It was a big year for me on the ski slopes this year. I had no accidents or injuries and I'm now far enough up the priority ladder to get consistent work. But it wasn't all plain sailing.
The season started off better than last year, with more natural snow and somewhat colder temperatures allowing for snowmaking to get a bit more terrain open. It was still slim pickings, but at least we had Captain's open for the school holidays.
Bookings were down on last year, and the school holiday period was no-where near as hectic as it had been in previous years. The resort managed this downturn by not increasing us from a five day to a six day week. I was pretty thankful for that.
I work full time because I get no priority as a part-timer. This means endlessly waiting in pool for work, and being lucky to get anything else besides first time lessons at 11am! Don't get me wrong, I love teaching first timers, but when you are working more than 1-2 days a week the rinse and repeat nature of part time work gets tedious.
Cardrona sponsors a number of international instructors, and the visa requirements are fairly onerous, with the resort required to give them a minimum of 30 hours a week. Since the average is 4-6 hours a day, but sometimes less, the overseas instructors get rostered on a 6 day week. And they only have a contract from 1st July until the end of September so they aren't employed during the quieter ends of the season.
June started off fairly slow. As I said, I got consistent work, mainly group lessons and then at the end of the month I got a week of half day lessons with a charming young man with Down Syndrome named Owen. Owen had come over to NZ with his parents for a week of skiing before taking a week off and then competing in the Australian Nationals of the Special Olympics. He'd won a silver medal last time, and this time was competing for a place on the Australian team to go to the World Championships Special Olympics in Turin in March 2025. Like no pressure!!!
In his early 20s Owen was a chatty young man, and over the week he made so many friends, from bus drivers to lifties, to just randoms all over the mountain. His technique definitely needed refining, as he was still wedge turning on green runs, and terrified of steep terrain. Over the week we got his skis parallel and his legs closer together, and he got confident skiing the runs over in Captains. His dad took him down Whitestar one afternoon, and then sheepishly agreed with me that that had been a bad idea...
I tried to get a brushes course on McDougall's for him to practice on, but the race trainers weren't able to help me out. Both Owen's parents weren't actually worried about him getting any race training, but they were very impressed with Owen's improved performance.
A week later I got an email from Owen's dad Paul. Owen had not only won the Gold medal in his division, he was off to Turin!! I think that means I'm an Olympic coach!!!
July school holidays just weren't busy. I did a week of SkiWees, a four day immersive kids program where the kids are with you for the whole day, including lunch. It's high energy and can be a lot of fun if you don't have problem kids.
Problem kids are usually kids with behavioural issues that either haven't been diagnosed or haven't yet been managed adequately. Often parents don't disclose issues until after you've spent the day fighting fires. We have an adaptive program at Cardrona, which means that we can pair those kids with a volunteer, so that all the kids in the group get to share the instructor's attention. But if parents don't disclose, it gets difficult.
One of my SkiWees weeks (I did 3 over the season) I had a bunch of boisterous boys and one attention seeking young girl who had been moved down into my group because of her disruptive behaviour and dangerous skiing. Over the course of the week, and many conversations with her mother, who was really struggling with managing her behaviour, we developed some boundaries and kept things safe. I also discovered that amongst the 5 boys, 4 had a diagnosis of ADHD and 3 of them were on medication for it. Not that any of that was initially disclosed to me, but because the boys talked about it, we had some really robust conversations about ADHD, behaviour in general, and what was acceptable and what wasn't. And we all made it through the week in one piece, me included!!
I didn't do as many private lessons as last year, but I did do my fair share of lessons for women in their 30s to 50s who suffered from lack of confidence. I swear there is room for some niche products in this space - there are so many of them. Group lessons are full of women like this, and I personally think a multi-day package that supports these women getting more confident on skis would be well subscribed. I'm not the only instructor who thinks this.
August was busy, but not enough to go to 6 days. I managed a half day ski touring in Soho with Sharni, where we skinned up to Mt Cardrona, skied down Soho until the snow got a bit dodgy, then skinned back out.
And then the bookings backed off. Knowing this I asked to have a couple of weeks off to do some Rookies training at Treble Cone. I don't need to work full-time, or work at all really, but if I can get some time off when it's quiet then that gets the work/pleasure balance back in my favour.
I did 2 weeks of training, the first with Takao, who has only just retired from the Japanese Demo team after 20 years. He's an awesome skier, and really interesting to get a completely different perspective on ski performance.
The second week I trained with Nico, who helped me take things back to the basics and really dial in lateral balance and angulation, particularly on my left leg. But it also snowed a lot, so we spent a lot of time skiing off piste finding powder lines, and on the final day I lost one ski somewhere towards the bottom of Matukituki. I spent well over an hour trying to find it, to no avail, so I waited for Nico to bring me some new skis for me to ski out. Otherwise it would have been a one ski job!!
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| walking back up the hill when the saddle lift went on hold due to high wind |
Perhaps someone will find it after the snow all melts, but I wasn't too upset. I'd set my mind on purchasing some new skis in Japan anyway...
Needless to say, I didn't do any more Rookies training, but I did ask for another week off as work levels were still very low. Better for someone else who needs the work to get it.
I spent my 3rd week doing some snowboarding, going for skis with friends, and another day ski touring with my friend Jennifer from Alaska. This time we went even further down Soho, which made for a very long skin back out, just getting back before some bad weather descended.
The final week of September I had work. I had six half days with a family of 3, though we ended up changing the schedule to suit the weather, and extended those days to full days. Mum and 2 teenage boys. Both boys had ADHD and ASD and one also had Tourette's. Dan had done one day skiing on a school trip, Ben had never skied, and Gay had been a total ski bum until having a family.
We started at the beginning. I was fortunate to have an adaptive volunteer, Lois, who was able to help me all week, so that I could take each person for some individual coaching as the need arose. The boys both picked up skiing really quickly, and were soon making turns down the green runs, meaning I could leave them with Lois to get some mileage whilst I took Gay down some blue runs.
We all had a blast, and by the end of the week the boys were able to get to Captains and back, though they weren't quite ready to ski it top to bottom. Gay tells me they'll be back next year, so I expect that will be another well paid week for me.
Having that time off in September really made my season enjoyable. It's easy to get just a bit burnt out as the days are exhausting, especially when you factor in travel to and from the mountain each day.
I'm hoping that I can get a similar balance next year, where I take a back seat when the business levels drop.
I was pretty keen to get back to Australia for some windsurfing, so I left NZ at the end of September and winged my way back home to WA. I made a little detour, spending 24 hours in Canberra in order to drop off the tramping gear with Matt, and pick up my ski touring poles that I'd used in March on the AAWT and stupidly left behind at the trailhead. The lady who picked them up for me had indeed managed to bring them to Canberra, so my ski poles went back in my ski bag for their next trip to Japan.
I left the ski gear in Perth, in Nay's garage, and took the bus up to Geraldton. It's now time to do some sun and wind worshipping.
That's next....
