after a big storm (ski patrol needs to dynamite the area to kill the avalanches). After a couple of fantastic runs down McConkey's Bowl, I saw the gate to the top was finally opened. And I was the first person up it! The downside to being the first person up was that I got to break trail in two feet of fresh powder. The hike up was the longest 30 minutes I've had in a long time, but it was worth every second as I was one of the first down Jupiter Peak. Fresh tracks down a double black diamond really can't be described, but rest assured it was awesome. I was able to get 3 or 4 runs in up there without hitting anyone else's tracks. I think at one point I was yelling incoherently on the way down; I was just so happy. Heading back down the mountain at the end of the day I though (again), "Wow, that was the best day I've ever had."

To top it off, I ran in to my boss (Adrianne -- the best boss ever) and she finally processed my change of schedule request. My new schedule has me working Monday through Thursday instead of Wednesday through Sunday. To transition to the new schedule she suggested giving me Friday, Saturday, and Sunday off. I had to think about it for a second (actually that's a lie) and decided to accept her proposal. Which leads me to...

Friday: The storm from Thursday kept up through the night, dropping another 8 inches of snow. That's over 30 inches in the last three days! And I wasn't working! So I headed over to the Canyons, a resort about 3 miles from Park City. It was my first time there and overall I was impressed. The resort is absolutely enormous (in fact, it's the largest resort in Utah). It's also quite beautiful. The lifts are spread out so each area you're in feels very secluded (compared to say Park City, where everything is fairly close together). However, there is a very large down side to a huge, spacious, resort: there is a lot of flat terrain. In fact, every single run ends with a flat cat-track to get back to the lift. Some of them even go back uphill! It's truly a terrible, terrible layout.

But with feet upon feet of fresh snow, everything is perfect. I managed to get stuck a couple of times in snow over my waist and had to take a couple of pictures (yes, I'm actually standing up in those pictures). After the main runs were skied out, it was time to head backcountry. The access gates to the backcountry terrain were a little ominous, but the available terrain was just too tempting.

By the end of the day, I could barely stand on my board. My legs were (and still are) completely spent, a sure sign of a great day. The forecast for tomorrow is more sun and I think it might be time to reattempt a trek down to Snowbird. So for now it's time to sit back, relax, and get my legs ready to do it all over again tomorrow.

I'm an Idiot





Today was supposed to be the perfect day. I had the day off and we've had several storms make an appearance in the last week. It turns out the biggest storm came in last night and this morning. I woke up to see everything covered in half a foot of snow, with more coming down hard. The original plan was to drive out to Snowbird, another resort about 40 minutes away. But looking out the window, I started wondering if I should just stay in Park City. First of all, the mountain was report 12 inches of new snow at the peak! Secondly, Park City was essentially snowed in, so the resort would be more or less empty. And finally, being snowed in meant it would be an interesting trip out of Park City as well.

In the end I went against my better judgment and, with a couple of coworkers, drove out into the blizzard. Driving 20 miles per hour on the freeway with visibility of about 40 feet I again realized that I probably should have just stayed home. But the adventure was underway, it was too late to turn back (in my mind at least).

So we continued on. In the end, a 40 minute drive took over two hours. Even better, as we approached our exit, we were greeted by a friendly police officer informing us that road up Snowbird was closed for the foreseeable future. Fan-tast-ic! So it's now 11:00am on the best snow day of the year and we're looking at another two hour drive back to the mountains.

But wait! We quickly discover not only is the road to Snowbird closed, but the road back to Park City has since been shut down too! It's now 11:30am, there is snow everywhere, and we're stuck in Salt Lake City. So what do you do when you're stuck in Salt Lake City? There's really only one thing to do, hang out at Mormon HQ, Temple Square (in the snow!).

We didn't get back to Park City until 3:00pm; completely missing the best snow day of the year. :(

Forehead Cleavage

One of the great things about Park City is hanging out with people from all over the world. Who knew that Utah would end up being one of the most diverse places I've visited? And one thing I love about hanging out with foreigners is picking up foreign vocabulary.

