Adam Jewell – Search & Affiliate Marketing

The PSIA National Academy for 2008 ended last night and it seems that almost everyone left. I’ve got my own room at the Cliff lodge for around $100/night for the next few days. If I’m going to be out here till Thursday, it only makes sense to stretch it till Sunday rather than rush back to get to work for one day right?

Turns out is was a GREAT call to stay out in Snowbird! During the whole PSIA Academy it snowed about 2 inches. Last night is snowed all night and then it snowed all day. Everyone from the PSIA Academy was driving back down the mountain in a snow storm. How depressing huh?

Since I didn’t have the comped breakfast available at the Aerie at the Cliff and had no moring clinic to go to I took the liberty of sleeping in a little bit. Snow, snow and more snow! Fresh Utah powder! The best snow in the world, tons of it.

Unfortunately along with the snow came no visibility for most of the day and it was a little chilly as it tend to be when it snows. Snowbird has some steep stuff, cliffs and other trecherous terrain so I had to be kinda careful with so much snow and so little visibility.

I headed over to Mineral Basin and tried to find my way down. It was really slow going and I was never really sure what was ahead of me and could hardly see 10 feet in front of my most of the time. What’s a solo guy to do in ski conditions like that in an mostly unfamiliar ski mountain? Follow the bodies, preferably 2 bodies at a time. Figure one person might be lost like me but if there are two together then they probably know where they are going.

It was a blizzard and near whiteout conditions virtually all day but the snow was excellent.

It seemd like Snowbird was the only resort still open out there and even Snowbird was only partialy open. Lots of the lifts were closed and the lodges were pretty empty. I was able to get a PSIA discount on the lift ticket for the day – Thanks Sowbird & PSIA!

There was a taco happy hour special at the El Chanate Cantina Bar in the Cliff lodge so I went there and got 10 tacos. They were small but good and there were a few other PSIA Academy stragglers there as well. Combined with a Poylgamy Porter it was a great way to finish up the day. It was a mellow night after that, grabbed some Ramen noodles at the shop in the Cliff along with a six pack of Polygamy Porter and watched the tube and went to sleep.

Hard to believe the 2008 PSIA National Academy is coming to a close already. It started out with the usual breakfast buffet at the Aerie restaurant at the Cliff Lodge at Snowbird and a rush to get to the Tram plaza where we met with Steve Smart to kick off the morning clinics.

We started of with a few group pictures, something there wasn’t much of during the trip – photos, either posed or action shots. After that it was back to the slopes, Mineral Basin as well as the front side of the mountain. We picked up a little snow to take the edge off the hard pack icy conditions that developed as the temperatures fluctuated above and below the freezing point.

The afternoon clinc was skiing with some international pros and included ________ from the British ski instructor association as well as ____________ from Australia. This clinic provided an opportunity to learn about teaching and sking methods from around the world which was a nice compliment to the presentations from the international ski pros offered at 5:00 pm each day afer the skiing was done.

The last couple runs were on some new terrain that was a bit off-piste and took some catwalks to get to on the front of the mountain. By late afternoon, the snow had softened up and we hit some soft and steep bump runs on the font side of the mountain.

After the sking was done, _____________ gave a presentation on the Argentinian ski professional philosophy, training and certification process and requirements. The presentation covered the technical aspects of ski teaching methods in Argentina. Like the US, in Argentina they have several different levels of certification for ski instructors. Unlike PSIA, the ski teachers in Argentina have to retake entire exams every few years in order to maintain certification.

Following the presentaion on the ski teching industry in Argentina was the final wrap up dinner. This was anohter great event! Tequila shots mysteriously appered at the table and there was a big toast to Steve Smart and to a great week overall. The ski group for the week all sat together at one table. Unlike previous dinners, this was not a buggest and was served by the waitstaff at the Cliff lodge by the banquet staff. Like everything else at the Cliff it was first class all the way.

There were some speaches at the dinner and then a video/slide show from the previous week. Mike Rogan took quite a barrage of humorour jabs with everyone on video saying something to the effect of “Hi I’m Mike Rogan”. This was simple a take-off on his introductions for The Matrix videos available as a subsription from PSIA to help illustrate various teaching concepts.

