Powder and Mogals
Skiing has always been a huge part of my life, but this winter, I have fallen in love with it all over again. I have a new outlook on skiing, one I didn't know I could have.
I've been skiing for as long as I can remember and it was always the highlight of the year going on our annual family ski trip. We would get up early and be on the mountain as soon as it opened. At the time, I hated waking up early every day while we were on vacation, but now that I look back at it, I'm happy that I was pushed to ski all day. Those vacations dwindled as us kids got older and entered college and high school, but we still found a way to slide around on the snow for at least a couple days during the winter.
But this winter...it's all different. Being paid to teach others how to ski and help them fall in love with the sport like we have, we had to better our own ski skills. I entered the job not knowing what they were going to teach us. Not only did they teach us how to teach others, but we were taught how to really ski.
Fast forward five weeks to January 7th, 2018. I now have my Professional Ski Instructors of America Alpine Level 1 certification, I have just made it through the busy season, and I have my first scheduled day off. It had just snowed the night before and it was a gorgeous blue bird day on the mountain with amazing powder. I already have my sights on working towards my Alpine Level 2 certification for next winter. I meet up with some coworkers and a supervisor and we get on the chairlift towards the white soft substance that is blanketing the mountain. It's my first day off in over a month and I'm here on the mountain training for my next level of certification. I couldn't resist though...it was a powder day. I've never really been taught how to properly ski powder, so I was stoked to learn.
Crested Butte Mountain Resort is a very special mountain to a lot of people. I've heard that when there's powder days, it becomes a completely different mountain and there is so much more to play on. It's those days when you can play in un-tracked powder and ski between the trees. The environment completely changes. I was excited for the mountain to show itself to me so that I could personally fall in love with it and find why it was special in my own way.
The day started out with skiing through fresh pow and learning how to float through it. Think of a dolphin swimming through the water playfully. That is what we made our skis do through the snow. After a few failed attempts and a few faces full of snow after face planting in the white powder, it became easy and natural and it was the most fun I've ever had on skis.
The next task was to learn how to ski mogals. I've never really liked mogals because they always hurt my knees. But after learning how to ski differently and much more efficiently, my knees can take a lot more than before. I have developed a great relationship with those big bumps now. We spent all mid-morning and afternoon playing with the mogals, all over the mountain. We would hop off of them to take us to the next turn, we skied around tiny baby trees that popped up through the snow on the mogals, we poll planted to perfect our next turn, staying in one fall line and skiing them with precision and quickness and overall pure joy.
It was the best day of my life so far. I had a huge smile on my face all day. I had the most fun I have ever had on skis before. It was a long, hard day that left me exhausted at the end, but it was worth every turn. It was a day that really brought my confidence back to skiing and helped a lot of the other skills I've been working on just click. I now don't feel like I'm limited on the mountain. I feel like I have the confidence that I can ski just about anything on that mountain, and it's a joyous feeling, and a new one.
I've been skiing for as long as I can remember and it was always the highlight of the year going on our annual family ski trip. We would get up early and be on the mountain as soon as it opened. At the time, I hated waking up early every day while we were on vacation, but now that I look back at it, I'm happy that I was pushed to ski all day. Those vacations dwindled as us kids got older and entered college and high school, but we still found a way to slide around on the snow for at least a couple days during the winter.
But this winter...it's all different. Being paid to teach others how to ski and help them fall in love with the sport like we have, we had to better our own ski skills. I entered the job not knowing what they were going to teach us. Not only did they teach us how to teach others, but we were taught how to really ski.
Fast forward five weeks to January 7th, 2018. I now have my Professional Ski Instructors of America Alpine Level 1 certification, I have just made it through the busy season, and I have my first scheduled day off. It had just snowed the night before and it was a gorgeous blue bird day on the mountain with amazing powder. I already have my sights on working towards my Alpine Level 2 certification for next winter. I meet up with some coworkers and a supervisor and we get on the chairlift towards the white soft substance that is blanketing the mountain. It's my first day off in over a month and I'm here on the mountain training for my next level of certification. I couldn't resist though...it was a powder day. I've never really been taught how to properly ski powder, so I was stoked to learn.
Crested Butte Mountain Resort is a very special mountain to a lot of people. I've heard that when there's powder days, it becomes a completely different mountain and there is so much more to play on. It's those days when you can play in un-tracked powder and ski between the trees. The environment completely changes. I was excited for the mountain to show itself to me so that I could personally fall in love with it and find why it was special in my own way.
The day started out with skiing through fresh pow and learning how to float through it. Think of a dolphin swimming through the water playfully. That is what we made our skis do through the snow. After a few failed attempts and a few faces full of snow after face planting in the white powder, it became easy and natural and it was the most fun I've ever had on skis.
The next task was to learn how to ski mogals. I've never really liked mogals because they always hurt my knees. But after learning how to ski differently and much more efficiently, my knees can take a lot more than before. I have developed a great relationship with those big bumps now. We spent all mid-morning and afternoon playing with the mogals, all over the mountain. We would hop off of them to take us to the next turn, we skied around tiny baby trees that popped up through the snow on the mogals, we poll planted to perfect our next turn, staying in one fall line and skiing them with precision and quickness and overall pure joy.
It was the best day of my life so far. I had a huge smile on my face all day. I had the most fun I have ever had on skis before. It was a long, hard day that left me exhausted at the end, but it was worth every turn. It was a day that really brought my confidence back to skiing and helped a lot of the other skills I've been working on just click. I now don't feel like I'm limited on the mountain. I feel like I have the confidence that I can ski just about anything on that mountain, and it's a joyous feeling, and a new one.
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