The phrase of the year (so far) has to be forehead cleavage. Forehead cleavage refers to an unnecessarily large gap between the top of snowboarder's goggles and his helmet (or tuque). Good snowboarding style dictates that the goggles and the helmet should form a nice seal along the forehead. And it's not just an issues of aesthetics, either. Forehead cleavage leaves the forehead exposed, which can lead to a brain freeze if you spend a couple hours outside.

But forehead cleavage does happen. Whether it's the result of bad equipment (say a pair of hand-me-down goggles that are way too small) or just plain ignorance it's always worth a laugh. Sadly I don't have any pictures yet, but it's become one of my goals this year.

Hanging with the Kids





Teaching kids can be hard. I've already mentioned that a day with five kids is one-part instruction, one-part daycare (with a strong emphasis on daycare — obviously kids aren't going to do much if they're not happy). And rumor has it that kids here in America are even more out of control than your average youngster. As one of my Japanese friends puts it, "American children are completely out of control!" A lot of foreign instructors choose to teach adults over kids simply because they can't stand trying maintain control of American children.

I've certainly had plenty of interesting days with kids, but in general I seem to relate to them pretty well. I recently realized that my strong connection is probably due to the fact that I still have mental capacity of juvenile. Today, for example, I got into an in depth discussion with two ten-year-olds about the best candy in the world. And I felt validated that everyone agreed the Nerd Rope (see picture above) is indeed a very underrated creation.

Of course, having the mindset of a ten-year-old isn't always a good thing. At the end of the day one of the kids in my class saw a big hill near the kids' corral (where we drop everyone off at the end of the day) and said, "Hey can we slide down that on our butts?!" Looking at it I thought, "Wow that looks awesome!" and all three of us slid down it. Of course, after dropping the kids off my boss walked by and casually informed me that maybe we shouldn't be sliding all over the mountain on our butts. Apparently it doesn't present a professional image for the ski school.

That's a Wrap

Well things are finally calming down a little here. Sundance ended last week and the town is slowly recovering: pulling down posters, removing temporary theaters, and (sadly) returning buses to their slow, inconsistent schedule. Ah well, it's nice to be able to go out at night again. Life on the mountain is starting to pick up again, I worked every day last week (not a full day of work, but work none the less). A few other random bits that have been going on:

• The 2007 Deaflympics started this weekend at Park City Mountain Resort. It makes sitting on the chair lifts a little more enjoyable; you get to watch slalom races, half-pipe competitions, etc as you ride back up the mountain. But the entire event is (predictably, I suppose) extremely quiet. As a skier races down the mountain you'll see a crowd of 50 fans throwing their hands in the air, waving flags and jumping all over the place. But they don't make a sound. It's kind of cool to watch, actually; they're much more animated when they cheer. Also, ski and snowboarding terms in sign language are very self explanatory, it's cool to see two deaf snowboarders talk about a ride they just took through the half-pipe.


• Our cold snap has officially ended; we're now suffering though the warmest weather of the season. 45 degree weather and a low snow base don't go well together. It feels like spring skiing, except it's the beginning of February. I'm starting to get worried that they'll have to end the season early this year.


• I've had a couple of friends in from Seattle for the last couple of weeks. It's been great to have some company around here, but three guys sharing a hotel room make for some cramped living conditions. After much debate, I ended up sharing my bed with Mike (with a solid blanket and pillow divider between us, of course). Unfortunately, I also discovered that Mike is a pretty strong snorer. Many nights turned into a struggle of wills between his snores and my ability to shut him up with well placed pillows. I woke up one morning and saw the results of a long night. Sadly he was still asleep and still snoring. I'm not sure how he pulled it off.

The Language of Teaching

When you spend six to eight hours a day talking you're bound to say some strange things. Recently, though, I've noticed a couple of common phrases things that a lot of instructors use that they really shouldn't be. First, there are entirely way too many older (say 40+) male instructors who seem to think it's okay to scream, "You go, girl!" when one of their female students does something right. There's really no correct response so the student is left staring awkwardly at the instructor. Are the instructors trying to connect with a younger generation? Has the phrase has become so main stream that they feel it's okay for them to say it? I don't know, but it's just weird and it needs to stop.

