I drove to Whitetail today for its opening day. I spent about three hours skiing and snowboarding. The conditions were icy. I spent most of my time on the blue trails trying to carve. I am getting a hang of carving on skis. I am not quite there yet on snowboard. My feet got burn out the harder I tried to bend my ankles and knees. I am not worrying too much about carving. I am working on my open stance, which I am getting a hand of. Carving to where my hands can touch the snow I still have a long way to go.

I couldn’t work today because I needed to attend the Instructor Training Course (ITC) first. They have sessions for Saturday and Sunday. I’ll come in early tomorrow to do snowboard ITC. I also went to guest services to activate my employee pass and deactivate my Epic pass. I got reimbursed for my pass. The guest service rep also informed me that I could get dependents’ passes for a significantly low price. I am so glad that Vail cares about the family too.

Now I am motivated to work for Vail. We are saving thousands of dollars for our seasonal lift tickets alone. This is such a sweet deal. I made the right decision to work for the perks, not the pay. The only issue I am running into is that I can’t take my kids to skiing on weekends anymore because of my working schedule. I guess I can’t have everything. Something gotta give.

Yesterday, we went to Roundtop. My wife and I let Xuân and Vương played hooky. My wife also invited four of her friends to come.

I spent about 2 hours introducing three of them to skiing. They were able to plow down the hill in the carpet area. One of them started to turn. They just needed a bit more practice.

My wife and Vương were easing back into skiing. My goal this season is to transition Vương from plow to parallel.

Xuân picked up snowboarding. He did really well on the green trails. If he sticks with it this season, we will be proficient in snowboarding.

After skiing for a few hours, I switched to snowboarding. I didn’t feel any discomfort when I bent my knees and ankles. I am going to stick with teaching snowboarding this season. I’ll teach skiing next season.

I’ll have trainings on Saturday and Sunday before I could start teaching.

I didn’t go to mountains yesterday because of the rain. I also needed a day off to recuperate. I ended up staying in the motel room watched 2 films, read, and listened to music.

I felt recharged this morning and ready to snowboard. I did 3 runs on the Spruce Peak side on the easy terrains and yet my feet and legs were burning. I even tried out a new pair of boots I bought for Đán. I took a break and headed over Mansfield. I took the long green trail and yet I had to stop every few minutes to rest because my feet felt uncomfortable.

I took a lunch break and decided to give it another shot. I didn’t even try to carve. I was just riding and turning. Yet, I still had to stop to rest my legs. I didn’t know if the equipment caused the discomfortness or my riding had issues. Perhaps, I might not snowboard correctly.

Around 1:00 pm, I decided to switch to skiing. My feet weren’t comfortable at first, but they were fine after the second run. I was able to keep my legs close in parallel and shift my weight to my outside ski. I also tried to turn my knees so my skis could be on an edge. Carving this way begins to few a bit more natural. The speed was a bit too fast for my comfort level, but I finally got it.

I did 3 or 4 runs on blues and green trails. Around 3:00 pm the lift went down. I also called it the day. I went back to the motel to pack up. I will be leaving early tomorrow around 3 am. I hope to get back home before 3:00 pm. I miss my family too much.

Man, I am aging. I woke up this morning and was not fully recovered. Nevertheless, I put on my ski boots and hit the trails. Walking in my ski boots was already hurting my feet; therefore, I started off on the easy green. As I was riding the lift, I noticed the kids from the race team practiced. They simply shifted their weight to their outside ski and bent their knee to carve.

I gave that a try and it worked, but the speed was a bit too fast for me even on the mellow green trail. I had to carve in an S shape to slow down, but then when I switched my foot, I started to skid. I spent the whole morning on the easy green trail and the pain from my feet went away. The ski boots felt so comfortable afterward. That was not the case with the soft snowboard boots yesterday. The more I tried to carve on snowboard, the more discomfort I got.

Getting off the lift on skis were so nice. I didn’t have to strap on at all. In fact, my skis were strapped onto my boots the entire time unless I decided to go inside and take a break.

I went over to Mansfield to do some blue trails. I was not in the mood to do the blacks and the double blacks. I hopped on the long green trails and continued to carve and shift my weight. Nevertheless, I was exhausted around 2:30 pm. I didn’t want to walk to my car; therefore, I decided to do another blue runs so I could drop off close to where I parked.

The left the resort at 3:00 pm. In the past, I would never leave before 4:00 pm, but I couldn’t even ski anymore. I am going to rest up so I can get back to snowboarding tomorrow.

I switched to snowboard today. I started off over in Spruce Peak on the green terrains to carve. I didn’t quite get to where I wanted to be yet, but I did see a thin line in the snow. I inserted the shin guards in between the shell and the liner of my booths to help with the heel turns. Unfortunately, they kept sliding out; therefore, I stopped using them.

I must confess, I don’t like strapping up my binding every single time I get at the top of the lift. Some resorts, such as Mount Snow and Whitetail, have a bench at the top of the lifts so snowboarders can strap on easier. I am old and I have a gut. In addition, my jacket is tight; therefore, either standing up or sitting on the snow to strap on isn’t fun. By 11:30 am, I was getting tired strapping on my binding. I am thinking of click-in bindings. I would have to buy a new pair of boots. The combo would just be so expensive.

Around noon, I went over to Mansfield to take some blue runs since I was not hungry yet. As I approached the double-black trails, I was not sure if I should give them a run. The double-black trails at Stowe are no joke. I skied once last spring and I could barely survive the big moguls. Then my adrenaline kicked in and I decided to take a shot. The moguls weren’t too bad this time. The snow was also soft; therefore, it was not so bad. I actually enjoyed the run.

