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Brock Tice

Brock Tice

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I am happy to report that I did my intro to backcountry/AT class yesterday in some Colorado pow and loved it. I think starting the day with a few uphill laps is a very good candidate for helping with this issue. Now I just need my AT bindings and skis delivered.
 

kimmyt

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@Brock Tice I should have shot you a message because I was just at Taos and chomping at the bit on the first day w no one to ski with. I booked a lesson and was trying to tell the instructor that I wanted to ski steeps and trees and didn't want to do a lot of drills (talking ok on the lift) and another guy on the lift with me looked at me and asked, 'Are you in a bad mood or something?' I told him it was just my personality :rolleyes:
 
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Brock Tice

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@Brock Tice I should have shot you a message because I was just at Taos and chomping at the bit on the first day w no one to ski with. I booked a lesson and was trying to tell the instructor that I wanted to ski steeps and trees and didn't want to do a lot of drills (talking ok on the lift) and another guy on the lift with me looked at me and asked, 'Are you in a bad mood or something?' I told him it was just my personality :rolleyes:

Haha, well, drop me a line next time and I'll do my best to show you around. Who was the instructor?
 

kimmyt

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uhm i totally forget his name, maybe Trey?
 

coskigirl

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@Brock Tice I should have shot you a message because I was just at Taos and chomping at the bit on the first day w no one to ski with. I booked a lesson and was trying to tell the instructor that I wanted to ski steeps and trees and didn't want to do a lot of drills (talking ok on the lift) and another guy on the lift with me looked at me and asked, 'Are you in a bad mood or something?' I told him it was just my personality :rolleyes:

WTF? Dollars to donuts he wouldn’t have said that to a man.
 

dbostedo

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WTF? Dollars to donuts he wouldn’t have said that to a man.

I'm not even sure what it means... why would wanting to ski steeps and trees, and not do drills, have anything to do with being in a bad mood? I feel like I'm missing something.
 

Tricia

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WTF? Dollars to donuts he wouldn’t have said that to a man.
I doubt that. From what I understand, the guys at Taos are used to strong female skiers.
 

kimmyt

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It wasn't the ski instructor who said it, he was a cool dude! It was another guy in the class. Perhaps I was being more forceful than people are used to, but I was trying (politely, I thought) to make it clear what I wanted out of the lesson, which wasn't to spend time focusing on drills and techniques and essentially to get an introduction to the upper mountain since it was my first ski day there and I was skiing solo. Add to that the fact that instead of the advertised 4 to 1 ratio we ended up with 6 to 1, 1 guy of who had never hiked before and had to be babysat by the instructor which reduced our skiing time, and perhaps I was in a bad mood. I do think that women tend to keep their opinions to themselves more in mixed gender groups, so perhaps I was overcompensating by voicing my opinions so forcefully, but I like to think I was being polite at the time (and in the end, the guy that made the comment seemed like an ok dude but it was still an unnecessary comment and yeah I feel like it wouldn't have been said to a dude but who knows).

Anyway, not trying to hijack this thread with gender polltics, since I know this forum isn't friendly for that sort of thing, but I was just trying to sympathize with OP that he's not the only one that has no chill at times.
 

coskigirl

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I doubt that. From what I understand, the guys at Taos are used to strong female skiers.

They're used to strong female local skiers. I suspect they are used to guys coming to visit with their girlfriends/wives and sending the girls off on a lesson so they can go play in the good stuff.

ETA: It did sound like it was another random dude, not your instructor.
 
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Brock Tice

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This continues to deviate a little, but if you want an instructor that loves to go hard at TSV, see if you can snag Tim Larsen or Scott Lacek (sp? Pronounced like LASIK). Tim took our locals group to upper stauffenberg for our very first warm-up run this year. Both of them can and have run me ragged.
 

Sibhusky

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what I wanted out of the lesson, which wasn't to spend time focusing on drills and techniques and essentially to get an introduction to the upper mountain since it was my first ski day there and I was skiing solo.
Really, resorts should also offer paid guide services. I got with a group who wanted the same thing one season, whereas I was signed up because, gasp!, I wanted lessons. Putting both categories of skier together makes it hard on the instructor and the students.
 
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Brock Tice

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TSV does offer guide services. I have never tried them but typically as skill level goes up the lessons become more about guiding and less about drills.
 