Secondly, instructors have a strange tendency to use "that" and "those" instead of "your." I've heard several instructors describe a turn like this: "Take that knee and push it down toward those toes. And point that arm where you want to go." As the student takes off you'll then hear them scream, "Push down on those toes, push down on those toes!" I've caught myself doing this a few times and I don't know why we just don't say "Take your knee and push it down toward your toes." I'm currently making a conscious effort to use "your" over "those" but I'm just not sure where the habit started.

Padre Nuestro

Yesterday was my big Sundance day, with tickets to three films. I can't say I was expecting too much; the fact that I got tickets meant that the films weren't too highly sought after. But I was still excited; I could be in the same room as some celebrities! :) And, to help fill another New Years resolution (start learning Spanish), two of the films were in Spanish (with English subtitles, of course).

The first film, Padre Nuestro was my favorite. In a nutshell it follows a teenager from Mexico as he's smuggled into America and attempts survive in NYC. I haven't seen a non-Hollywood movie in a long time and it was nice to see a movie that (a) actually makes me think and (b) doesn't finish up all nice and perfectly. It gets two thumbs way up from me.

The second movie, Longford, is an English show about two of its most notorious convicted criminals and whether or not any human is incapable of being forgiven. It was originally a TV show in England (I think) so it ran a somewhat short 88 minutes. But it still felt like it was about 20 minutes too long. Maybe I'm just a product of today's fast-paced world, but Longford was just a little slow. But it was still interesting and (again) I always enjoy a film where I actually get to think.

Finally, I stayed up for a midnight showing of Summer Rain, directed by Antonio Banderas. The highlight of this film was having Antonio Bandares himself come out and introduce the movie (my first celebrity sighting!). He was a little long winded, but his speech helped set the tone for the movie. The point he made was that the movie is more like a poem; ideas are suggested, not necessarily shown. Without his set up I probably wouldn't have liked the movie at all. But after hearing his description I feel like he did a good job capturing what he wanted to. Sadly, I still wasn't very impressed with it. But I was 20 feet from Antonio Banderas!

Skiboot Shuffle







It's Saturday at 4:30pm. The sun has dropped behind the mountains and the temperature is 10 degrees and falling. For the first time in weeks clouds have moved in and it has started to snow. On stage Ozomatli is in full swing. Some guys are wearing ski goggles to keep the snow out of their eyes. Others are grabbing hand warmers between songs so they can keep their fingers warm enough to hold onto their instruments. For a minute I step back and think, "What in the world am I doing out here? It's snowing, windy, and I'm starting to lose feeling in my fingers." But I look around and it's hard not to be happy. People are jumping around and dancing everywhere; partly with the music, but also just to keep warm. But everyone is smiling, laughing, and enjoying the music. There's really nothing to do but join in. I can thaw my fingers out later.

Ozomatli put a great show. It was shortened a little due to the weather (they're from LA and not quite used to performing when it's 5 degrees out), but they still managed to rock the ski resort. The crowd was small, so I was able to get pretty close. And to help keep the kids warm they had a few join them on stage. Oh, and I got a very short video of them coming into the crowd and playing with everyone.

Winter Sports







Whew, what a weekend. Park City is definitely not a big enough town to handle Sundance. But, as predicted, it's been empty on the mountain. I've taken the opportunity to attempt alpine and telemark skiing. I grew up skiing, but hadn't been on skis since I first strapped into a snowboard 10 years ago. I had no idea what to expect, but was expecting to spend a lot of time on the ground. However I discovered that skiing is way easier than I remembered it. It must be the new parabolic skis or something, but I was tearing up the mountain. Okay that might not be 100% true, but I got off the green runs in a hurry and spent the day on blue and blacks runs. I think skiing must be like riding a bike. Sadly my snowboard skills didn't carry over though. I tried a few 180s on skis and all I had to show for it was a face full of snow.

