Behind The Uniform

 I feel at this point, I have given you all a pretty good idea of ski culture and community. I hope so at least! Before I delved more into my personal spin on skiing I wanted to ensure that y'all had some background. Now that you know the in's and outs of powder days and more, I am going to take you on a personal tour of my ski life, a day in life inside Deer Valley Ski School.  I started working at ski school when I was 14 years old, a freshman in high school and I here I am sophomore in college, 20 years old still wearing that signature green and gold uniform. I went into my first day of work hoping to meet some new people and have a cool job on my resume but that expectation was by far exceeded. Deer Valley Ski Resort became my second home within Park City. Ski school became the place where I found mentors, a passion for children, a source of motivation along with  forming  unprecedented costumer service skills and more. Deer Valley Ski School, is not a day job, it is a lifestyle job. Being responsible for someones child in a high risk sport from 8:30 AM to 4:00 PM creates a set stories and relationships between people that go beyond the clock.

My first four seasons were spent as an instructor assistant, since I was under 18 I could not be a full instructor. My job was to ski with a class normally at first time/beginner level and help the instructor. We also made sure all lifts had riders for the children, wore the Deer Valley mascot costumes (imagine me in a reindeer suit, haha) and any indoor tasks. The past two seasons I have been full instructor, meaning the responsibility is all on me now. I received my PSIA level I certification last winter, which is a national ski instructor certification that requires clinic hours, workshops, workbooks and a final two day on-mountain test. This certification allows me to teach up to advance-intermediate classes. Deer Valley takes instructor training very seriously. Being the number one ski resort in North American for the past five seasons and a top-tier ski school, Deer Valley ski instructors have more employee-guest interaction than anyone other employee at the resort. You are expected to perform at the Deer Valley standard. Moving up in the instructor ranks takes time and work. You have to prove your skill on snow, attend endless clinic hours ranging from how to make progression turns to autism spectrum disorders.  Receive continual positive feedback at your 45 day and end of season review and receive the national level certifications. Being a ski instructor is not all goggle tans and powder days.

Ski School 2007-Season one

You start your day greeting families inside and reassuring their last worries. Each age group is in a different meeting area inside. Fun fact, Deer Valley has the largest childcare area out of any other ski resort in the country.  Greeting families includes proper tag checking, doing what is called a verbal split (talking them through their ability level, parents tend to over exaggerate!), ensuring that  they have all their equipment then taking them to the proper instructor. What is not included in the list of this process is that most of these children come in with altitude sickness and tears and a cranky five year old is no fun. Once the clock hits 9:30 your 6 children in your class need to be fully dressed, sun screened and mentally prepared to leave. You have also turned in a yellow slip with all children names, their security code and the days game plan.  You hit the snow, go through initial instruction which changes for every level, even sub-level. You can either then head to the lift or magic carpet. Between then and lunch at 11:45 you objective is to ensure that every child belongs in that group, which sometimes means switching with supervisors and instructors. You all need to cover basic skills of that ability level and start your real work.

 Lunch comes you get every child undressed, serve them all lunch, fill out a pink slip again and start the whole process over. at 2:15 is hot chocolate break, start the whole process again  but this time you are filling out report cards. Now on a normal day some child has been continually crying, you have ran into multiple parents with crazy requests, a child who will not listen for the life of him/her and another little one who wont let go of your hand. The day ends at 3:45PM but don't expect most of these parents to be down till 4:00 PM, you give report card, take their vest, also do a conference with each one and fill out a white slip to turn in.  At this point I have been in my ski boots since 7:45AM, that is almost six hours, the weather has gone from a warm day to freezing blizzard.  After this description you are probably thinking, who would ever want to do this? I do.

See you are always going to have difficult children and parents. There are some days it is so hard to make a effective lesson with all these factors but working through and making that lesson effective is the Deer Valley difference. That despite all these situations, your child will be a better skier, you don't pay the price you do for a ineffective lesson.There are so many moments that occur everyday that you cannot experience anywhere else. Watching a fearful, teary child turn into the little ripper down the mountain, singing songs in the lift line with a bunch of people your age or older, spending every moment outside  talking, not texting, taking that kid who could not do anything at the start day end up yelling to his parents that he is dying to come back tomorrow or having that little girl hug you every season when she returns. Our job is to make family vacations magical, that sounds lame but it true. People spend thousands of dollars on a family vacation like this, it is a lot of work for these families and my job is to make sure it is a good one. I know from my own family vacations, what having a great vacation feels like and the memories you come back with. I honored to be apart of that.