Greek Peak Conditions

LMAO, good one WP

Anyway, in was quite busy yesterday. Parking stretched all the way to the Stavlos. We picked up a couple of inches as well.

Greek was good yesterday. The inch or two they picked up made a world of difference. I think it would've been pretty brutal without it.

Last day of staycation and day 13 at GP. It wasn't too bad, considering the weather we have had. I should have hit Iliad sooner than I did. It was a combination of skied off ice/cat tracks on the top. The bottom was pretty good. The reason I didn't head over there sooner was on my way to the warm-up lap on Karyatis/Kristy's I found two inches of fresh untracked snow on skier's left.  It was too good to leave it. 😁

No, today wasn't perfect. Low light and some mixed precipitation.  I was glad for JRG's heads up on the slush at the bottom of Kristy's because I found that.

But, hey, I could have been at work today. Tomorrow is going to suck.

WP

Skied Greek tonight, got to say best conditions I’ve skied on in 2 weeks. Light snow all night to help things out. Best run tonight was probably Alcmene ,and worst was Odyssey, they were working on making it race ready. So to say it was hard is a under statement. By the looks I was the only one down it all day. Great night!

Conditions last night were indeed great at Greek. I had to leave about 8pm and there was snow in the air and snowmakers were set up on Zeus, Castor, Alpha, Upper Mars and scattered other places, ready to turn on as soon as temps lowered a degree or two. Warm weather and rain is forecast for the weekend, so get out there today and tomorrow for the best conditions.

I talked to several folks last night who were at Greek because their local areas were skiing on limited terrain. Elk, Song, Lab, Tog were all mentioned as having three top to bottom runs, although they were advertising 6-10 trails. For example Song counts Upper Stormy and Lower Stormy as two different trails, though these are really only one run.

I learned last night that we picked up a few experienced instructors from PA to the south as well as other CNY areas. Some are driving considerable distances. They make it clear that we are doing better than the places they came from. They aren't complaining about our disorganized lift lines or the lift unloading ramps. Instead they are complementing Greek's snowmaking and terrain. They seem to be very happy here.

And guys, Monday and Tuesday nights are the least crowded. No schools, only a few racers.

Dougski wrote

I learned last night that we picked up a few experienced instructors from PA to the south as well as other CNY areas. Some are driving considerable distances. They make it clear that we are doing better than the places they came from. They aren't complaining about our disorganized lift lines or the lift unloading ramps. Instead they are complementing Greek's snowmaking and terrain. They seem to be very happy here.

That's great to hear that you picked up some experienced instructors. What ski areas did they come from, and are they PSIA level 3 certified? Greek Peak once had a phenomenal program under Gordie Richardson. They were even top ranked by Ski Magazine in their annual resort ratings for many years.

Lab, Song, Tog, Elk and a few others have alumni at Greek. As for certification, we've got instructors at all levels. PSIA has  disappointed me. I've gotten more out of the Terrain Based Learning program and our senior instructor staff sessions. They're great. PSIA seems to be a money grabbing bureaucratic organization with expensive longer duration training sessions offered too infrequently. They know they've got budget issues and did a major reorganization last year. Membership is sharply down. Fewer instructors are bothering with them. Its sad.

That’s interesting information at PSIA. Like many organizations, they sometimes get too big for their own good. When you’re just about the only game in town, I suppose that’s easy to do.

Im glad to hear that you have fresh faces from a variety of different ski areas, as they can bring varied experiences to Greek Peak.

I'm thinking it also has to do with fewer and fewer people looking to get into teaching? That's purely a guess based on the consistent decline of skier visits.
I know when I was teaching being in the PSIA was a requirement. You were given 1 year to get into the program or you were out. That's for full-time teachers. It sounds like now you don't specifically have to be in PSIA to get a job.

For some reason its hard to get ski and (especially) board instructors. Greek would like us to get certified at least to level 1, and Greek is planning on sponsoring clinics with PSIA, but nobody is getting fired because they don't have PSIA certification. They get fired when they don't show up and don't call in!

I think that its hard to get instructors for the same reasons its hard to get lifies and snow maker staff: it can be hard physical work; its seasonal, the pay and benefits aren't that great, and too many kids would rather sit on the couch playing with their computer than engaging in physical activity. Its kind of sad.

Anyway, skiing at Greek today was outstanding. Both man-made and lake effect snow was falling hard. The school ski clubs were in full gear, and they seemed to be having a good time, despite the wild windy conditions. We got a good 2 - 3 inches this afternoon and evening.

The Visions chair decided to take a one hour break at 6:05. To offload all the kids, the auxiliary motor had to be fired up for the first time this season. They ran Chair 1 until Visions was back in service at 7:15 after some switch was replaced. I really hate that chairlift. It seems that every year the stupid loading track has issues, or its down for "maintenance". And it's not a high speed quad. Last month the track was off for days and then had to be replaced (putting the chair out of service for another couple of days). Enough said about that.

Brownski tipped me off to this discussion of PSIA in the Greek thread so as a staff trainer at WF here is my two cents on the topic.

it sounds as if the issue is that Greek's management doesn't value the PSIA cert so thus Doug infers it has lower value as well.  Most areas pay more to higher level cert instructors and assign privates based on cert status so that should make provide incentive to get certified and increase your level in the future.  