But the real reason I stepped into alpine skis was to get prepared for tele-Tuesday. Tele-Tuesday is a program where ski and snowboard instructors get half off on telemark rentals and a free lesson from 5:00 - 7:00pm. The picture above is me after about two seconds on the skis. Although I was standing then, I fell about five seconds later. Fortunately I got back up before they could get another picture. Tele-Tuesday was a lot of fun. I'm not convinced that telemark skis are the way to go, but it's worth trying out a few more times.

New Years Resolutions

I don't know if this happens for anyone else, but every year I seem to end up with the same core set of New Years resolutions that I convince myself to tackle. This year is no different and I find myself again trying to be more social and to get out more often. It's easy to fall into a routine here of riding all day, coming home and just completely vegging all evening. Last week, inspired to get out more, I decided to attack the town a couple of times. The results were not good.

Wednesday night I ventured out to the No Name Saloon, a place I've walked past several times but never gone in. It's always looked fairly busy and lively. I picked Wednesday because I heard something about Wednesday being "locals" night. Wednesday night I learned that "locals" can be a frightening word. It's kind of like "rustic," another word that's done me wrong in the past. (Quick aside: one year on a trip to Whistler my family decided to stay at some place that was billed as being very rustic. Upon arrival we discovered that very rustic basically meant small, dirty, and poorly maintained. I've been wary of any place described as rustic since.)

Ok, back to the story. It appears that locals' night could also be described as hicks' night. I saw entirely way too many toothless smiles, straw hats, and I believe I even saw a couple pairs of jean overalls. Oh, and an overwhelming male to female ratio. I probably would have had more fun if I wore my cowboy boots (and, of course, if I actually owned cowboy boots), but as it was I wasn't too impressed with locals' night.

So I went home, recovered on Thursday, and on Friday was ready to try again. This time I headed to the Star Bar. Two reasons: first, my friend at the front desk said that the Star Bar was the hot place to be on Friday nights; secondly, a friend from work mentioned that Friday was $2 drinks. So I headed out around 10:00pm. I arrived at the front door and discovered that the club was actually in the basement. I'm always a little wary of basement venues; you can't see what's going on and it could be too packed or completely empty. And, the bouncer noted that there was a $5 cover because it was $2 beer night (note: it was originally $2 drinks, now just $2 beers). But I'm already there, so I might as well keep going.

I hand over $5, head downstairs, and there are three people there. Literally. Well seven people if you count the three bartenders and the DJ. But I've put my $5 down, I'm getting me some $2 beers! I walk over to the bar and I'm distressed to discover that it's not $2 beers, but $2 domestic beers (Bud, Bud Light, etc). Which are only like $3 anyways. The imported beers, of course, are still $5+. So I'm stuck at a dead club drinking bad drinks. At 12:30 I decided I couldn't stand it any more (they were up to about 15 people at that point) and I headed home.

So two attempts out, two complete failures. Fortunately I've got a million more chances this week. Amongst other things we've got a company bowling party, a great free concert (Ozomatli, an awesome, percussion heavy band that will be performing outside on Saturday), and, of course, the Sundance Film Festival. I managed to get a few tickets, but I'm more interested to see what the vibe will be like for the next 10 days. It looks like it's going to be more than a little elitist, most of the bars are actually closed out for private events during the festival. But that won't keep me from getting out and trying.

Oh, and I'm supposed to be here snowboarding, huh? As promised, it is dead, dead, dead here. I'm still up on the mountain almost every morning, but no clients and no fresh snow (we're approaching two weeks of no new snow) means that I don't have a strong desire to spend my whole day up there.

Mid-Winter Break

Early January has come and gone and, as promised, it has been much, much slower than the late December holiday rush. Some old-timers claim that snowboard instructors make nearly 50% of their income during the holiday break, an idea that I originally found humorous, but I'm now afraid might be true.

