Know the Terrain

 
 

Every lesson and student is different, being able to gage when your class is ready for a new trail will take time to master. While you are first starting it is always better to stay on a familiar trail with new tasks when you are not sure your students are ready to move on.

Talk to experienced staff about when they like to move to new terrain or certain skills they need students to complete before moving on.

Below we have listed a general list of some popular teaching trails based on the level class you have. This is a starting point and is not an expectation of where these levels can ski. Your Confident Turns Class could be a high energy fearless group of kids or a very fearful group who second guesses their skills. Both groups could have the same skill but the terrain choice will be completely different.

Canyons Village TEACHING

Mountain Village TEACHING

  • Starting out on the carpets is a good start for first lessons and developing to linking turns.

  • Skills needed to advance to High Meadow area include: Controlled stopping utilizing a J turn as well as wedge to stop and traversing skills.

Green runs for teaching: 

  • Sweet Pea

  • High Meadow

Blue runs for teaching close to the learning zone:

  • Snowdancer

  • Kokopelli

Moving to other area of the mountain:

Green runs for teaching:

Blue runs for teaching:

  • Starting out on the carpets and utilizing Mule Train is a good start for first lessons and developing to linking turns.

  • First time will be your best friend.  Its wide, its long (for beginners), and it has a fairly consistent pitch.

  • Moving up the mountain Payday lift is usually your next move.  It’s a big step from first time (especially for snowboarders). 

  • The narrow parts of homerun can be challenging and not a place you want to be teaching new things. 

  • The payday zone has some great wide places great for teaching.  However, the time of day can ruin this plan.  End of the day and around lunch you may want to plan accordingly.

Green runs for teaching: 

  • 1st Time and Mule Train

  • Home run - Linking Turns and Above

  • Blanche -Linking Turns and Above

Blue runs for teaching:

  • Silver skis

  • Payday

  • Kings crown

  • Treasure Hollow (not at the end of day)

Moving to the upper mountain

  • Claim jumper and homerun are usually the go to runs.  They are both green slow zones with wider areas for teaching.  Homerun will have some bottle necks to watch out for as well as some long flat cat tracks.  The key piece to know about taking students up to the upper mountain is that it is a long way back to the base. 

  • Get to know your escape routes and easy ways down.

Green runs for teaching:

  • Claim jumper

  • Homerun

  • Bonanza

Blue runs for teaching:

  • Assessment

  • Muckers

  • Jonesy’s

  • Mel’s alley