Early last week, Bloomberg published a piece by Brandon Presser on the . Covering $50,000 tips, secret clubs with $250,000 induction fees,difficult clients, and snotty celebrities, it featured all the decadence and upper-class excess you’d expect from one of America’s swankest ski resorts. But as a former instructor myself, I could not relate less. Then again, I worked at , a undevelopedski area in the North Cascades beloved forits steep chutes, unbelievablepowder, and rustic charm. It’s just athree-hour drive away from Seattle but a million miles away from Aspen’s A-list.
When I worked at Baker as a snowboard instructor during the 2015–16 season, you’d likely find me standing in the one corner of the lodge that had cell service while checking my dilapidated bank balance instead of slurping down thousands of dollars’worth ofchampagne with my clients. And I bet that’s an experience more instructors can relate to. So without further ado, and with all due respect to Mr. Presser,I’ve respondedpoint by point to his Bloomberg story to show you whatit’s really liketo teach skiing or snowboardingfor a living.
Surprisingly, There Are No “Whales” at This Pacific Northwest Ski Area…
A whale is a high-spending client, and Presser reports that the average tip in Aspen is an unspoken $100 a day, though some instructors have snagged as much as $50,000 or a brand new Jeep. My biggest tip ever? $20.
…So Avoid Getting a Morning Lesson
Since tips—and therefore the financial windfalls Presser chronicles in his Bloomberg piece—are mostly nonexistent at Baker, the best perkwe could hope for was getting out of a morning lesson so wecould ski pow.
There are really only two ways to do this. Firstyou tell a tale of grandeur to one of the youngerpart-time instructors about what they could do with all that extra money if they took your spot. That never really works, so your second option is to never be assigned a lesson in the first place.
Lessons were delegated by our manager at the 8:45 A.M. check-in. They would call out the name of the instructor that had be chosen, who would apathetically sulk to the front to take their burden. Superstition held that if you stood in the back of the crowd and avoided eye contact with the manager, you may just be forgotten about and spared. However, you also wanted to seem aloof, like you didn’tcare if you got a lesson or not. Taking that logic to an extreme, a controversial approach employed by a brave few was actually the opposite: stand at the front and never break eye contact, eager to be chosen. Ultimatelythe decision was already made. We were just searching for something that could give us a sense of control over our meek existences.
The Instructors Are Watching You in the Parking Lot
Presser starts off his piece with examplesof how the instructors at Aspen size up their clients before they even get off the first lift of the day.And while that’s universal among instructors, at Bakerthat reconnaissance started well before our clients even got to lift. We’d scope them out before they'd even leavethe parking lot, oftenfrom the back window of acamper shellafter a good night’s sleep. Some are scouting out the known ice patches, looking to get a live view of the day’s first casualties, but mostlywe’d watchthe parking lot fill up andmakeestimates on how many lessons there’dbe that day.
Most Clients Don’t Know What They Want, Because They’re Ten
Aspen’s clientsapparently prefer “fun young guys” with Australian accents as guides because, as Presser writes, “Women want to date them; men want to bro out with them.” In my experience, the best guides are ones who are good with kids. Group lessonsat Baker often resemble a day care more than a ski school. Powder-hungry parents are ready to charge, so instead of wasting the morning cruising greens with their kids, they’d delegate that responsibility to a totally capable college freshman.
As the dad skied off I turned to see thekid staring down at his snowboard in a way that seemed to suggest he was experiencing his first existential crisis.
One time a parent skied up to me with about tenminutes left in the lesson, said it was too good of a dayto ski with a kid—in front of his kid—and asked if it was cool if he took another lap. I agreed, hoping for a better tip, but as the dad skied off I turned to see thekid staring down at his snowboard in a way that seemed to suggest he was experiencing his first existential crisis. We didn’t doanother lap—I took him inside for a hot chocolate with extra whipped cream. When the dad returned, he thanked me for buying the little dude a drinkbut didn’t offer to reimburse me, much lesstip me. I mean, I had gotten the hot chocolate for free, but he didn’t know that.
The Unspoken Rules of Flattering Moms
At Aspen, instructors may be paired with clients through a process akin to matchmaking. At Baker, group lessons were assigned more or less by luck of the draw. And since most of the group lessons were for kids, the most consistent adult interactions I had were theshort conversations with their moms.
Moms were unequivocally the best, and not just because they are consistent tippers. They’re also patient with their kid’s progress, punctual for pickup times, and will even ask after your own physiological needs. This being the case, it is advantageous to flatter them and attribute all the positive qualities of their children to the maternal lineage. And maybe tease Dad a bit—I mean, men, am I right? Even if you don’t get a monetary tip, you might snag a snack and a juice box, which is what I’d buy with the money anyway.
The Best-Regarded Clients Are the Ones Who PickYou Up on the Side of the Road
You won’t hear any celebrity name dropping in the Baker locker room. Insteadthe best client may be the kid whose family gave you a lift to the base village that morning. With some help from your thumb and a family-friendly smile, it’s usually easy to make it to work on time after waking up in arandom house in Glacier (the closet town)wearing the same clothes from yesterday. Still, sleeping off the rest of your hangover in the back of a minivan while a ten-year-old gazes at you in a way that implies both curiosity and disappointment doesn’t make for the best morning. Thatkid will only be more disappointed when theyseeyou again in your green instructor jacket and realizes you’ve been trusted with teaching them a highly specialized skill in a formidable environment.
AprèsIs Nonexistent, But Sometimes You Get a Free Burger
Ah, Aspen’s famed après scene, where champagne flows like water. This slope-side ritual is not really anoptionfor Baker’s instructors.If you happened to receive a meager tip, you could buy a beer at one of the two baselodges, but they would usually empty out by 5 P.M.As for sustanence, dinner was served at the employee lodge at the senior-citizen-special hour of 5:30 P.M. It happenedthatearly because many employees were required to rise before dawn, and the rest were so burnt out that they wereasleep by 8 P.M. anyway.
All the Other Employees Hate the InstructorsBecause They Think We’re a Gang
Presser equates Aspen’s rival gangs of instructorsto secret societies. That’s not true at Baker, though it’s certainly a popular opinion.
A friend once told me that he hated the instructors because“they’re so full of themselves, always together, with their green jackets,” before quickly adding that I was one of the few cool ones. I can confirm that I amin factsomewhat cool, and that instructors didin factwear green jackets. But those jackets didn’t mean we were some sort of exclusive group. We just stuck together because we did the same job on the same mountain. And I can tell you thatif there was a secret society, I was definitely not invited.
Ski Patrol Is the Varsity Football Team
If there was one exclusive group on the mountain, it wasn’tthe instructors. Ski patrollershad their own shuttle, their own lodge, and they got all the girls and guys. But, they deserve it. The patrol at ѴdzܲԳ is a bare-bones staff of badasses. They have to be in order to keep this rowdy, gnarly, and amazing place under control.