Fortunately, Park City Mountain offers all sorts of clinics for us to take to keep ourselves busy. This week I've taken a couple of freestyle classes and a very in-depth look at snowboard maintainence. All I can say is ignorance is bliss. In the (not too distance) past, snowboarding was as simple as throwing the board on and pointing it downhill. I've got enough knowledge about bases, edges, and such that I could easily spend an hour a night preparing for the next day.

However, too much of a good thing can be bad. We spent three hours yesterday tweaking our edges (I'm now the proud owner of a "power-bevel!") and applying various substances to the base of our board. I headed up to the slopes today, prepared to leave powder burns in the snow. I stood up near the bunny slope, aimed down hill, and ... my board didn't budge. Not even an inch. It felt like I was trying to snowboard through bubble gum. It made the day interesting (it's always fun trying to do demos for kids when your board doesn't move). I'll be spending a little extra time tonight attempting to get everything back in order.

Other thoughts I had while trying to keep up with my students today:

Storm watch, 2007: After a few weeks of very warm weather (and a steady drop in our snow-pack), we finally had a strong storm blow through last night. Nearly 8" of snow later things were looking good for today -- until I stepped outside. Wow, was it cold. Today's high at the base of the mountain was 10 degrees, with a slight breeze. My routine with the students today was: two runs (about 40 minutes total); head inside to warm up (for about 10 minutes); repeat. And even that was pushing it. Taking the chair lift up was an exercise in mental strength. And the wind was blowing up the mountain, so you'd get even colder snowboarding back down. The weekend promises to bring more cold weather, but hopefully we'll crack into the teens at least.

Fleeting connections: Last week I had a Mexican student in my class. Part of my morning chit-chat with him sounded something like:

Me: Hey, Sebastian! Where are you from?
Sebastian: Mexico.
Me: Oh cool! Where in Mexico?
(Here he pauses for a second and stares at me with a strange look.)
Sebastian: Um, Mexico. It's a country below the United States.

It took a minute for me to convince him that I knew where Mexico was and I wanted to know where in Mexico he lived. He finally figured it out and started describing some place that I had never heard of, all I could do was nod and try to look like I knew what he was talking about. I felt like he kind of lost confidence with me for a while. Fortunately another student was a "magician" and was doing some card tricks. I showed off my only trick and Sebastian was totally mesmerized. At lunch he immediately pointed to the deck and said "again." Sadly I screwed it up (for the first time in a few years!) and he looked crestfallen again. Oh well, at least he thought I was cool for part of the day.

Real Salt Lake: And one thing I'm looking forward to later in the season is watching a Real Salt Lake soccer game. Freddy Adu was just traded to the team so I've been excited that I'd get to see a soccer superstar. And just yesterday David Beckham decided to join the LA Galaxy. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the Galaxy will be visiting Salt Lake before I leave.

Time to get bundled up and ready for the weekend. Oh, and Go Seahawks!

Back Off!







For those who aren't familiar the picture above is of the Rabbit. A 1981 Volkswagen Rabbit, my family is its first and only owner. It was first passed down to me and now is my sister's primary mode of transportation. It has run into a few (well many) problems over the years (most notable being that it's not exactly waterproof anymore -- not good for a car in Seattle). But under the hood it has a strong will to live.

The last few years the rabbit has been blessed with two signature traits (well three if you count the ever-present scent inside the car -- a curious combination of rust, mold, and something else I can't place my finger on). First, when you start the car it emits a huge cloud of blueish gray smoke. This cloud is a bold signal to everyone in the parking lot (as well as to the poor pedestrians blocks in all directions who get to smell the noxious fumes) that this vehicle is no longer stationary. Second is the license plate holder on the back which proudly proclaims, "If you can't run with the big dogs, STAY ON THE PORCH!" I don't know what's more embarrassing: being driven around by my younger sister in that thing, or the thought that my mom used to drive to IBM in it. You know, where her coworkers saw her.

Anyway, this Christmas I felt it was time for an upgrade, so I ordered a pair of Yosemite Sam "Back Off" mud flaps. The purchase was mostly as a joke, but now that I've seen them on I think it's a perfect fit. The picture above shows all three signature traits in perfect harmony: the license plate cover, which is clouded by the toxic cloud of doom and the new applied mud flaps. My sister must be so happy.

