Day 1:

This was my second winter joining Deer Valley for the Women’s Ski Program. Last year, Deer Valley offered a 5 week local program, but this year they offered two 3-day programs for women. I joined the program at the end of January.

Our three day program started on Tuesday with breakfast upstairs in the Snow Park Lodge. Fruit, yogurt, coffee, and croissants were offered. The instructors introduced themselves and the levels they were teaching. There were three groups of intermediate skiers. Together, we went up the Carpenter chair to the Success run to show our skiing abilities. I was placed in a group with three other women and our female instructor.

We started by skiing Quincy and working on c-turns. I specifically worked on pushing my ankles forward and I could do it more easily in my new boots from Surefoot.

We all had lunch at the top of Silverlake Lodge. Here we could check in with other instructors and the instructors could make some moves amongst the groups to make sure we were well placed.
In the afternoon we worked on upper and lower body separation. These were the queues our instructor gave for working on upper lower body separation:

—hold skis up in front of you
— keep zipper on jacket aligned with zipper on pants
— hold poles out to drag on snow, keep upper body facing downward
— put poles on hip bones and keep them facing forward

Here are the notes from our instructor: We started out with our stance and how important it is to feel forward pressure and how the front of your skis will engage better.  Next, we worked on the “clock” drill that allowed us to shape our turns more like “C” and NOT “Z”.  This will help control speed and let the ski do the work.  We also talked about where in the turn you will have higher edge angles- right after the middle of the “C” for smaller hills and more towards the end of the “C” for steeper terrain.  In the afternoon, we worked on our upper body and tasks to identify if you were using your upper body to make your turns.  We want to make turns with our lower body-femurs to feet.  Some of the tasks were:  swords, zipper downhill/look at a tree, poles on hips.

Deer valley day 2:

—Started run on Success,

— Went to deer hallow and worked on wedge into parallel to work on steering the outside ski

— tried same drill on Fairview

—worked on keeping upper torso straight down the hill

— lunch at snow park— salad

— videoed in the afternoon with analysis — down solid Muldoon

— man was really in bad shape — fell, took his skis off, Jackie tried to help him, ski patrol came, his friends said he had two bad knees plus cognitive decline, saw him walking down at snow park with skis in hand.

— up carpenter to Sterling, down birdseye to homestead and out down success to rose bud.

Day 3

Late to class bc of World Cup!

— roamer to start,

—side slipping and pivot slipping practice on deer hallow and Fairview

— moguls at the bottom of lost boulder — tried twice

— buffet lunch at silver lake private room in the back. Three salads, roasted red pepper soup, turkey chili, corn bread, cookies, brownies, carrot cake muffin

— after lunch, did race course, up crown point and down rising star to roamer, went to carpenter up to success to last chance to check out Dixie’s house, then up again, success to dew drop to last chance to success.