Everyone in attendance received a certificate for attending. At our table, everyone from the clinic session signed everyones certificate. In addition to the certificate, everyone got a PSIA National Academy pin which was the size of the PSIA level 3 certification pin. Now I can show off how importnt I am to ski instructors everywhere.

After the dinner was over, most people went up to the Aeries bar for some more drinks and socializing. Since it had been a rather long week, I didn’t stay up there for to long. The local Polygamy Porter (Take some home to the wives!) takes a toll after a while. It is a great local Salt Lake City brew.

My roomate, Doug had to take off for Arizona the next day so he retired fairly early as well. The whole week and event passed with mostly Sproing skiing conditions, lots of hard pack that softened up in the afternoon. If at all possible, I’ll be back for the PSIA National Academy next year. It’s one of the best events I’ve ever been to professional or for skiing.

I’ve got 4 more days to ski now that the event is over. Let’s pray for some snow over the next few days!

On Day 4 of the 2008 PSIA National Academy, we started out with the morning session with Steve Smart. We had some great runs and worked on some handy exercises to try to focus on a particular aspect of skiing. As has been the case all week, the weather was variable. I dressed a little more warmly and was sweating my @ss off by the time the lunch break rolled around.

As usual, I went back to the hotel room at the Cliff lodge, had a bananna, watched the tube a little bit, took off the painful boots and got a chance to rest a little bit. The afternoon session was an intro to back country and avalanche preparation. I wasn’t sure what to expect and had had some basic avalanche training on a previos ski trip to Las Lenas Argentina with Gavin from SnowPerformance.com in 2004, I think it was.

The trip to Las Lenas required an avalanche tranceiver so I had an Ortovox M2 that I brought to Snowbird for this particular afternoon clinic. Prior to the lunch break, it really started to warm up and I ditched the long underwear at lunch so as not to melt.

We met back down at the Snowbird Tram area for the afternoon clinics and ________ and ________ were the clinic leaders for the back country and avalanche clinic. In just a few hours with 2 clinicians and about 20 people, there isn’t time to cover much more than the basics but it was a good refresher. We headed over to Mineral Basin (essentially the back side of Snowbird), traversed around to the right along the catwalk with a few of what may have been the ski patrol ski backpacks.

When going back country, especially anywhere with any real danger of avalanche, it is important to remain spaced out. If an avalanche starts flowing, the group will be a lot better off if only one person gets caught in it than a whole group. That was pointer number one and something easily forgotten that could make the difference between life and death. Simply being aware of the surroundings – what’s above you, what’s below, where you can ski out an avalanche if necessary is also extremely important.

Once we got to a nice out of the way area, we split up into 2 groups. I started in the group practicing the withe avalanche tranceivers. Didn’t actually get a chance to test my skills but have played with them before so it was good other people got a chance to learn how to use them. While avalanche tranceivers definitely work, it one person doesn’t switch their from transmit to reveive during t search, it can throw the whole things off. If you go wiht a group it is extremely important to designate one person to coordinate the search to make sure the tranceivers all have the right settings and to maximize the area that can be covered in the minimum amount of time.

When you get within a meter or less (maybe a little bit more if the person is buried deep) its time to break out the probe to see if you can find the person or an air pocket where they seem to be. Once you identify the spot, you should try to dig at an angle to the person and not straight down on them. Try not to crush any air pockets that may be around the person and get to them as quickly as possible. Buried in an avalanche a person could be dead in under 15 minutes so it is really important to move quickly!

The second part of the clinic was evaluating snow conditions. When trekking back country or skiing out of bounds, the makeup of the snowpack is critical to be aware of. What layers are you trekking across, are they stable, will they slide, will they shear off? You’ll never know for sure but with a snow card and a shovel you can examine the layers by cutting away some snow – go down a few feet – and then using a credit card to identify the consistency of the diferent layers in the snowpack. If you are serious about back country, then you’ll want to get a Digital Professional Snow Kit from Life-Link or some other manufacturer. This will give you the tools you need to evaluate the snowpack and the crystals when you dig a pit to see how safe the snowpack is around you.