"I think I need to tighten my pants"

(I'll explain the title in a second, I promise.) So yes, kids are a little stressful to teach. But they are in fact kids and spending seven hours a day with a group of kids is going to put you in some strange situations, there's just no way around it. Fortunately, the situations I've been in have been pretty mild so far.

Yesterday, for example, my class (two 12 year old sisters and an 8 year old boy) just got off the chairlift. As I'm talking to the girls about what we're going to do next the boy says (from behind me), "I think I need to tighten my pants." Confused, I turned around to see the kid's pants undone and unzipped, barely hanging around his butt. I have no idea how he pulled this off, we were sitting next to each other on the chairlift not even 10 seconds earlier and everything seemed to be in order then. But there's really nothing to be done but head over and help him pull his pants back on and button everything back up (I didn't want him to take his gloves off -- glove removal and reapplication can be a surprisingly time consuming task -- so I got the pleasant duty of buttoning everything up).

Aside from helping keep clothing on, I've helped kids with all sorts of interesting tasks that I wasn't informed that I'd be doing before I accepted the job. But my hat goes to fellow snowboarding instructor Matt, who's had the best (and worst) experience so far. At the end of the day of the day a couple of weeks ago he's talking with a parent, who's trying to figure out where her two daughters are.

"Well," he starts off, "something at lunch must have disagreed with Julia, she says she's not feeling very well."
"Oh no," replied the mom, "how is she doing?"
"Right now she's downstairs in the bathroom throwing up."
"I'll head down there right now, where's my other daughter, Leslie?" the mom asked.
"Actually, she's in the stall next to Julia. She was going to the bathroom and kind of went on herself instead. I haven't been able to talk her out of the stall yet."
"Oh, that must be disappointing for her," exclaimed the mom.

Two points here. First of all, the mom took everything way too calmly, the "that must be disappointing" line especially threw me off. Obviously I didn't know the entire story (although I wasn't all that interested in learning more). Secondly, I don't know the exact details how Matt's afternoon went, but the look on his face told me more than I needed to know. I can thankfully say that as a snowboard instructor I haven't yet spent any time in the women's bathroom. That is definitely a good thing.

Breaking the Teaching Cycle

Teaching snowboarding is a (surprisingly) well planned out event, with a series of drills that we take students through to get them from standing on a board to confidently turning down the bunny slope (Ed. note - when I say "well planned out event" I, of course, mean in theory. In practice, the day is an exercise in controlled chaos and any learning that happens is purely accidental). We're so organized, in fact, that we have a "teaching cycle" that helps dictate how to teach a lesson. I won't go into all the details here, but a part of the cycle consists of "plan a task, present information, and check for understanding." An example of this would be something like the instructor deciding that we want to work on heel-side traverses (plan the task), the instructor telling the students what the students are going to do (present the information), and finally the instructor checks to make sure the students know what they're supposed to be doing (check for understanding).

In the course of the day I go through this process, I dunno, a million times. And after working for a few days straight it's pretty much all you're doing: outline the task and check for understanding. Unfortunately it gets so ingrained that you can't just turn it off. The first night my parents arrived in town we headed up to the mountain to rent my dad's ski gear and to pick up ski tickets for the weekend. Waiting for the rental guys to get my dad's gear figured out I decided to see how my mom and sister were doing with the tickets. Without thinking I turned to my dad and said something like, "Okay dad. I'm going to head upstairs and see how mom is doing with the tickets. You're going to stay here and get the rest of your gear figured out. When my mom and I finish up we'll head back down here and meet you by the check out. Understand what we're doing?"

I had accidentally snuck into instructor mode and was essentially talking to my dad like he was a 10 year old student.

Happy New Years!

