Adam Jewell – Search & Affiliate Marketing

Once again for the 2009 PSIA National Academy the digs are at the Cliff Lodge. I ended up on the 8th floor with a nice view out the window of some of the slopes. Upon check in, the frotn desk offered an upgrade to some kind of room with a different view for an extra $20/night but that standard room was fine last year and is just fine again this year.

The room in the Cliff Lodge is far better than the room we got at The Vintage Hotel at Winter Park Colorado ski trip with the King of Prussia ski club in early April of 2009. It’s got a leather couch, confortable beds, a nice view, a small refrigerator, and of course it comes with a ski locker downstairs with ski in ski out convenience.

Breakfast today was excellent (as long as they have good bacon, the pretty much makes a good breakfast at a ski lodge), the lunches today were good even though they were essentially boxed lunches. The buffet dinners have been great so far as well.

There is a 32 inch flat screen TV in the room and the Internet access is both free and user friendly. To connect you just turn on your computer, it picks up the network and you don’t have to screw around with any funky network settings. It can be a little slow at times but it’s no big deal.

Some of the pother lodges here seem to be pretty nice as well but the Cliff Lodge at Snowbird is a very solid choice for a place to stay while skiing at Snowbird and/or Alta.

The first day of the 2009 PSIA National Academy kicked off today with breakfast at the Airie breakfast buffet on the 10th floor of the Cliff Lodge at Snowbird. There was actually some other morning warmup exercise scheduled at 6:15am but that is just way to early for any person on what is essentially a vacation to get up. Following breakfast (which is always insane with 200+ ski instructors converging on one place to get breakfast and get out on the snow quickly), it was time to head down to the Snowbird Tram base and meetup with the groups we broke into last night.

Our group wasn’t the most aggressive group but we had some excellent skiers. The group leader was Andy who was a PSIA demo team member and the ski school director at Apen Highlands, a position I believe he still holds. First thing in the morning we headed up the Snowbird tram and went over to Mineral Basin to find the softest snow on the hill. Yesterday was warm and the wet snowfall was like deep, wet cement & easily the most difficult snow I’ve ever skied. Today there was no cloud cover in the morning so the sun softened things up rather quickly. The snow was still thick and deep in some places but much more manageable.

We skied some intermediate to expert terrain and some chutes but nothing over the top. After about three runs we took the catwalk way around to the skiers left in Mineral Basin, did a little climb (maybe 30 feet vertical) up on a cliff of sorts and then skied down through some thick but manageable snow. The biggest thing for everyone was, as usual trying to stay balanced in order to ski smoothly through variable and thick snow. I’ve gotten much better at that over the years by keping just a few things in mind:

Stay centered to forward on the skis.

Make sure not to drop the downhill hand and in fact drive it around. When you do that it seems to put forward pressure on the downhill ski so it cuts through the thick snow instead of wandering off out of control.

Complete the turns a little more if the going gets tough instead of trying to muscle through shorter turns a edging harder to control speed.

Be confident that your skis will do what you want them to do and plow through the crud if you practice the three points above.

These simple steps make a world of difference and prevent fatigue from setting in so quickly. You need to rely more on our skeletal structure to support your weight and use the smaller muscles to fine tune your movements. If you sit back, your thighs and other larger leg muscles but bear much more weight and work much harder and skiing through thick heavy snow will wipe you out in no time.

Throughout the morning session I was able to cruise rather smoothly through all the crud. Later in the morning session we went back to the Peruvian Basin (aka front side of Snowbird) and skied a few chutes and some bumps. Everyone in the group could hang, though some apeared more comfortable than others.

Lunch came around 12:30 in the Rendezvous room under the Snowbird tram. PSIA was nice enough to provide lunches this time around which will save everyone around $15.00 a day – a very nice touch on their part!

During the afternoon session, I elected to go for “Steeps and Bumps”. The first two runs, we took the Snowbird tram back up and my feet were killing me since you have to stand on that thing. After three runs in that clinic I bailed. We didn’t really hit any bumps and the steeps we hit were mostly the same wet cement like snow left over from yesterday. It just wasn’t fun skiing that stuff and so I sat out in the sun at the top of the mountain and let my feet recover.

After about a half hour, the feet started to feel more normal and I went over to the Little Cloud lift. The snow there was soft and deep but manageable and it was not quite as steep as some of the other areas of the mountain. Skiing at my own pace with the tunes cranked up it great and that’s exactly what I did over on the Little Cloud lift area. Little Cloud closes at 3:45pm so the last run of the day was on the Peruvian Express. It was a good run, though as the night afternoon wore on the sticky consistency of the snow came back.

After skiing over over for the day, I had a couple Polygamy Porters, relaxed in the room and then headed down to the Sunday night buffet in the Cliff Lodge. There wasn’t much energy among the crowd for drinking and partying more so here I am back in the room typing away. Bruno, the roomate is already out cold, probably worn out from the altitude, bright sun, and intense skiing all day. That’s a wrap for today and there will be lots more tomorrow during day 2 of the 2009 PSIA National Academy at Snowbird, Utah!

The day started dozing off to sleep at about 2:15am after getting finished packing, waking up in a panic at about 4:45am in a frantic rush to get out the door for a 7am direct flight from Philly to SLC.

