Blogger’s note: this story was written in January 2006.

Yesterday was a very typical late spring-like day at Mt Spokane Ski Area.

It was raining very hard at home as I loaded my gear into my truck and went to Grinders to get my double vanilla latte. The drive up was on clear and wet road until the park ranger’s house, where it started to be covered with about an inch of slush. There was little evidence of snow alongside the road or under the trees until the hairpin turn, only a few hundred feet in elevation below the ski lodge.

As I drove over the summit at the snowmobile and cross-country skier’s parking area and turned north on the east-facing flank, things suddenly changed. Here there were about 18 inches of snow and a three-foot wall piled up by the plow. Maybe things were not going to be as bad as I had anticipated. But the road was still wet and slushy, and the last half mile to the employee parking area was enveloped in increasingly dense fog.

I stepped off the shuttle below the ski school building into two inches of slush and water, and trudged up the 15-foot steep slope in very soft, spring-like snow. What a way to start a projected busy teaching day. And it was only 7:30am on December 31.

Because of the foggy, soggy conditions, we did not have a morning clinic. So there was nothing to do but wait for the 10am lesson time and hope no one shows up.

To my dismay I was assigned a private lesson with a third-grade girl who skied, but was very tentative. I was told by her dad that I needed to get her to ski faster. So here we were in fog so thick we could see only about half the way up the beginner hill at best. So, I did what I usually do. I ignored dad, asked the student how she wanted to improve her skiing, and agreed she had the better goal. She wanted to get out of skiing in a wedge.

After an hour I think she had made a good start toward her goal and understood how to proceed. When mom and dad met us, I tried to explain what we had worked on and how they could help her, but they didn’t want to listen. I only hope she continues on the course we set with or without her parents’ support.

Now I had just enough time to grab a quick snack. Damn! I left my lunch in the refrigerator at home!

My next student was a six-year-old girl who had never been on skis before. No problem, except it meant pushing her up the hill a few times and letting her glide back down to the flat, practicing standing upright, looking where she was going, and spreading the tails of her skis far enough apart to stop. After about 10 times pushing her up and running down backwards in front of her, I was overheated and getting tired. So off to the ski lift and skiing backwards bent over, holding the tips of her skis together while coaching her on steering both feet in the direction we wanted to go and which ski to pressure to make the turn.

By the time we got back to the chairlift load station, she seemed to have the idea and I was sore and tired of skiing upside-down and backwards. The next two trips down the beginner hill I skied in front of her, but upright, and she did great at following my turns. This lesson seemed to be a success when it ended. 

I thought briefly about taking a quick free run to get the kinks out of my body and mind, but one look at the fog-obscured mountain changed my mind.

Since I was overheated, hungry. and tired I packed up and headed for home to watch Gonzaga play St. Joseph’s. It was a great game until I fell asleep but I did wake up in time to see the last four minutes. Yipee! Gonzaga won.

New Years morning I awoke to the BBC’s recap of 2005 at 5:30am on my alarm radio. It was time for me to get going again.

Surprise, surprise. No rain today and a little colder. As I approached the parking area, it looked like it snowed a little overnight and the slush wasn’t so wet.

At our morning meeting we were told Chair 4 would be open for the first time in two weeks.  It and the runs down to the load station face due north, and are on the leeward side of the mountain, so it’s usually fog-free even when the rest of the mountain is blanketed. Ron Vierra, Dave Ozuna, and I decided we had enough time to take Chair 3 to get there before we had to check in for lessons, so off we went. We expected to encounter Cascade cement, but I needed a clinic in it anyway. And Ron was just the person to help me.

Boy did we get a surprise. As we sped down the trail to Ridge Run, we encountered soft fluffy powder. And when we turned onto the run, we were in 7-9 inches of beautiful snow on top of a wide, packed slope right in the fall line. There were only two tracks ahead of us so we skied fresh stuff all the way to the bottom. This was undoubtedly the best run so far this year and made the ice-covered chair ride back up of no consequence. Unfortunately, we had to hurry to the ski school so we got no second thrill.

My first assignment was a potential nightmare. A 200-plus pound, middle 30s, first-time, out of shape woman skier. Why me? 

