Blogging During Ski Season

This is going to be tough. Blogging during the ski season is going to require discipline. I've been having a great time at Monarch, skiing and teaching. My body is starting to get used to the routine of getting up early each day to catch the employee bus up to the mountain, getting ready for the day, meeting new people and skiing as much as possible. I actually had to not go skiing yesterday afternoon just to give my body a short recovery break. I can feel my winter fitness coming back quickly, but part of getting fit is giving your body time to recover from all the physical activity. That's partly why I have not had a chance to write as much as I've wanted to. Plus there are the other activities going on as well (read parties), Business After Hours party, Pinon Real Estate Group party, Warren Miller Movie party, and a couple others I can't remember the name of right now. Whew! I've been a busy boy. Hopefully as the routine settles in I'll have more writings here.

Old Monarch Map

I just finished scanning in this old Monarch map. There's no date on it, but my research suggests that it is probably from around 1963. The map mentions W.R. Berry as the ski area manager. From obituary information, I found, "BERRY, William Ray 1900 - 9 Jun 1964 (Marker; Cem. Rec: 13 Jun 1964, Sec. D, Blk 3, Lot 2, G4) (Salida Mail 9 Jun 1964) In 1951 he was an electric serviceman living at 223 E 7th St. In 1963 he was the manager of the Monarch Ski area." 

I received the map via postal mail from Cindy, Santa's Helper, at Santa's Workshop at the North Pole, Colorado. Many thanks, Cindy!

I also uploaded it to Skimap.org which claims to have the largest collection of ski area maps on the Internet. During the process I was told that my upload will have to be reviewed, before being posted. I also notice that they do not have our new 2008-09 version. I'll have to go back and post it as well. All I'll have to do is reference the URL to the map on the official Monarch site.

New Monarch Ski Guide

Mark Waird has started a new site called Monarch Ski Guide: The Unofficial Guide to Monarch Ski and Snowboard Area.  He has some very interesting information, much of which is already found on the official Monarch website, but there is sort of an informal feel and other information such as a link to old area maps and a link to history. The site's organization seems to be geared toward beginners thinking about coming to Monarch with lots of tips on how to make a visit the most successful and what to expect. I've asked him if he'd be willing to add instructor profiles. I'm really hoping he thinks about it. Seems like a pretty cool site that will probably do well in Google.

Article About Salida in NYTimes

An article appeared in the December 5th issue of the New York Times about our town of Salida. Here's a link to it www.nytimes.com/2008/12/05/greathomesanddestinations/05havens.html. The title of the article is The Outdoors Life, With No Attitude. 

It mentions Monarch Mountain Ski Resort as one of the great things to do near Salida. People who come to Salida get infected with the friendliness here. So no worries about Salida turning into another Aspen.

Requests Are Huge!!!!

Requests are hugh for us as instructors. After a certain number of request private lesson hours we get a significant raise in pay. So when you come to Monarch and want to ski with me, no matter what your age,  please, please use the words "I request Rick please!" Or click Rick's Contact Form in the Links in the side bar! I'll help you any way I can to have a good trip at Monarch.

Lilly!! First Private Lesson of the Season

This is Lilly! This photo was taken by Image Makers. I pulled it offline from their website here. Lilly is becoming an awesome skier. Last year she was in the Mountaineers program. She thinks her instructor was either Brad or Susan. It was a pleasure skiing with her yesterday (Sunday). 

She said her goal was to get warmed up for the season since it was her first day. I thought it was a great goal. Our first runs were on Snowflake a couple of times where we talked about how our bodies are flexible and we tried to feel our ankles flexing in our boots. She said there wasn't much room to flex her ankle in her boot which made a lot of sense since the boots are hard plastic and when your littler it's harder to press the boots forward with your shin and ankles. But we tried making turns feeling the front of the boot on our shins during the turn and then feeling the back of the boot with back of our leg when we wanted to let the skis go and let them go down hill before we started our next turn out of the gravity zone. Lots of big words here, but Lilly is used to them after being in the Mountaineers program. Later in the lesson we added a little more steering with our inside ski to help us finish the turns and to ski more parallel. Oh yeah, we explored most of the open runs including Snowflake (three times), Rookie (twice), Little Joe (three times) Round About, Liberty, KC Cutoff, and Sleepy Hollow. I hope to ski with her more this season before she re-inlists in the

Mountaineers program.