Somehow I always manage to hit things just right in such situations and make the flight as was the case today. The flight got in at 9:30MST. The shuttle came within a few minutes and arrived at the Snowbird for the 2009 PSIA National Academy. The room wasn’t ready to check into at 11 so the bags went to the bell desk, the skis came out and the week od skiing at Snowbird was underway.

For the last month or so, Snowbird has been getting tons of snow and they do have a lot but it’s like sking in wet cement with tar on top of it in most places. Some people seemed to think it was a great day out there and the weather was nice, there was LOTS of snow. The snow just sucked. Maybe I’m becoming a ski/snow snob but I never skied anything like what was out there today.

The snow was brown in many places even where nobody had skied on it. It seemed like the winds associated wiht one of hte recent storms brought all the diirt from the lower elevations up and sprinled it all over the mountain.

Some sections of Mineral Basin were ok. Terrain off the Little Cloud lift was fairly good and there were a few decent spots down the front side but for the most part it was deep, thick and slow.

I skied with Alex from Big Mountain/Whitefish and Wayne who is a dentist down in Virginia. They skied for about 2 hours and went in. It’s a crime to not ski when you are at the slopes and to leave the slopes when you still have time on a lift ticket so I stayed out till the slopes closed. I’m already sunburned, totally exhausted after pigging out at the opening night buffet and getting zero sleep last night.

The roomate this year is Bruno, a railroad enginer who seems to be a bit of a party animal. Nice guy. A few Polygamy Porters have also added to the exhaustion and I’m about ready to knock off for the night. Breakfast starts at 7:30 and we have to be out on the snow at 8:45am in the morning ready to rip. More commentary and more pics to come tomorrow in PSIA National Academy Day #1 in 2009.

Today was the first day of the ski trip to Winter Park, Colorado with the King of Prussia Ski Club.

The conditions to be expected this time of year are much more in line with warm sunny weather, big soft bumps and little need for any kind of serious ski clothing. Those expectations didn’t pan out at all. In the last 24 hours, there has probably been about a foot of snow and in some places on the slopes it seemed that there was a lot more than a foot of powder.

Outhouse, a rather steep powdery bump slope was the first run of the day and got the blood pumping through the legs. It got me a little winded between having a cold and being at an elevation of between 11,000 and 12,000 feet. As usual, I got out on the slopes a little late (10AM) but much earlier than the usual when skiing back in PA (more like noon on most days). Skiing solo has its advantages. You don’t have to wait for anybody, you go wherever you want, you can crank the tunes up and nobody thinks you’re being rude.

Most of the day was spent skiing the Mary Jane area at Winter Park with plenty of steep and bumps. The double diamond portions of Mary Jane seemed to be closed or at least they were after 2pm when I finally figured out how to get there but there was plenty of other terrain to ski. It was also the first real test of the Rossignol B83 skis I picked up at Siera Trading Post a month or so ago. (Be sure to check out the full Rossignol B83 Ski Review).

The length of the Rossignol B83 was a 176, which is shorter than I traditionally get in a powder type ski but they held up well and performed well all over the mountain in anything from packed powder to bumps and glades with up to 2 feet of powder. In some areas, the Volant Machete’s (a stiffer, wider and heavier all mountian ski) would have ben easier to ski in today’s conditions but the Rossignol B83 did perform well all over the mountain. The other paid of skis in the quiver for the trip is a pair of 178 Salomon Cyclones. With all the powder out there and more on the way (another possible 12 inches forecasted for tonight and tomorrow) the Cyclones will probably not see the snow on this trip.

Following a long day on the slopes, an outdoor hot tub hit the spot for a half hour or so and then dinner at a place in the town of Winter Park. Ahi Tuna was the dish of choice. That combined with lots of bread and water hit the spot and helped to refuel after a long day on the slopes. It’s not even 11pm in Winter Park yet and most everyone has drifted off to bed. It’s amazing what the combination of age, altitude and exercise does to one’s stamiba when it comes to staying up on these ski trips. Of course, I’m probably the youngest one of the trip by about five years but I’m still pretty wiped out and looking forward to a shot of NyQuil to knock me out cold for the night.

Somehow I have to get better about including pictures in these posts. Those can always be added later but once the day is done the thoughts from the day start to fade, it is a lot harder to go back and try to recreate the memories and put them down.

Time for the shot of NyQuil, a great night sleep and another intense day of skiing at Winter Park, Colorado tomorrow.

It’s going to be an extended ski season this year! Thursday will mark the departure for Winter Park Colorado! For a while, it looked like we’d be a little light on snow for the spring bump runs but lately, the temps have dipped and they’ve gotten some snow. It looks like it is supposed to warm up just in time for our arrival out there. It will be a King of Prussia Ski Club trip; one of many they’ve had this year and my first major trip with the club.

A few people from the Elk Mountain house this past winter will be heading out there on the trip also. Unfortuneately, due to the economic conditions a number of people had to bail along the way, however it seems that most of those vacant spots have been filled.

It’ll be bumps all day every day out there. I’ve heard a lot about Mary Jane so we’ll be riding her hard all day, just as she would have liked. With the outrageous price of lift tickets these days, it’ll probably cost more to ride her today than it did the miners back in the day. We’ll see how the bumps have help up over the years and hope they are still nice and soft and supple!