After a fun weekend at Labrador Mt, I am in the middle of my week at Mt Snow VT. Labrador had pretty good skiing for opening weekend; only three real ways down but the snow was pretty good. I skied with the race team athletes. It was great to see them and great to get started on the season. Sunday it rained pretty hard, particularly in the morning but the snow was nice. We left a bit early because it was forecast to change to snow (and ice). Many of our high school athletes drive to the mountain and we wanted them home safe. This gave me a chance to get a pretty early start on my trip to VT. I wandered down route 20 to Albany which is slower than using the NYS thruway but it saves me about 30 miles (a gallon of gas or so) and I enjoy the drive. The car thermometer never went below 36 on the trip over. By the time I was in Albany, I had caught back up with the warm air mass and was traveling in 54 degree weather. It was warm all the way to Mount Snow.
I am skiing in a PSIA event called Pro Jam this week. I am a course conductor and my group is level I skiers that are preparing for the level II part 1 (skiing, as opposed to ski teaching) exam. The Pro Jam is essentially ski camp for instructors. There are 340 participants this year from all over the eastern United States. While not much of the mountain is open, the skiing is pretty good. Monday was still warm and raining pretty hard in the morning. The snow was okay and pretty easy to ski in because it was so soft. The afternoon got colder and it snowed a bit. We spent the day playing with our stance on the ski to understand balancing while in motion (dynamic balance). Tuesday was frigid. My first ride up the mountain left 2 in my group with frost bite on their faces. Luckily there is a lodge at the summit and they were able to duck in to warm up. The rest of us took a "warm up" (yeah right) run. By the time we got to the bottom, back up to the top and into the summit lodge, a lot of time was lost. We tried to start at 9:00 AM and by 10:00 AM I was really just starting the program for the day. We worked hard on generating a bit of tip pressure to help begin each turn and used a strong inside leg to help with balance and readiness for the next turn. The group did well and I believe they were happy with the positive changes in their skiing. Tuesday night I went to a really nice restaurant named the Hermitage. I had a delicious Caesar salad with chicken mostly because the equipment manufacturers representatives that are here this week put on an appreciation hors d'oeuvres party right after skiing so I ate a bunch of fried stuff before I went to dinner (egg roll, 2 taquitos, 4 chicken wings and sweet potato fries...all terrific). Today was even colder but I luckily had a slightly better outcome. One of the participants that had frost bite yesterday got it again just before lunch, He went in while the rest of us took one more run. This afternoon was the "optional program" session. This is where participants choose from a list of topics and attend a 2 - 3 hour session on that topic. I was assigned to give information about and ski with a group through all the level II skiing certification tests tasks. There are a bunch of them so I had to work fast to get it all in in one afternoon. That said, I think it went pretty well! I gave a description of what the move was, what I thought was important in the eyes of the examiner and gave each participant a short critique on their interpretation of the task and what, if anything was needed to make sure the performance was at the level II standard. After skiing, I tried to go out to dinner at a local Mexican restaurant but it change hands since I was here 2 years ago and is not Mexican any longer. I wound up eating a club sandwich and chilly at a pretty nice place in West Dover with 2 old skier friends of mine. It was a nice time. It is really good to be back into ski season...I am having fun.
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