The snow must go on!

I only slept about five hours and woke up late and tired this morning. I made a sandwich for breakfast and carpooled with Josh to work. Fortunately I took my uniform pants home yesterday to save time changing. My parents called this morning and I spoke to them all the way up the gondola. It was good timing on their part.

We had a weekly safety meeting today at 0845 and I snuck in there a few minutes late again. I don’t believe they said anything important I didn’t already know. They passed around a new groomed-trails map. This is something they prepare every day, which marks the open runs and groomed trails. It’s in color now.

I was set as third position on Green classes today (kids who can ride chairlifts and ski green runs.) The way it works is, first position gets the first six kids of that color and skis off, then second gets the next six kids and so on. If needed, whoever is the “lead” for each level (not to be confused with first position) helps organize classes according to age and ability within that level. This arrangement takes some of the administrative overhead off the supervisor’s hands and puts it on the instructors “in the field.” Business is starting to pick up but I knew perfectly well there wouldn’t possibly be more than a dozen green kids. So after a short time of standing out there, I left my post to help out the other instructors.

A girl named Daphne was the first position in Greens, and I talked to her kids when they showed up and helped them out. One girl brought her own skis and boots but the bindings were not set right and she couldn’t get her boots in them. I took her inside and learned we are not allowed to tamper with their gear, so I had to fill out a form and set her up with rental gear, with the aid of a very busy rental guy. She had boot-warmers which were crunched up in those boots and hurting her feet, so even when we found the right size we had to take them off again and throw them away. She could put in new ones at lunch if she was cold but it’s not a good idea to start the day with them anyway. People saw me in there so they kept asking me for help: one of the check-in girls forgot to give report cards to a couple of kids so I had to track them down and bring the cards to them. The busy rental guy asked me to find the weight and height of a kid, without any tools to do so. The kid knew his weight but I used skis to measure his height. I must say the 8-year-olds in there were very patient and helpful with the whole rental process. Once Daphne’s girl finally had her gear sorted out I needed to walk her to the “shuttle stop” - a designated stopping area for regrouping and dealing with level-shifts between groups - where she could wait for her group, who by then had gone off. I handed her over to Alicia, who had a radio and was running the shuttle stop today.

I heard a few words of Hebrew spoken in the “Red Pine in the Rough” - the little facility where the Carvers check in and get equipment. I briefly talked to a shy little girl from New York whose parents were from Israel. I think there was at least one other kid there from Israel too. If I had really wanted to, I could easily have built myself a decent class just from the Israelis and the kids that the other two Green instructors left behind: second position lost one on the hill, it seemed, because he was just picking her up when I was at the shuttle stop. Still I didn’t feel too bad about not getting a class, because I was tired and it was still cold and snowy today. It didn’t stop snowing in the time I was out today. I ran around this morning helping for a full hour and a half, though I will be paid for less because when I saw kids standing around in the beginner area I couldn’t resist lending a hand some more for a while after I was formally released from duty.

I asked a couple of the other off-duty instructors at that time if they wanted to do a few runs before going home, but only one of them had a jacket up there. I skied around with him, a nice guy named Adrian who, just like me, skis in all-black gear and is a little too serious to be a kid’s instructor. He’s a level 3 certified coach in New Zealand and it shows in his flawless skiing technique. He also got four times as much work as me this season.

They opened the Tombstone chairlift today, giving access to a bit more area, but every run that it services is closed except for Red Pine Road, which leads back to the main area! We didn’t know that so we started our run down there. I wasn’t used to having my lift pass checked on the hill, and I didn’t have it on me: I keep it in my ski school coat now, which I can’t free-ski with. I explained the situation to the liftie and he let me up without it one time. Red Pine Road is a long, winding, gradual road-like run with only a few interesting places where you can go off into trees or speed up enough to weave around. After that we snuck into the singles’ line in Saddleback. It has had horrible lines for days now but at least today one of the lifties was there sorting it out as a “traffic cop” to keep the chairs fully loaded.

Adrian didn’t want to risk injury going through The Pines this early in the season - there are still a few barely-covered rocks and big tree roots there - but I know no fear so we split up and met again at the bottom of Short Cut lift. I picked a new path through The Pines and enjoyed it a lot: there were lots of moguls and a natural gully I could speed through. I saw where all the rocks were hiding so I could avoid them, and I only skimmed one root in a narrow path where there was no way around it and it was too difficult to jump over it. I cut down that run pretty quickly without stopping, and Adrian said he didn’t need to wait for me long at the lift. For our last run we hit Grizzly, which still has bumps with a layer of new snow on them, and I think is better than last time I was there. Unfortunately there are still many rocks to scratch up your skis just along the top of the run.

Two bump runs woke me up and satisfied me for the day, and after I understood most of the changes to the bus routes and schedule, I went home and I took a nap. I slept for three hours, and cooked up a taco dinner when I awoke. We all (except Craig, who oddly was not even home today) watched a crazy and immature comedy movie called “Step Brothers” before going to bed. That’s the best movie I’ve seen out here so far, but maybe I enjoyed the humor more because I had a scotch while watching it. To me, being grown up means I can have a Twizzlers strawberry-flavored licorice twist together with a shot of single malt scotch whisky if I want to.

One other important thing: Today was my grandpa Igo’s birthday. I believe he’s 83 years old now. Growing older is scary but Igo was always inspiring in his energy and generosity. I hope that he had a very good birthday. I know he reads this so he will know that I remembered, and I love and think of him. Happy birthday Saba!