Last day at Jay: Ski Patrol and Ski School

For my last rotation at Jay I shadow a Ski patroller in the morning and a snowboard instructor in the evening. When I arrived at ski patrol they didn’t have much work for me so they sent me out to shadow a patroller open his assigned trails. It took us 3 runs to check his 8 trials. In order to ok the trials we had to make sure there were proper signage and no dangerous skiing and riding terrain. After that was done I was set off for some free riding before I had to meet at the top patrol shack for 10:45. It was a slow day for ski patrol so I just hung out with Ziggy until lunch time. For the second half of the day I was with ski school. I do have previous year of instructing experience under my belt so I did understand most of what goes on in ski school. They had me shadow Joe Jones who is a level 3 instructor and is assui certified to certify other instructors. Joe is a very high rank instructor and I learned some good tips to teaching surface tricks. Friday was a pretty laid back day for me. I didn’t learn much but the tips I got where very helpful. Overall my experience at Jay was awesome and I will definitely keep them at the top of possible employment.

Jay Peak Pump House

I have worked the nordic center, ice haus, customer service, food and beverage, and hotel. But i have learned the most after spending the day in the pump house water park. I have worked at a ski area for 4 years now and have learned about my previous areas of managerment. The water park was a new addition to my recreation management experience. I got to spend the day with Jason, one of the water parks supervisors. It was very interesting learning about the indoor water park energy consumption and efficiency. One thing they do is recycle the ice rink snow into the water park. Jay is also saving money by creating there own chlorine. The Indoor water park keeps a consistent 85 degrees and has an assortment of rides and attreactions. They have two tube slides,  two body slides, a flow rider, a aqua loop, hot tubes, activity pool, kiddy pool, and the longest indoor lazy river. My favorite ride is the flow rider. Its fun to surf in vermont, plus it rips everyones clothes off. The day i worked the pump house the first thing i did int he morning was test the aqua loop. The water park was designed by chris who also designed hurricane hobor at six flags. The water park looks perfect but has run into some problems that needed to be fix. For example the Thursday before my day in the pump house i was told that the water park reached over 110 degrees due to the sun baking on the roof. The way the staff handled the heat was with the retractable roof. They opened the roof and cooled the park down. I also got to spend some time in the arcade. The arcade seems like a really simple job but really cool to play arcade games all day. The new Pump House water park at Jay Peak was a great addition and i can see Jay making a great profit from it.

Woke up to this beautiful site! Thursday morning, commence winter!

Visitor comes to class: Lenko Snowmaking.

Tuesday our class had a visitor Dick Harris from Lenko, he went over a whole presentation on snow making. The presentation took us through the past, present, and future of snowmaking. It was pretty cool to see pictures of older fan guns and what the first generation of snow makers looked like. He talked a lot about the air flow and how it gets mixed with water to create the snow. Dick was a nice guy and knew a lot about the ski resort industry. Dick also told us a little about his history in the industry and how he got to be where he is now. He told us that he did not plan on making a career out of ski but he found a passion and worked his way up the totem pole. LAC on Thursday, talked about our presentation and next semester. Went over the different mountains we will be working at and what Sean expects from us during that time. I will be attending Jay Peak and Stowe for my practicum and i can not wait to see what each resort has in store for me. Bring on the winter!!

Burke and Stowe: Round 2

So we got anther chance to venture back to Stowe and Burke, but this time our experience was a little different. First ill tell you about Burke. We went to burke not to talk to any important people or look at new projects but to do some manual labor. The guys at burke had us putting on all 165 seat pads on the willoughby chair lift. There was one person running the lift and two teams of 4-5 bungie cording the pads onto each chair. I gotta say, after the 60th chair we were getting pretty quick at it. It took us roughly about an hour and a half to complete all 165 chairs. I kept reminding everyone, "The faster we go, the faster we go!" So our second round at burke wasn't the funnest, but we made the best of it and learned some valuable lessons.

We also took another trip back to Stowe. Like Burkes round 2, we found out that we were going to be doing some manual labor. We show up at Stowe and they inform us that we will be clearing the trenches along the access road. As we started to go up the hill I was trying to fathom why we had to do this pity work, but nothing really made sense. So I asked our supervisor the reason for racking the leaves out of the trench if its just going to snow soon. His reply was, " If we don't clear these trenches now when spring comes and the trenches are clogged with leave the water will destroy the access road. Which could cost Stowe over 40 thousand dollars to repair. So bye then end of the day i realized that something so easy and simple could save you a really difficult and costly repair. So its important to take care of the little things.

-Drew

A small session with some Burke homies. First time strapping in for me!! Cant wait to ride a lift!

The Woods

We went to the Woods the other day. Thats Bretton Woods, for those who don't know. The woods of The wight mountains that is.  When we arrived we were introduced to James the guest services manager. Bretton Woods is most know for there exceptional guest service. They are also know for there association with Omni Hotels and the Mount Washington Hotel. James gave us a quick tour of the lodge, which was much larger then i thought. The lodge had a nice log cabin/timber frame feel that was over 3 stories. The basement of the lodge held rental, repair shop, lookers, and a gift shop. The ground floor is where the food court was located. The top floor was the most surprising. The top floor consisted of a massive bar and a brand new rock wall. The rock wall was very cool and was a real rock formation. After the tour we got to check out there snowmaking. There pump house was small but very efficient. When we were finished talking to the snowmaking manager we went back over to the lodge to talk to some other people. We ran into the terrain park manager and the manager of lifts and had a little Q. and A. session. When we made it back inside we talked to the GM and James again.  I really liked how every one we talked to gave off a good vibe and seemed very nice. It seems to me that Bretton Woods would be an very good work environment.  I can see why there guest services is ranks so highly.  To top it all off, as we were leaving they fired up some snow guns for the first time this season. Bretton Woods is a nice place and i am looking forward to spending time there this winter.

The Mount Washington Hotel 


After finishing everything at Bretton Woods we hoped a shuttle and went over to the ski resorts affiliate, The Washington Hotel. As we pull into the lobby turn around area we pass the resorts Volvo fleet. (Ballin). We walk into the lobby to see this huge open hall way with a very nice chandelier. The Mount Washington has some very interesting and famous rooms. There was the amplifier ceiling (my favorite), the gold room, and the Cave (a crazy cool night club). Those where  just some that stud out the most. There were other rooms for dinning, conferences, or just relaxation. The Mount Washington Hotel Was very fancy and elegant. I could definitely see my self taking my future wife there. Omni resorts has some good things going for them in New Hampshire and it is a great place for a family vacation.


-Drew