Psia's role at the local area level is really to train the few L3's / Ed Staff that a smaller area like Greek would have so that they can provide solid and frequent training to the staff as a whole.   To take the L1 exam you are supposed to have 25 to 50 hours of inhouse training prior to the exam but I would question if that is happening especially at smaller feeder areas.  Having that training up front preps for the exam and better learning of the material.  If a ski areas management is just kicking the can up to PSIA to provide all the training for their staff that is not the purpose of the org and I can see how that would fail in Doug's eyes.  To cut costs PSIA E did eliminate the DCL level a couple years back which may have impacted having Ed Staff at smaller mts like Greek.

I was recently at Sunday River for a race and I watched how a top flight larger ski school with a lot of ED staff on board ran training clinics in the early am before thier lessons started for the day.  That is a highly effective way to train staff run by our other L3's.  

I personally have gained a great deal in my personal skiing and by knowledge from PSIA.  The org is committing to reaching out and expanding the younger age groups participation and I am seeing more 20 something's teaching now for fun and a sense of belonging than i have since i was a young pup myself.  If you are in this for the money in the East you are doing it wrong as you just can't make a living at it.  If you are out of college and have a good job and want to ski and meet people on the weekends its perfect for that and in our stronger economy I am now seeing that happen again for the first time since i was in my 20's.  I think PSIA has in some way made the L 2 and 3 certification too easy by allowing to pass in sections instead of own it as a whole and I think they are adjusting somewhat in that respect for L3.  

This year at WF our management has recommitted to training.  We are now requiring staff to take 2 on going clinics per month from our in house training staff.  My role is to run clinics on Sunday mornings and we will be also offering Saturday afternoon and twice during the weekdays clinics per week.

For many, many reasons you can't compare Greek to WF in any capacity. It simply can't be done. We aren't owned by the state therefore we don't have that blank checkbook the gov seems to enjoy.

Do your guys pet paid when they are taking the required training.  Geez you are singing a different tune since they gave you a title.

tjf1967 wrote

   Geez you are singing a different tune since they gave you a title.

I was going to bring that up but decided not too

I may have given impression that Greek doesn't care if we get certified. They certainly do care, and our management is trying to get onsite PSIA sessions for us to get certified here, rather than have to travel to other mountains. We do have PSIA level threes training us at Greek. I have personally asked for and received individual one on one training from these folks... and they are really good at it.

All I was trying to say is that it is so hard to get, and keep, instructors, that nobody is getting fired for not being certified. You can get fired for being a poor instructor. Without a doubt.  

I also often ponder how smaller mountains attract ski patrollers, since most are volunteer positions that require a considerable amount of off season training at the patrollers own expense.

In terms of instructors, I would think that having PSIA certified instructors would garner some bragging rights for a ski area. Going back to what I previously mentioned, Greek Peak had a couple hundred instructors back in the day, and would continuously be ranked in the 10 ten in Ski magazine nationwide. That included ALL ski areas nationwide. That spoke volumes as to the caliber of instructor they once had. However, as you may recall, Greek Peak also developed a number of innovative programs in-house.  

Very true

That was all Gordie

My kids and visiting family and friends got great lessons at Greek over the years. They would always continue to say Hi whenever we would see them on the hill even years later and I would even venture to say they influenced my wife and son to become instructors.

I went to the ProJam dinner at Mt Snow back in December with my wife and they made it a point that attracting young instructors is a PSIA priority. They had everyone stand up by age group and I don't think there were 10 under the age of thirty in the room of hundreds... I think I was the median age lol

I should add that I am very proud that Mrs SnoBunSki ski passed her level 2 skiing!

Rj1972 wrote

I also often ponder how smaller mountains attract ski patrollers, since most are volunteer positions that require a considerable amount of off season training at the patrollers own expense.

This is actually something I would like to do and looked into. I couldn’t commit to the time the training would take. It is significant and ongoing.

tjf1967 wrote

Do your guys pet paid when they are taking the required training.  Geez you are singing a different tune since they gave you a title.

If you see Orda snowsports staff out on the hill with their uniform on then generally they are getting paid.  

I’ve been running clinics  at WF for 20 years so nothing changed there and I am not a supervisor nor ever want to be one.  Frankly they can’t afford me in that role as I’m doing this for fun not money.  I’ve struggled to find a happy balance to fit teaching into my super busy life and currently I’m happy with that balance.   The difference is the new manager of Snowsports really is committed to training so we are now doing training in season compared to primarily preseason in the past.  I enjoy training staff and coaching athletic kids and that is what they are having me do this yr so despite the less than stellar season WF is having I’m happy and the tone of posts probably reflects that TJF.  

Greek is probably much closer to WF snowsports school than it is to Killington or Sunday River.  We don’t have a huge staff like those other big Mts do and I’d readily admit we are playing catch up to them.  

My post was more pro psia than pro WF in my mind

Hey TJF it would be great if your band of merry men could make rock picking up sweeps.  I’ve been chucking rocks into the woods all yr.  is that the Z you are asking ?