Hope everyone had a blast! As I've mentioned, I was most excited about January 1st because it would be my first day off in over two weeks. Apparently I was so excited about the idea of sleeping that I decided to get an early start on December 31st. Instead of heading out as planned I actually fell asleep at around 10:30pm. I woke up around 11:55, but my New Year's party consisted of listening to a couple of neighbors set of fireworks outside. I can't say I was terribly disappointed, though, I really like sleeping. :)

Since I did have a few days off, I decided to take some Colin-time to enjoy the non-snowboarding perks of my job (and it hadn't snowed in over a week). I spent my days off exploring a local tubing park (which has a rope toe to pull you back up!), ice skating at the mountain's outdoor (but tiny) ice rink, and riding the alpine coaster. The alpine coaster was definitely the most fun, it's basically a roller coaster on the mountain. You get pulled about a third of the way up the mountain and then cruise back down through a series of drops and spins. It's a bit steep at $15 a ride, but at $0 a ride it's a great deal and a fun way to spend 15 minutes when you're waiting for a lesson to start.

Although my couple of days off got me somewhat rejuvenated, I was still a little slow rolling out of bed early this morning. However, looking out my window I saw that the .5" inches of snow that was forecast had turned into a full on storm. There were a few inches on the ground and it was coming down hard. Nothing makes me happier out here than being out in fresh snow, so I was in a great mood all day. The snow kept up too and by 3:00pm we had over half a foot. I dropped my students off and immediately jumped back on the chair to get a couple of runs in for myself. I was still in my team uniform so I was limited to green runs (and a couple of easy blues), but new snow is new snow; I didn't have time to change.

And that's where things sit now. The snow is still coming down, I can't wait to see the damage tomorrow morning. Unfortunately, it was a little warmer today (in the high 20s) so the snow is a little wetter than the champagne powder we're used to. I'm sure I'll figure out some way to survive, though.

Lessons Learned, Part 1

As I've hinted at several times, my first few weeks as a snowboard instructor haven't been perfect. Mistakes are (of course) to be expected, I'm just not used to a job where mistakes can be so painful and stressful. For example, on my first day in the kids' school I was given a group of two kids who had never snowboarded before. We slowly made our way down to the First Time chair. As we started down the run for the first time it became obvious that there was a very large split in the two students' ability to pick up snowboarding. The girl was athletic, had great balance, and a strong desire to keep moving. By the time we were three-fourths of the way down the slope she was starting to put turns together. The boy, on the other hand, wasn't picking things up as quickly. To put it kindly, his body wasn't really designed for snowboarding. He was a little over five feet tall and easily weighed over 200 hundred pounds. Additionally, he was built like some sort of inverted pyramid; the bulk of his weight was quite high off the ground. Needless to say his high center of mass dictated a poor sense of balance, meaning he spent a lot of time on the ground. And when you've got that much weight meeting the mountain it hurts, no matter how you try to soften the blow.

So I spent a lot of time with him, struggling to pull him to his feet, trying my best to keep him in control, and cringing as his body continued its futile assault on the snowy slope. Finally I yelled down to the girl, who had been waiting for way to long and desperately wanted to keep going, telling her to make her way down to the bottom as I continued my slow journey down. It took me a minute, but I slowly realized that, despite her skills, this was her first time down the slope and she shouldn't be left alone at any point or for any reason. I looked back down to where I last saw here, but (as she was told) she had continued down and was now lost in a sea of beginners.

Slightly panicked, I was able to get the boy down in some semblance of a reasonable speed, but as we approached the lift she was no where to be found. Slightly more panicked now, I told the boy to hang tight for a second while I took a quickly look through the First Time run to find her. He seemed happy to nurse his sore body for a few more minutes and I took off back up the lift, scanning the slopes the entire time. Five minutes later I arrived back at the bottom, without the girl and now in full-on panic mode. I was faced with the unenviable task of calling Radio Central to tell them I had a "misplaced guest" (we don't want to scare people by saying "lost child"). I then had little to do but continue on with my other kid as the ski school, ski patrol, and the girl's parents were all alerted.