Digging a pit and examining the snowpck was new to me so that was pretty interesting. I can’t remember the lst time we had an avalanche in Pennsylvania but next time we get conditions that might create a danger, I’ll be more prepared. PSIA really ought to sell the gear to do this stuff at the National Academy. When you signup you should have the option to order gear for the clinics you signup for. PSIA could make some cash and the manufacturers could get their gear in the hands of industry pros.

There was almost no skiing in the afternoon but I was still sweating like a pig out in the sun. After dinner and the presentation from the International ski pro, it was off to bed reltively early. The combination of lot of skiing, sunburn and the altitude had me pretty wiped out by the end fo the day again. Hard to belive we’re at the end of day 4 and only one more day to go!

The first two days of the Academy were chock full of skiing, a presentation from a British ski pro on the certification programs across the pond and many other things. It’s really only mid-day three, the slopes are still open, the sun is blazing down and I took a major tumble head over heels going full blast, all out on a little off-piste` section during the morning video clinic today. I’ve had some great spills before, even some when the camera was supposed to be rolling but they never materialized. This wasn’t the most dramatic crash in the world and there was no damage done but finally one of them was captured on camera.

Just like Saturday and Sunday, Monday (today) started out eary with the wakeup call at around 6:30am. The wakeup calls here are kinda cool becuse if you don’t pick it up it stops for 5 minutes or so and then starts ringing again. By around 7:15 I rolled out of bed, hopped in the shower and then headed up to the Aerie restaurant up on the 10th floor of the Snowbird Cliff lodge.

The PSIA National Academy registration included 5 breakfasts at the Aerie. Breakfast at the Aeria was a buffet with eggs, oatmeal, bacon, sausage, potatoes, cheese blintzes, cold cereal, omlettes made to order, pancakes and french toast, fresh fruit, yogurt and other breakfast foods.

Following breakfast, it is off to rush around to get the ski gear on, get down to the Cliff lodge lockers to pick up the skis and then out to the plaza down by the Snowbird Tram where the moring sessions kick off.

Today was a video session tht started at 8:45am. It was a group of about 10 people lead by ______________________. During video sessions there isn’t to much skiing cause the person taking the video can only film one person at a time and only film about 1/5 of the entire run at one time. Desipte the lack of skiing during a video session, it is absolutely worth it to realy see how you ski and what other people are talking about when they give you feedback on how you can improve your skiing.

If I can, I’ll post some fotage from the video session. Aside from my crash, there wasn’t that much to look at on there aside from picking apart the finer points ringtones for alltel cell phone | ringtones converter | send free ringtones to your phone | 50 cent ringtones | free music real ringtones sprint | free pcs ringtones sprint | free cellular phone ringtones | cell phone ringtones wallpaper | cingular cell phone ringtones | download mosquito ringtones | free get ringtones | send ringtones to your phone | free ringtones 3gforfree | free ringtones for alltel cell phone | free mp3 nokia ringtones | free real ringtones verizon | free mobile ringtones | cingular free ringtones | 24 ctu free ringtones | free phone ringtones | of my technique.

After about 3 hours on the slopes filming, we headed into the Alpine room in the Tram building and watched the footage. The leader of the clinic _________________ provided lots of good feedback on general issues common across the group as well as some specific feedback.

Following the video review session, I had a Bratwurst with kraut (bargain at $8.75) at a little snack place in the plaza down by the tram. Normally when the snow is soft, the sun is bright, I’ve got a lift ticket and am on a mountain like Snowbird, I’d be out there skiing in a second. Combine altitude of ~10,000 feet, getting up at 6-7am, skiing really hard, a bit of a pulled hamstring from Day 1, a major crash today and it was time to take the afternoon off. There are up to 6 more days of skiing ahead here so a little break felt like the right thing to do. My body is sore all over.

