One of the Old Guys

The musings of a "youth-deprived" ski instructor

By Clark Williams

     Not all ski instructors are young, blond, and speak with a European accent. Where I work instructors run from 14 to 70+, some are blond, some are gray and some are bald and I think there is only one person with an accent (she has a full head of hair). There was one gray haired gentleman who worked there into his 80s. This means I have at least 20 more years of skiing to go. However I am still one of the old guys. As old guys, our love of skiing is still every bit as intense as the 14 year olds working in the children’s program, we just move at a different pace. As Warren Miller has said “We’re all 14 year olds trapped in a senior citizens body” and because of that senior citizen body our approach to the profession/passion of skiing may be just a bit different.

     Not having the boundless energy of a teen or the almost adequate supply of someone middle-aged, we must make judicial use of what we have left. So there will be very little pounding of the bumps, hitting the park or urban rail grinding (if that is still the term). We still do the steeps, just not as fast and we may require a brief interlude along the way. Actually there are a lot of “interludes” in a ski day for the “old guys”. One of the more common ways to have an interlude is to seek out the slowest lift for a nice long slow, scenic ride to the top. This is also an option if you are teaching, it doesn’t matter if it’s a group or a private lesson. You can just tell your group/private that you’re going to that special trail that is easiest to access from this old, rickety, frequently stopping lift. You don’t want to be taking that high speed quad like everybody does, you want to go some place special that only the instructors (read old guy instructors) know about, a place that is usually out of the wind and gets the proper amount of sun. Those sunny places on the trail are where you will stop for the appropriate instruction and where the instructor will stay so that he has the proper “vantage point” to analyze your technique as you struggle down through the wind and cold to the next “vantage point”. This new “vantage point” will of course be in the sun and out of the wind. This process will continue until your allotted time is up. Well until your time is almost up, we may trim a few minute so that we can sneak into the lodge for a quick bio-brake and warm up before the next lineup. The younger (14++++) folks don’t seem to need the “bio-brakes” or the “interludes” they just keep cursing along on tireless legs in whatever the weather. It would be easy for the “old guys” to hate these younguns, but that would be a waste of energy and like I said we conserve what energy we have.

    In the quest to conserve that energy old guys develop a knowledge of many seemingly trivial techniques such as: when to get to the employees parking lot so that you can park closest to the shuttle stop, as well as just when to get out of the warm car and gather up all your gear in time to get to the shuttle just as it is preparing to leave. Once the shuttle arrives at the mountain we know the most direct and hassle free route to the locker room. We know where to leave the skis so that we can pick them up on the way to lineup without having to backtrack to the customary rack.

     On the really cold days we know where to warm up in the lodge so that we can see when the supervisor (person with a clipboard) starts heading outside to lineup so that we can all get up and follow him/her out rather then standing outside waiting in the cold.    

If you happen to go into our lodge just before lineup time you will see a table of guys with either gray hair or no hair all watching the stairs from the ski school offices, while warming their butts. We know that the big holidays are good for teaching, but not good for skiing (too many once a year folks out there). The retired “old guys” know where to go midweek to get the best deal and the smallest crowds. I once took a midweek trip with my daughter on a bluebird day and we didn’t even see another skier till after lunch, and then there were only two of them.

       Most of this discussion has been around the efforts put forth to conserve energy at the mountain, it should also be noted that the same efforts are made on the home front, but to go into detail here might jeopardize the well being of many an “old guy” not to mention their ability to “get out” of the house and ski.  

It is interesting to note that when you are young you have the energy, but not the time and for the very young, not the money, to ski as much as you would like. When you are old enough to retire you have all the time you need and things like midweek skiing and senior’s passes make skiing affordable, but you don’t have the energy to ski as much as you would like. I guess that’s just one of life’s wonderful conundrums. 

     Now I don’t want to leave anyone the impression that we “old guys” are just a bunch of lazy old coots trying to kill time. We are just as interested in skiing as those young enough to not have to be concerned with energy conservation. In fact it could be said that we are more involved since we make such an effort to have the energy to get out there and ski.

     Young or old we all love it and we all find ways to get out there and enjoy it as much as we can.   

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