Lost kid!

I had most of my class return so I was first position on Blues today. We start 15 minutes earlier now but the 7:30 bus was right on time and I still got up there with plenty of time to spare. I wanted to get a cup of coffee but instead helped the assistants put up fences and get snow off them. I also manned the check-in desk for a minute when I saw a customer coming up and no one there.

Many blue kids arrived quickly, and within minutes I had enough to assemble a class of seven or more if I wanted. There’s no reason to, since we don’t get any bonuses for headcounts on Blue groups (but we do on Reds and Yellows.) The lead on blue zone asked me to give one back. So I had five kids from earlier in the week: those four I stole from Jeff yesterday, and Zoe who I had on Monday and Tuesday. I also had one 12-year-old girl nicknamed Mari (she had a long South or Central American name) who was checked in as a Green but was much too experienced for that level.

I skied the six I had on one green run to warm up and verify their level, and a few blue runs and whenever we could find a tree trail with a little powder still on it we went through that. It had snowed last night but it was sunny and cold today. One of the four kids I had yesterday, a little one named Alex, complained that his hands were freezing and started crying in the line to Short Cut chair. We made difficult and slow progress to the Sun Lodge, where we stopped and I let them hang out while I put warmers into his hands and examined his gloves. They were dry and the handwarmers in them were warm, as were his hands, so I can’t understand why he felt so cold he was crying. While I was walking Zoe to the bathroom, Alex’s brother David called their father, or his father called to ask how they were doing, and David told me their parents would be up there soon to take Alex away. That was very frustrating not only because they’d arranged that without consulting me, but because it meant we had to wait pointlessly and waste skiing time until we only had about half an hour until lunchtime. However, when leaving the Sun Lodge Maira saw me and said hi and ran up to give me a hug. She’s been skiing with her family and happened to be there.

Lunch was early today: at noon down at the Grand Summit Hotel in the village. It was still the same sort of fare as normal. Alex and David’s parents took them both away even earlier at the Sun Lodge since Alex didn’t want to ski anymore; he thought he would be too cold. They still gave me another $20 tip today. The other two kids from yesterday wanted to ski with their parents too, but the parents agreed to collect them after lunch. They too gave me another $20, so I'm going to try to hold on to these kids as long as I can and do my best to teach them well. They said I should have the kids for a full day tomorrow. We took the Sun Peak chairlift back up and pretty much only had time to ski down from there to the gondola, but I did take them through some trees to the side and Zoe got herself stuck in the powder for a little bit. We were late but with only four kids it wasn’t much trouble for me to serve everyone. Some of them wanted second or fourth helpings.

At a table next to us Zoe noticed Alexis, who was also a Blue by now. They’re both really bad ones though, and her instructor Tom admitted she was slowing his group down. Since I knew I’d only have two, I volunteered to take Alexis off his hands, and although she was happy there I talked her into agreeing to switch groups mid-day. That was a mistake. I have to stop listening to the Bad Idea Bears. I thought they had my best interests at heart. Alexis can ski quickly enough but she is temperamental and takes forever to do anything else, like get her gloves on. Tom had stolen a pair of poles for her and they were not where they left them when we went to collect her skis. I let her steal another pair but they were a little big for her and she couldn’t handle them at all with her bulky gloves on, so I soon took them away and gave them to Zoe to hold for the run down; she didn’t have poles. Alexis was very angry with me and lagged behind stubbornly until I let everyone go ahead as if we’d leave her behind. When we got back to the shuttle stop and I said to leave the poles behind and ski without them, her stubborn sulk devolved into a crying sulk. It took me a good quarter-hour to wheedle her out of it while the other two girls waited, dejected at the waste of skiing time. I got terminally frustrated with Alexis at about that point and decided to try not to get her in my classes anymore.

I figured we only had time for one more run down Snowdancer at the rate things were going. They all cheered up by halfway down the run, and I let Alexis lead for a lot of it to brighten up her mood. She was determined to find some tree run she’d been to with another class and I thought the others would enjoy that too. Besides, skiing at the back gave me more opportunity to observe and correct their technique. The problem was, Zoe was worried about getting stuck in the powder and asked if she had to do the tree run. I said she could ski around on the groomed run and meet us at the bottom of it. Tremendous mistake. I’d also told Mari she could ski ahead through the trees until she returned to the trail, because she was worried about getting bogged down if she stopped. You must expect (but I didn’t at the time I said it,) that she’d take the wrong way and get too far into the wood, so that by the time I’d caught up to her and told her to turn back to the trail, and helped up Alexis a few times after she’d fallen and gotten stuck in the powder… Zoe was nowhere to be seen.

I ordered the other two to stay put and started climbing up the hill to search it, but soon realized she must have gone further on out of my view. We went down all the way to our designated meeting point at the bottom of High Meadow, and didn’t find her there either; she must have forgotten about it. I was worried and about to report back to Tameca when she called me and said she had Zoe down there at the rough. The little girl skis in a huge wedge with atrocious technique but she does cover a lot of ground quickly that way. It was about 3:00 then so I just brought them all back and found Zoe’s father with her in the rough. I returned the other two to their parents within a short time and checked out. I think Tameca forgave my screw-up but we shall have to wait and see.

Alexis’s mother, aunt, and grandmother all showed up to take her back, and I explained that I only had her for half the day. Her mother Jennifer said she’d tired out her legs at her favorite run right off of Saddleback lift, and invited me to come up so she could show it to me. I’ve been calling it The Pines, but I think a more accurate name would be Elk Ridge. There are a whole bunch of black runs in there that all sort of meld together without much distinction between them. In any case, I got checked out and changed quickly enough that I got in two runs through that today. It’s the most quickly accessible good tree run near the Red Pine area, so it’s the one I do every day I can after work. It’s a great way to unwind.

The Bad Idea Bears are characters from the Broadway musical “Avenue Q” if you were wondering about that. They advise people to do things like spend their money on beer.