Ski Cooper On-Goings

As I spend the majority of my waking hours at Ski Cooper instructing, I thought that would be a more fitting topic for this week's blog, compared to classes (of which I currently have one- which reminds me, I should probably do my homework for that class tonight) and school-sponsored activities, which I have done a poor job of attending lately.

About a week and a half ago, six Australians came to visit Ski Cooper. Three of them took lessons and since there was a "split" (meaning that there were different ability levels within the group), Dominic took the two girls who were both about the same level and I took Cameron who was more advanced. We started out on the beginner slope, which is serviced by a Poma (aka Platter) lift (if you are a snowboarder desiring to ride a Poma lift, take a lesson unless you wish to entertain everyone in line behind you). To read more about Poma lifts you can look at this wikipedia article. We then progressed to the double chair and went down the backside of the mountain (oh how I love the lessons involving the chairlift and snowboarding as opposed to walking up the hill repeatedly). While on the chairlift I asked him why he chose to come to the USA and he said that originally they were planning on going to Japan, but the Australian Dollar to American Dollar exchange rate was so good they decided that they would come to the USA instead. They had purchased 8-day tickets for the Vail Resorts but came to Ski Cooper as a warm-up day. While warming up in the Ski Patrol hut, Cameron and one of the ski patrollers had a rather interesting conversation that started out as where a good bar was but very quickly turned into a discussion about Red Heelers (a breed of dog) and their breeding.



A couple days ago I had a very interesting group of young men who informed me that they had snowboarded before. I then asked them if they knew how to skate (Skating is how you move around in lift lines) and they all said "yes", however, when asked to demonstrate the skill, they required an explanation as to what they were to do. Luckily they seemed to remember things rather quickly. When we moved onto the Poma lift, only one of them caught onto it. Towards the end of the lesson, one of them wanted to just walk up the hill because "The Poma isn't real snowboarding. You have to be able to snowboard before you can ride the Poma.", another said "I already know how to walk. I want to get this Poma thing down.", and another was indifferent. Oh the joys of teaching some days.

Last Friday afternoon I went skiing when there were no lessons at 1:30. It worked out for awhile, but for the last run of the day I decided to go down a run called "Last Chance" which is sort of out of the way. My ski then proceeded to fall off and refuse to go back on for the next 30 minutes. However, as soon as the ski patroller came along, it magically snapped on... and then fell off 10 feet later.


Yesterday I had a group lesson in the morning with 2 women who were on their 3rd lesson in order to get a free season pass to Ski Cooper. For the Free Pass program, you take either 3 ski or 3 snowboard lessons. Whichever sport you choose, you must have never done it before. The idea behind it is that you don't take 1 lesson and immediately decide you hate the sport simply because you did not immediately catch on to it. Plus, by the end of the 3rd lesson (in my experience) you are up on the mountain, which is a whole lot more exciting than forever being on the Poma lift. From teaching this lesson, I learned that "I'm slightly afraid of heights" can translate into "I am deathly afraid of heights and intend to scream for a portion of the chairlift ride". Apparently the view from Trail's End was worth it though because they informed me that they would be going up the chairlift again, even if it meant that Beth would spend the ride up screaming.

This weekend is the X-Games in Aspen. Four of the Colorado Mountain College student bloggers will be there (Dylan, Bobbie, Ali, and myself). We will be handing out flyers with clues for a scavenger hunt and handing out swag (stickers, pens, decals, and caribeaners). The four of us will be in 2 teams. One team will have pink stickers on our jackets and the other team will have blue stickers. When you find a team, we give you a clue.