19 Apr

The Word – 4/19/17

Hello! Can you believe this winter is wrapping up already?! One last weekend of snow then school’s out for summer!

Last day coming up?Please make sure you are clearing out your locker and all gear from the gear closet, anything left over by May 1st will be donated! Return your uniform- jacket and vest to the company store (double check your pockets unless you want to leave your tip money for us!), wipe off your name on the locker, and return your lock if you borrowed one from us.

Kudos Board: Here are the most recent Kudos from April 5th April 11th.

Private Lessons

Simon 4-11-17 Abde was great. This was our 2nd lesson with him and he continued to provide useful pointers and keep it fun for the girls (12 & 14) while making sure the adults learned too.
Waris 4-7-17 Kevin is just amazing. We had four week group lessons with him from our school. We decided to come back and do 2 additional private lessons with him. We worked out coming on dates when he was available. He is patient and skilled. We very much enjoyed working with him and would request him again for lessons next year We will likely do group lessons with our school and additional private lessons as well. Thanks Kevin!
Landon 4-5-17 My son had Josh as his instructor and he definitely exceeded our expectations. He was able to get on my sons level and bring out my usually shy 6 year old. He learned so much in just 90 minutes! Thank you!
Dawson 4-5-17 Josh did an awesome job helping my son with his skills. It was a very positive learning environment and I noticed an immediate improvement in my son’s skiing abilities.
Kira 4-5-17 Abde provides an amazing experience while teaching in such a fun & constructive way. He is really a talented teacher & knows how to work positively & enthusiastically with his students to improve their skills. My granddaughter just loves working with him! Thanks for such a great time!
Michael 4-5-17 Abdee was a wonderful instructor. I’d like to work with him again next year!
Stephanie 4-5-17 Nick is fantastic! I feel like I got past key hurdles and made a ton of progress from that lesson. Hope to have a few more visits before closing this year to work on what he taught me — and I hope he’s back next season so that I can book more lessons with him!
Elliot 4-5-17 My son’s snowboard instructor for this private lesson was Nick. He was so great with him and it was incredible to see the progress for the beginning to end of the lesson.
Garret 4-5-17 Josh was awesome, he helped my son tremendously. I want to take a lesson with him! Hope he got the tip I left for him with the main front desk in the lodge. A very nice lady said she would walk it down to the lesson building.
Timothy 4-5-17 Josh did everything he could with the time available to get us ready for the slopes
Simon 4-5-17 Abde was excellent. Kept my daughters (12 and 14) engaged with “tricks” and fun moves while providing solid actionable directions to my wife and me.

Youth Programs

Helen 4-11-17 Wendell did a great job with my twin 10-year olds. They had fun and he gave me a few tips to work on with them after class. Much appreciated.
Mikka 4-11-17 The coaches are all fantastic. The girls love coach rusty, kevin, ryan, and all the others.
Sean 4-10-17 I thought Abde did a great job of challenging Sean to try new things during the lesson. I’m glad they got into some blue runs. And the teacher was very communicative with me and Sean after the lesson.
Riyaz 4-10-17 Heather was great! My son loved working with her and she gave me a very thorough description of what they worked on/what he still needs to practice after the lesson. Of the 6 lessons my son has taken, she was the first instructor to ever provide the written report card.
Alysia 4-6-17 Kai, You did a wonderful job. You were very patient and encouraging. Thank you for giving Alysia a positive ski experience. She wants to have you teach her again.

Adult Programs

Leah 4-11-17 Trent was amazing! Very invested and friendly, and he gave each person attention.
Megan 4-10-17 Andy was a great instructor that felt heavily invested in our ability. He really worked finding new techniques to help with our skills. He additionally checked in for feedback regarding the lesson so that we can adapt it as needed throughout the morning. Thanks, Andy!
Henry 4-8-17 Anthony was the best boarding instructor I have had this season. He is truly vested in the success of his students. Thank you Anthony!

Let’s celebrate spring with Springfest– Sunday, April 23rd our last day of winter operations for the season! Pond skim, live music, downhill dummy race, and make sure to stop by the Stevens Pass Climate Team booth and support our own school members!

One Last Ride Day! Come shred at our Employee Ride Day, open to only employees and their dependents– Monday, April 24th from 10am-2pm; pond skim will be open from 1-2pm depending on the conditions. TBD on what chairs will be spinning.