Lilly's dad was surprised when I came out for the lesson. He said if he'd known I taught "kids" he would have requested me. Lilly is actually considered a Junior in our ski school. So, yes, I do teach kids from 7 to 99!

First Lesson of the Season

Monarch opened on Friday with an 18 inch base. I know that doesn't sound like much, but the coverage was pretty good. All the green runs were open and two blue runs.  The were no crowds to speak of, mostly locals enjoying opening day.

I had my first lesson of the year. I was proud to have it, the first lesson, on the first day. My guests were a young couple from Arkansas, Grady and Tiffany, that signed up for a 2 hour, level one, group lesson. Not being used to the whole ski area environment, the lesson included learning how to dress comfortably to stay warm and dry in the snow. Tiffany only had "booty" socks with her, so I took them over to the gift shop where we picked out a nice pair of knee high ski socks. Having the right socks on, in your ski boots, can make a hugh difference in comfort and enjoyment while skiing. It was very important to convince them to get the right socks if we were going to have a successful lesson. They kind of lucked out since our "group" lesson was just the two of them. Later on I don't think our ski school is going to allow groups of less than three or four. Anything less than three will have to be considered a private lesson.

Grady and Tiffany seemed to really enjoy themselves and the lesson. By the end of two hours we'd gone up the Tumbolina lift to midway and skied the whole of Snowflake three times. They were starting to make turns pretty well. We did a bunch of garlands by "lightening" the uphill ski. This seemed to work well with them especially since they seemed to have a tendency to want to lean uphill. By lightening up the uphill ski they were forced to balance on their downhill ski (inside edge of the downhill ski) and thus find that it enabled them to cross the hill and even start to make arcs going up the hill. 

No pictures this time because I forgot to bring my cell phone. Hopefully next time.

Joined Another Site

Joined yet another ski website. This is called SkiSensei. See it here. I'll add it to my list of ski blog/websites. It's a social networking site specifically for ski instructors. I'm hoping to maybe make some friends there. Perhaps they can come ski at Monarch and maybe I could get to ski in some other cool places like Utah and Canada.  The purpose of the site as stated is "Join skisensei and use the site to enhance the teaching experience." I found it in a Google Ad box on this blog.

Movement Analysis Videos Via YouTube

Here's an intersting concept. You send a YouTube link to a ski instructor via his or her blog and they post it with analysis and tips for improvement. I found this idea in practice on a blog called Free Ski 'YouTube' Video Analysis. The blog is by an Austrian ski instuctor named Carl Owen.

PSIA uses videos in their exams. Doing movement analysis while watching videos is one way to practice MA skills in addition to doing it live on the slopes. One thing nice about videos is that you can slow it down and play it over and over again. Slowing the video down and seeing it over and over allows you time to practice and hone your MA skills. On the other hand being able to slow down time is not like real life lessons and clinics on the mountain. 

Perhaps this might be a way to obtain videos of skiers to practice with and provide a service that could help generate business. Cool idea.

Ski Instructor Blogs

I'm starting to run across more ski instructor blogs. I added a new one today in my sidebar called Canadian Ski Quest. The blogger's name is Mark Impey. It looks like he is certified with CSIA (Canadian Ski Instructor's Association). What is interesting to me is reading the perspective of a Canadian snowsports instructor. I think I'll have to read carefully between the lines but I think he is training for what would be called a Trainer Accreditation in PSIA. I think CSIA calles it Course Conductor. Not sure what that is. I'll have to ask him and let you know.