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.

The PSIA National Academy is less than four weeks away now. Just like last year at the 2008 PSIA National Academy, you ski daily with one group and the pick a new elective for the afternoon session.

This year there is a great selection of elective to choose from including skiing bumps and crud, carving, kids programs, park and pipe sessions, women’s ski groups (um, where are the mens ski groups?), various indoor sessions like bootfitting, Interski and the Matrix and even an opportunity to try telemark skiing.

Last year the lineup I chose included an Avalanche training course, bumps and crud, boot fitting (to get rid of the tears in my eyes at the end of every day of skiing in boots that didn’t fit quite right), a video session and one afternoon of skiing with an international pro from one of the visiting countries including Argentina, New Zealand, Canada, Australia and Great Britain.

This year will be bumps and crud, some carving and free skiing, personal improvement in the park and pipe (I’m a raw beginner there!), maybe a day of telemark skiing (raw beginner there too but still have the knees to be able to handle it!) and possibly a race clinic or something related to teaching kids.

Aside from the variety of clinics, we’ll have one pro that we ski with each day in the morning. Last year it was Steve Smart of the Rookie Academy. Steve lives the life bouncing back and forth between teaching skiing in Canada, taking some time off and then teaching over in Australia/New Zealand with the Rookie Academy. He’s a great skiier and a great teacher as well.

24 more days till heading off to the 2009 PSIA National Academy in Snowbird, Utah! Can’t wait!

Now that spring is in the air and the snow is melting here in Pennsylvania, the next big trip to look forward to will be a 4 ski day, 5 night trip to Winter Park Colorado with the King of Prussia Ski Club in early April. On April 18th, 2009 the REALLY big ski trip happens again and that is the PSIA National Academy In Snowbird Utah. It is where the top instructors from around the world gather to learn the latest teaching techniques, ski their hearts out, and have a big end of season blast out in the best ski resort in the US West – Snowbird Utah.

The event is limited to 200 participants this year and I booked early to ensure there was no being on the wait list this year like last year. Booking early made it easier to plan everything out and get a much better deal on airfare on a direct Delta flight to Salt Lake City.

Only 1 month left to go till the best ski trip of the year! Let the count down begin!