A long thirty minutes later the girl was found. She had taken the right path but had jumped on the chair next to First Time (which had just opened that day) and was enjoying herself on that run. She was thankfully okay and her parents were also extremely understanding (they claimed she has a knack for getting lost). Regardless, it's my job to know exactly where she was at every second and it was a huge failing on my part. Expecting a painful talk with my supervisor, I headed toward him after my lesson finally finished. He was (obviously) not happy, but in the end just wanted to make sure I had my act together before the busy season started. I told him I would.

Three days passed -- two days off and one surprisingly successful kids class -- and the pain slowly left me. I felt absolutely horrible for the mistake I made, but in the end everyone was okay and I definitely learned something from it. On the fourth day I was again tasked with taking care of two kids for the day. They both picked up snowboarding fairly slowly and as we reached the bottom of the First Time run for the first time, they were still working on traversing across the mountain. The last hundred feet of the the First Time run are a little steeper and narrower than the rest of the hill and as one of my girl traversed across it, her board slowly pointed down the fall line and started picking up speed. "Keep your weight on your toes!" I yelled after her but as she picked up a little speed she started panicking. She shifted her weight towards her heels (sending the board straight down the hill), screamed, and fell backwards awkwardly where she lay still. I speed down to catch up with her. I sat in the snow with her, helping her breath and relax, but she was obviously in pain. "My wrist hurts real bad," she whispered, fighting back tears, "I think it's broken."

I gently took her board off and helped her get comfortable. She was still in a lot of pain, but was surprisingly calm. Together we walked down to the first aid HQ (which, for some reason, is right next to the First Time run), and started to get her comfortable again. Unfortunately, since she was a minor, the paramedics could to little until her parents arrived. Even more unfortunately, no one could get a hold of her parents. They were out on a snowboarding lesson too and for some reason it took us nearly two hours to track them down. I had to continue on with the rest of my class so I was unable to sit with her as she waited. After each run down I poked my head in, hoping I wouldn't find her still sitting alone in the waiting room, but there she was for two hours. Finally her father arrived, x-rays could be taken, and her suspicions could be confirmed: she had a fracture in her forearm.

I knew there was nothing I could to help and there was really nothing I could have done to help prevent it from happening, but I still felt awful. She was in from Florida and was going to be staying in Park City for seven days. Those seven days would now be spent laying at home, trying not to move her arm. I sat at home that night, thinking about my first four days as a snowboard instructor. My track record: one lost kid and one broken arm.

Teaching snowboard is not -- as I originally envisioned -- playing around with kids on the mountain all day. Every time they stand up I see a fall back down waiting to happen, every fall a possible broken bone or dislocated joint. Every time I turn my back on a student, even for a two seconds, there is a possibility that they will disappear. I've always considered programming to be a stressful job, but I've decided that stressful is an extremely relative term. A careless moment at the office never left a coworker lost (well maybe mentally, but never physically) and the closest thing to a workplace injury I've experienced was a sore wrist from too much foosball. But taking care of kids for a day is stressful. Taking care of kids for a day while trying to herd them around an incredible crowded mountain and teaching them a dangerous and painful sport is extremely stressful. Every day now I get home and let out a sigh of relief: no lost kids and no broken body parts means the day was a success. Everything (or anything) else that happens is a bonus.

Merry Christmas!







As advertised, things have been busy this. Remember when I said "it certainly doesn't feel like a grind yet"? That was so last week. I've been teaching for about two weeks now and although I'm not a seasoned veteran by any stretch of the imagination, I feel like I've been in the trenches for a while. And I've got a big circle around January 1st, 2007; that'll be the first day I get to sleep in past 6:45 and I plan to stay in bed well past that time. But, yes, I've got some good (and bad) stories to share.

But I won't be sharing them quite yet. Today is one of busiest days on the mountain, but I'm not working this morning. I have a couple free minutes to relax before heading back up there for the afternoon. I just wanted to take a minute to wish everyone a very merry Christmas. I was lucky enough to have my family join me in Park City for the holidays. It's been a great holiday gift and fun to (finally) share a white Christmas with them. I hope everyone else is enjoying the holidays with friends or family, too.