There is a dinner buffet on the house at 6:30 tonight and just realized that the presentation from the New Zealand ski pros at 5:00 which I’m going to miss cause it is already 5:15 now. Tonight should be a relatively mellow one. Dinner may be followed by some time in the hot tubs or a drink or two at the Aerie Lounge and Sushi Bar which we have yet to visit.

Day 2 of the 2008 PSIA National Academy started early once again. While morning stretching exercises started at something like 6am, that is to early for me so I simply relied on the wake up call because the alarm clock, a Sony ICF CD815 has an alarm that is impossible to use; even the front desk was not sure how to use it.

Breakfast at the Aerie Restaurant at the Cliff Lodge at Snowbird was another excelent buffet. Thanks to PSIA for bundling breakfast buffets in with the package deal!

Following breakfast, it was down to the 3rd floor in the Cliff Lodge where the skier services area is located. for the second day in a row, I picked the Volant Machetes to ski on. They are kinda stiff which was good for the late season hard pack (firm packed powder as it is known in Pennsylvania), variable crud and some bulletproof sections of the trails and slopes. I brought the Machetes and Rossignol B4s which are great for powder but a little flimsy on hard pack.

Just like yesterday, Steve Smart of the Rookie Academy was the group leader. Steve has exposure (lots of it) to teacing and skiing styles from all over the world and had a full quiver of technical exercises to help hone in on specific element of skiing to help improve overall performance. My big things to work on for the day (and for the week for that matter) included basics like stance – not standing quite so upright and also staying centered on the skis.

Skiing on one ski helped to get more centered and balanced. Drilling on basics including edging, short, medium and long radius turns, variations on side slipping and trying to ski with the skis and not so much the upper body were also areas of focus. Steve’s style of sking was somewhat different than the last “intense” clinic I did with Gavin Kerr Hunter of SnowPerformance in Las Lenas Argentina a few years ago. The skiing there was soft, crud, creamed corn type stuff anywhere up to 12 inches deep and the focus there was standing taller, staying forward more and letting the skis do the work. Steve emphasized a more compressed stance which I think was better for the steeper, more advanced hard pack conditions out at Snowbird this year.

After the morning session with Steve, it was back to the hotel room to take a 45 minute break before heading back out for the afternoon session. The afternoon session was to be a follow-up on snow session with Jim ___________ to see just how adjustments in boot fitting and and other slight variationsin equipment come together to affect a skiers performance.

Unfortunately, I was a few minutes late getting back down to the Snowbird Tram area and could not find the group. It was dissapointing to have missed the clinic because Jim’s indor boot fitting session on Sunday was good. It would have been nice to see and feel all that stuff he talked about at the indoor session out on the slopes.

Since there was no clinic to be had, I just free skied; all over the mountain. There was some nice runs in Mineral Basin and on the front side of the mountain. As the afternoon went on, the snow softened up and I got some good runs in. Since I wan’t in a clinic, it was possible to get in a lot more runs. I skied till about 4, came back to the room and then headed to the ballrooms for the presentation from ____________ about the Great Britain ski school system. It was interesting to see all the different requirements to reach the different ski instructor levels that included research papers in some cases. It was by far the most expensive instructor certification process to go through. If I was going to go for a non-US certification, I’d go for New Zealand, Australia or Argentina, definitely not Great Britian.

After the GB ski school presentation, I went to the Steak Pit at Snowbird with my roomate, Doug and some of his co-workers from Sunrise Park Ski resort in Arizona. While not bad, the Steak Pit is not worth going to in my opinion. The food was ok, not bad but nothing to write home about. The waitress ws good and very hospitable but for what they charge, the food just isn’t that great. A 20oz Ribeye was $44.00, a 16oz lobster tail was $60, a pound of king crab legs was around $45.00. I had the ribeye, a couple scallops from one of their appetizers, a beer, and some kind of chocolate cake type desert for $70 all together. A $10 bottle of wine was $45. It’s worth 2.5 stars out of 5. There is just nothing about it that is worth paying a premium to eat there.

After dinner, it was back to the room, down to the outdoor hot tub for a little while, watch the tube a little bit and head off to sleep fairly early to get up the next day. Still no fresh powder in sight.