I went back inside for a quick lunch and then headed back to the double-black trails again. I could do a few quick turns. When I didn’t feel comfortable, I just slide down. My legs burned and I took many breaks. After that, I wanted to revisit the black diamond trail I liked last spring. This time, there were moguls from top to bottom. My legs were giving out. My toes started to hurt. It turned out that I strapped my bindings a bit too tight. I couldn’t make anymore turns. I had to do the falling leaf all the way down. Even then I had to take many breaks.

I hate to admit it, but I am feeling old. My body can’t take the challenging terrains anymore. I need to take it easy. I will be back t skiing tomorrow.

Last night I went to bed early and had about 10 hours of sleep. I woke up to a blanket of snow outside. Luckily the roads were plowed.

To start off my skiing day, I went to Spruce Peak instead of Mansfield. I wanted to see if I could transfer my carving technique I worked on all summer on my rollerblade. I fell a couple of times, but it worked on the easy green. I kept doing it until the lift started to get crowded around noon time. I ate lunch and went over to Mansfield for the big mountains.

It was so foggy that I decided to stick to the blue slopes. Unfortunately the blue slopes had lots of moguls, I could not carve. I did two runs and I was exhausted. I felt like aging is catching up to me.

I decided to head back to Mansfield to practice more carvings. My knees were burning. I did several runs and it was almost 4:pm. Even though I was tired, I decided to give ice skating a try. The rink was rough and I had not ice skated in a while. Though rollerblading helped me remember how to ice skate.

After about half an hour, I was too tired and decided to head back to the motel to relax. Tomorrow I will switch to snowboarding.

On Friday, I went to bed around 10:30 pm, but couldn’t sleep. Around 12:30 am, I decided to just go. I hit the road at 1:00 am in the morning. Around 1:30 am, the tire-warning light lit up. I panicked a little. Then the light went off. Then went on again as I drove further away from home.

I stopped at a service area and checked the pressure on all four tires. They were at 37 PSI, which meant the tires weren’t punctured. I kept on driving until I was too tire and needed a nap. I took 3 naps at 3 different stop areas. The estimated time from my house to Stowe was around 9 hours. I took 12.

I arrived at Stowe Mountains at 1 pm. I took out my snowboard and hopped on the lift. I wanted to try out the carving technique I had been learning in my basement for many months. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out as smoothly as I had thought.

I did 2 runs and I was exhausted. Lacking of sleep and driving 12 hours got me beat. At 3:00 pm I decided to check into the motel to relax and recharge. Let’s try skiing tomorrow.

The temperature is dropping. It’s time to store away our rollerblades and scooters and bring out our skis and snowboards.

This Friday will be my last day at the law school for 2024, but then my other job will start on December 20 if Whitetail can manage to open. I can’t wait that long to hit the terrains; therefore, I will be driving 10 hours to Stowe this Saturday. Since the kids still have school, I will spend time alone to relax and de-stress.

My wife and I hadn’t planned our “me time” trip, but it just fell into place. I always encouraged her to take some time for herself to recharge. I am sure the kids and I drive her to the wall everyday. I was glad that she traveled to Paris a few months ago with her aunt, cousins, and sister. It would be nice to go on a ski trip with the fellows, but none of my friends would be interested in the winter sports.

Then again, I am completely comfortable traveling alone. I would spend all day on the mountains anyway. After a long day of skiing and snowboarding, I would find a nice place to eat and check out the area or see a movie in a theater. Of course, I can just kick back reading a book or writing a blog post.

As for spending time on the mountains, I am looking forward to applying the carving techniques I have been learning all summer. Using my rollerblades, I emulated ski carving with proper stance and driving with my outside foot. I practiced my snowboard stance on my actual snowboard. I hope these off-the-snow techniques will transfer on the snow.

Carving is my only goal for personal development this season. I am looking forward to helping others learn snowboarding. I can’t wait to spend time with my family on the mountains this winter.

1. Connection: Introduction & check equipments (5 minutes)
2. Flat Ground Exercises: Demo “Homebase” position (athletic stance) (5 minutes)
3. Strap in Both Feet to Board: Revisit “Homebase” position with both feet strapped into board. (5 minutes)
4. Skate: Demonstrate skating both directions (10-15 minutes).
5. Magic Carpet: Explain loading/unloading carpet safety. Instructor’s last (30 minutes into lesson).
6. Sideslip: Demo toe edge and heel edge sideslip (10-15 minutes).
7. Falling Leaf: Demo toe edge and heel edge (15-20 minutes).
8. Chair Lift: Explain safety, safety bar, and how to load and unload (1 hour into lesson).
9. J-Turn: Demo J-Turn to left or right (25-30 minutes).
10. S-Turn: Demo Linking Turns (25-30 minutes).
11. Wrap Up: Thank guests for coming (5 minutes).

I attended the indoor training for new instructors this morning. It was quite a large group. There were more ski than snowboard instructors; therefore, I went with snowboard.

We introduced ourselves. Most skiers had 15 to 30 years of experience. I had four. Most snowboarders had 8 to 12 years of experience. I had two. I will probably be one of the oldest snowboard instructors.

After the brief introductions, we split up into two camps. I went with the snowboard camp. We did some activities together, including teaching a subject drawn from a helmet. I got “Red light, green light.” I zipped through it. In retrospect, I should have asked for participants to play the game.

Then we went to the outside learning center and two instructors walked us through the very beginner lesson. It didn’t look too bad.

Everyone on the snow school team were friendly and cool. I am looking forward to the season.