PART TWO: What was your favorite moment or highlight of the season?!

Some of YOUR Favorite Moments of Winter 16-17'

  • “Hanging out at the top of Double-D and seeing Patrick para-ski over us!” – Grey Tyson
  • “When Jess taught July and I to ski!” – Bethany Pratt
  • “Taking a never-ever-skier down Hogs…twice!” -Phil Sohn
  • “Spraying the locker room all the way to the back of Lauren’s office” -TJ Burch
  • “Meeting the passport kids when they struggledto walk in skis and now are skiing the whole mountain” -Ellen Moline
  • “Riding Double-D trees with Ben Fok” -Tre Nabstead
  • “Pow Dayzzz & having the same student from last year that didn’t graduate the Learn-in-3 and was still struggling on the carpets as an intermediate lesson this season!” -Alicia Bodmer
  • “Learning to ski…even though it broke my leg. BUT I’m still buying skis!” -Kaitlin Miland
  • “Watching Patrick help a kid who fell- the kid pulled him down when he grabbed the back of Pat’s helmet; as a climber Pat noticed the kid found a bomber hold and goes ‘yup, that’ll get you some good leverage'” – Steve Frink
  • “When my 4 year old student said he loved Teacher Heather” -Heather Polizzi
  • “#rudderfoot… the people who know will know” -Nick Evans
  • “Seeing ‘light bulb moments’ in the little skiers” -Jordan Duffield
  • “Super fun rainy ride break with Pavel and Abde and finding the huge avy debris” -Jess Stern
  • “Jacob (student) said I was his BFF…then fell in a tree well and I had to rescue him” -Lauren Wooster
  • “Taking a student to the backside who really wanted to see it was pretty special” -Tiana Peterson
  • “Pranking Jason Luck to think TJ and I hated each other” -Ken Bailey
  • “Watching all the Learn-in-3’s work through the program and each week get more excited about a sport I love” -Don Morse
  • “Having a beginner skier that never wanted to take a break and enjoyed skiing so much” -Anna Folsom
  • “Snowball fight at the party and rookie training was pretty fun” -Sean Cooper
  • “Taking Simon on showcase and him seeing how small everything is… now it’s all he wants to ski” -Ben Fok

Ever wondered how many students we’ve introduced to skiing and snowboarding? What is your guess for our busiest day of the season for lesson volume? What’s your guess on number of guests that go through the Rental shop per hour? How many “Code Browns” happened this season?

Ski School Statistics

  • As a school, we’ve taught just under 30,000 students!!! That is crazy!
  • Of those, 2/3 were ski lessons and 1/3 were snowboard lessons
  • About 3,000 guests purchased the Learn-in-3 package; so far 44% of them have graduated! (Don’t forget, guests will continue to self-graduate into the summer to grow this number.)
  • Though our percentage of grads is smaller than last year, we have DOUBLED the percentage of those grads purchasing their seasons pass for next winter, currently sitting at 13% of those 3,000 Learn-In-3’s!!
  • Don’t let that 13% fool you… this is a great accomplishment– Keep in mind the seasons passes have only been on sale for a month for the graduates… so this is AWESOME! Kudos to you all for getting our students hooked and stoked for next winter already- that’s the whole point of this program!
  • PS– Nationally, only 17% of those that try skiing/snowboarding actually end up sticking with the sport and becoming life-long riders
  • Our busiest day of lessons with an estimated total of 1,000 students taught was on Saturday, Jan 21st.
  • We had a total of 12 “Code 54s” all season between multi-weeks and youth programs… don’t worry all incidents have been resolved 😉
  • HUGE thanks to everyone for the team effort and flexibility to always be willing to help out when called upon- many folks gave up their lunch break, helped search on their days off or while out free-skiing. This is a great representation of the AMAZING community you have all created for our school!
  • Thank goodness, only 2 cases of “Code Browns” this season… if you don’t know what this is, ask someone who’s a regular in the YP world.

Rental Shop Statistics

  • Our busiest day in the shop was Saturday, Jan 14th (MLK weekend) when we put 1,473 guests in rental gear! MASSIVE teamwork to make this day flow!
  • The most guests we have put through the shop in an hour is just over 200! Holy moly, that’s a lot of people!!
  • With the support of instructors, we’ve had over 50 employees working in the shop at once.