Seldomski

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Really, resorts should also offer paid guide services. I got with a group who wanted the same thing one season, whereas I was signed up because, gasp!, I wanted lessons. Putting both categories of skier together makes it hard on the instructor and the students.

Breckenridge and Aspen do offer products with this distinction - lessons as well as guides. Europe ski schools do the same. The price is the same for either.

Edit: I am sure there are other North American resorts that delineate between the two. This is somewhat recent in my experience - maybe only a few years old within the Vail properties. IDK about resorts in general ... coming soon to a mountain near you!
 

Tricia

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It wasn't the ski instructor who said it, he was a cool dude! It was another guy in the class. Perhaps I was being more forceful than people are used to, but I was trying (politely, I thought) to make it clear what I wanted out of the lesson, which wasn't to spend time focusing on drills and techniques and essentially to get an introduction to the upper mountain since it was my first ski day there and I was skiing solo. Add to that the fact that instead of the advertised 4 to 1 ratio we ended up with 6 to 1, 1 guy of who had never hiked before and had to be babysat by the instructor which reduced our skiing time, and perhaps I was in a bad mood. I do think that women tend to keep their opinions to themselves more in mixed gender groups, so perhaps I was overcompensating by voicing my opinions so forcefully, but I like to think I was being polite at the time (and in the end, the guy that made the comment seemed like an ok dude but it was still an unnecessary comment and yeah I feel like it wouldn't have been said to a dude but who knows).

Anyway, not trying to hijack this thread with gender polltics, since I know this forum isn't friendly for that sort of thing, but I was just trying to sympathize with OP that he's not the only one that has no chill at times.
Ahhhh, you signed up for a group lesson instead of a private, and others in the group actually wanted a lesson, where you wanted a guide.
Sorry but that's kind of on you.

That is when you use your resources like Pugski to ask if anyone from Taos will be around to show you around, or book a private, or see about a paid resort guide.

Emphasis in bold: I understand the insult of being in a 6-1 instead of 4-1, but "The guy who had to be babysat" could have been a guy in a 4-1 class.
 

Wasatchman

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Sounds like @kimmyt signed up for the wrong lesson.

I believe Taos also offers up an expert level mountain tour for $75 that she may have enjoyed a lot more.
 

kimmyt

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Sounds like @kimmyt signed up for the wrong lesson.

I believe Taos also offers up an expert level mountain tour for $75 that she may have enjoyed a lot more.

Yes, I had a lengthy disciussion at the ticket office and believed this was what I signed up for. However, there is no such thing (multiple instructors hadn't heard of it). Instead, it is a $75 lesson. There is a free mountain tour for IKON users but that is relegated to intermediate terrain.
 

kimmyt

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Ahhhh, you signed up for a group lesson instead of a private, and others in the group actually wanted a lesson, where you wanted a guide.
Sorry but that's kind of on you.

That is when you use your resources like Pugski to ask if anyone from Taos will be around to show you around, or book a private, or see about a paid resort guide.

Emphasis in bold: I understand the insult of being in a 6-1 instead of 4-1, but "The guy who had to be babysat" could have been a guy in a 4-1 class.

And NO, this is absolutely not all on me. I had a lengthy conversation with ski school prior to paying for the lesson. I specified what I was looking for and they said that as long as I made that clear to the instructors, that shouldn't be a problem. Additionally, the instructors were understaffed and both 'advanced' groups (of which all the people that signed up for lessons claimed they were, despite several being unable to ski a blue bump line during our unofficial ski off) were more than the ratio that was advertised. They didn't call in additional ski school instructors to reduce the ratio. Listen, I have no problem admitting that this was partly my issue, but the ski school should have told me when I discussed this with them prior to purchasing, that what I was looking for was not a possibility.

And yes, I coiuld have used Pugski's resources, as I mentioned to OP. Its made more challenging by the fact that I only have 2.5 hours to ski on a given day with my schedule, so I thought that the best use of my time was to pay someone to show me the goods and was told that this was a good idea by the people I was trying to pay.