After a couple of minutes of sliding around on the flat with one ski on and then walking with both skis on, I could see this was going to be difficult at best. She had great difficulty coordinating side-stepping up high enough to get any feeling of sliding back down, and I was not going to be able to push her up. What the hell. We got on the chair lift and went to the top of the beginner hill.

As we approached the unload station, I repeated several times: “When I tell you just stand up, lean forward and slide straight off. I will hold your arm and assist you.” Well, she got the stand up part okay but as her skis started down the ramp she threw her arms up in the air, shrieked, and went down on her backside. I and the lift attendant rushed over to her, took off her skis, and the two of us just barely got her on her feet. She obviously takes full advantage of gravity.

After regrouping at the top of the hill I got in front of her to ski backwards while I coached her to do wedge change-ups to a crawling stop. After about 10 repetitions we had to stop for her to rest. Next, we faced the challenge of trying to turn. Stay in the wedge, look and steer both feet where we want to go, and pressure the outside ski in the turn. What do I do if she starts to run away out of control? As heavy as she was all I could think of was to push her over and fall on top. What a sight that would have been. 

To my surprise and relief, she followed directions and actually turned! We were doing great when we heard a blood curdling scream from the bottom of the hill. Without looking up, Susan calmly said that’s my son, Ryan. The screaming continued non-stop and we were met at the bottom by the ski patrol and two instructors. Ryan, a small third grader came running over to us still screaming, prostrated himself across mom’s skis and wouldn’t let go. 

It turns out Ryan has some (maybe a lot) of emotional issues and this is a common occurrence. I didn’t know that Ryan was also getting a lesson and expected to be with mom, but for good reason had been assigned to another instructor, Ron Vierra. Ryan was pried loose and carried away and mom and I got back on the lift while Ryan flailed on everyone around him. Mom seemed quite calm through all this and I was somewhat bewildered.

On the ride up she explained she had to deal with this behavior daily and would take care of Ryan after the lesson was over. Meanwhile, Ryan was creating havoc at the ski school and we could hear him all the way to the top. This time down I forced mom into skiing faster in hopes of ending everyone’s misery quickly.

I was feeling pretty good with my accomplishments with mom when I overheard her calming Ryan by telling him what a good instructor I was and that I would be happy to help him learn to ski. I was horrified. I had been volunteered without my or my supervisor’s permission. I could see several instructors standing around silently laughing at my luck, but to our surprise Ryan quit screaming and started to smile. Was this going to be revenge for taking mom away?

In any event I was trapped, so I dropped to my knees in front of him, looked him straight in the eyes and said, “Let’s go ski.” He quickly got up and we put his skis on. Before he could change his mind, I started pushing him up the hill, turned him around, told him to stand up tall and ski back to the bench in front of the other instructors. Everyone just stood and watched in amazement as he did as he was told. We repeated this a few times before I introduced the gliding wedge.

There was only one problem. Ryan couldn’t get the concept and didn’t have much leg strength, so out came the Edgy Wedgy. When I started to clamp it on the tips of his skis Ryan said no and started to come apart. Okay, this wasn’t going to work.

I took a deep breath and said, “Let’s get on the chairlift.” Ryan said okay, but only if he could have poles. At this point anything that would work was okay with me so I found him some poles and away we went. 

Holding his ski tips together with my left hand while I skied backwards, I coached him to do wedge change-ups and then turns just like I did with his mom. To my relief he did as I asked, and as long as I held his tips together, we linked turns ¾ of the way down the hill. Then he began to whine and I could tell he was going to melt down again. Quickly we stopped; I took his skis off and told him to run the rest of the way down to his mom.

The lesson was over and mom and Ryan got as good as I could give, so I felt okay. When I went into the ski instructors building, I was thanked by the other three instructors who had been beat up by Ryan and given up. I guess the only reason for my success, such as it was, was due to my endorsement by mom. I hope these two lessons are as bad as it gets this year. 

Since there wasn’t much else going on I took one run for myself. As I rode up the beginner chair to Chair 2, I was surprised to see Ryan and Susan skiing down the beginner hill. Later, as I drove home, I asked myself, “Am I too old for this?” Then I thought of my friend Dave Ozuna who just turned 85 or 86 three days ago and still skis and teaches at Mt. Spokane two days a week. I guess I can’t quit yet.

Ken Kaiyala
1-1-2006