This is very divergant from the OP, but I'm pretty surprised to see everyone here jumping down my throat from an offhand comment I made. I've been skiing a while, and taken a lot of lessons. I understand the complexities of ski lessons and difficulties for instructors. I had a poor experience, and I took some ownership for that experience (I didn't post a scathing negative review of the TSV ski school, for instance), although I 100% believe I was not solely or even mostly at fault in the situation. Additionally, I know I'm not the only person that has had an issue with TSV as of recent because I did utilize the pugski resources to read recent trip reports from ski week, and made sure to do everything in my effort to try and rectify the situation before it occurs.
 
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Brock Tice

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I had a lengthy conversation with ski school prior to paying for the lesson. I specified what I was looking for and they said that as long as I made that clear to the instructors, that shouldn't be a problem. ... the ski school should have told me when I discussed this with them prior to purchasing, that what I was looking for was not a possibility.

I don't have a lot of other experience with lessons (only at one other place) but IMO there is a huge disconnect between the TSV ski school office and the instructors on the snow. I have seen it in action. Luckily I rarely deal with the actual ski school office. Communication was a real weak point there before the change of ownership, and I think it's actually slowly improving.

And yes, I coiuld have used Pugski's resources, as I mentioned to OP. Its made more challenging by the fact that I only have 2.5 hours to ski on a given day with my schedule, so I thought that the best use of my time was to pay someone to show me the goods and was told that this was a good idea by the people I was trying to pay.
...

This is very divergant from the OP,

FWIW I don't think this is so off-topic, it gets right back to the heart of my problem. Sometimes it's hard to find other people that want to charge hard, including lesson classmates and instructors!

but I'm pretty surprised to see everyone here jumping down my throat from an offhand comment I made. I've been skiing a while, and taken a lot of lessons. I understand the complexities of ski lessons and difficulties for instructors. I had a poor experience, and I took some ownership for that experience (I didn't post a scathing negative review of the TSV ski school, for instance), although I 100% believe I was not solely or even mostly at fault in the situation. Additionally, I know I'm not the only person that has had an issue with TSV as of recent because I did utilize the pugski resources to read recent trip reports from ski week, and made sure to do everything in my effort to try and rectify the situation before it occurs.

:micdrop:
 

Monique

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As a student, it can be very difficult, socially almost impossible, to deal with a poorly matched group. I have no doubt that the SALES people at the window (and in a lot of places, they might not even ski) assured @kimmyt that it would be fine and that she would get what she wanted. And I have no doubt that with limited instructors available, the push was to consolidate classes. And I have no doubt that YES, they made the gendered (and often correct) assumption that as a woman, she'd be less aggro. Not to mention less likely to advocate for what she wanted.

In theory, you can recognize that you're not getting what you want, and request a change or a refund. Look at this in practice. You go to lineup, and you say "This is what I want." The supervisor puts you in a group. They do not put you in a group of one. They bunch people. Sometimes, they push hard to bunch people across multiple levels - I've had to fight that before. So you go out and do a few runs, because you're not confident this is the best group, but you aren't 100% sure and maybe you're just not giving people a chance, and after all, you do want a lesson. It becomes clear that you don't want what the other people in the group want. But yeah, they're not going to volunteer to put you in a group. You have to ask for it. And now if it's a half day lesson, how much time do you have left after a couple of runs, when it's clear you aren't going to get what you EXPLICITLY ASKED FOR? And having actually used the product, are you going to go back and ask for a refund? And the refund may not really make up the damage, because it's your last day of the trip, or you promised to take care of your kids, or whatever, and not only have you not gotten what you've paid for - you've been skiing stuff that isn't as interesting as what you would have found all on your own.

And this is especially tough as the most aggro or skilled person in the group, because lessons MUST cater to the lowest common denominator. It's the only safe option.

And as for privates - obviously that is incredibly expensive, but also, many ski instructors (I can't speak to Taos specifically) can't ski terrain at the pace and frequency that someone like Kim can. A lot of those will be booked already. A private with an instructor who mostly teaches level 5-7s and maybe hits serious terrain once a day in perfect conditions with his best students - that's not worth the money you pay, but it's also VERY difficult to tell an instructor like that, hey, you can't actually hang at my pace - I need someone else. Believe me, I've been there, tried to do it. I think of myself as assertive, but tell someone to their face that even though they're a professional and you're an amateur, they aren't comfortable enough or fast enough on challenging terrain, or the habits they developed teaching level 7s are interfering with you actually enjoying yourself.
 

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