My Journey From Accountant to Ski Instructor (Part 2)

In Part 1, Paul Cooper told the story of his journey from his Accountancy job to CSIA Level 2, via a couple of NONSTOP ski instructor courses (read part 1 here). The next challenge was getting a job...


My first thoughts on arriving back in the UK were to look for work for the next Winter.  A friend from my course in Red Mountain had been working at Silver Star, BC and he had told me it was a great place to work, with excellent training, a decent sized ski school, plenty of work and some exceptional terrain.  With him as a reference I dropped my CV to the ski school

and was amazed to receive a call from the school the same day confirming my place with them for the 2007/8 season.

I had been prepared for a lengthy search for work and had spent days trawling the internet for email addresses and application forms for ski resorts all over Canada, the US and Japan.  With a place at Silver Star secured I was relieved I wouldn’t have to follow up on any of them.

I was fortunate to find that two of my housemates from Fernie had also landed jobs as snowboard instructors at Silver Star and we agreed to rent a house together in Vernon.  I was even more fortunate that they got to Vernon before me, found a suitable place for us to live and rented it ready for me to move into when I got there!

On my first day on the mountain I also bumped into two other skiers from Fernie who were working at the school so the five of us formed a pretty tight group for the rest of that season.

From day one teaching at Silver Star I worked primarily in the kids centre (Star Kids) and have to say I was terrified when I first took a class on my own.  I think I had Jumping Joeys as my first class, four to six year old kids who can ski green runs confidently.  I remember spending every second watching them like a hawk to make sure I didn’t lose anyone and no one fell over.  I desperately tried games and demo’s to improve their skiing and chatted constantly to them on the chairlifts, playing eye spy, learning their names and where they came from.

At the end of the lesson I talked at length to the parents about how they had done and gave them advice in where to ski with them, I finished the day shovelling snow to tidy the centre up and headed home (possibly via the bar!).  Looking back I am not sure what my thoughts were at the end of that first day but I know that somewhere around Christmas when one of the little girls hugged me to say good bye and said I was the best instructor she’d ever had I was hooked.

In my first season the majority of staff stayed in Vernon rather than on the hill and Silver Star and our daily routine was to head to the bus stop for an early ride up to the mountain, arriving before first lift.  We’d have a meeting to discuss the coming day outside the ski school, the whole school resplendent in our uniforms and then we’d head out for training.

Silver Star is lucky enough to have one of the highest counts of Level 4 instructors in its ski school and is managed by Norman Kreutz who is a Level 4 examiner, a former coach of the Interski team and basically one of the most amazing skiers it has been my good fortune to ski with.  As a consequence of this excess of talent we get a fair amount of training although it is a constant struggle for the school to manage training against work loads of the higher level instructors and budgets.

A typical mornings training is a general session aimed at a particular aspect of skiing and encourages instructors to think about their own skiing rather than being given a lot of individual specific feedback which is a great way to learn to read your own skiing.

Lessons begin at 10am and 1pm and run for 2 hours.  People had their preferences for classes, older kids or the younger ones, good skiers or beginners but I personally loved anything except the Eager Elephants.  The Elephants were four to six year olds who had learned to stop and turn and were moving to the chairlifts.  A lap on the mountain was about all you could manage in a lesson and was a constant balance between keeping them moving, developing their skiing and hiking back up the run to help another child put his ski back on!

In my first season I worked 6 days a week and during the busy Christmas period I think I went 25 days between days off.  It was hectic and tiring but still remained enjoyable.  Everyday was different, the classes and kids changed, everyone was in a good mood and the snow was beautiful.  All I can say is that every day I skied and got paid for it, we’d hit the bar after for a few Kokanees and wings, catch the staff bus home and crash out ready to do it again the next day.  Once the season settled down and the busy period passed we took some road trips, we went to Sun Peaks for a day and a half, took a trip to Revelstoke and skied some amazing steep terrain, travelled to Kicking Horse for a couple of days and Big White for the ski demo days.  I also went to Red Mountain for a few days and met up with some Nonstop veterans who were there on holiday.

At the end of the season five of us went to Whistler for the Telus Ski and Snowboard Festival.  That was a pretty fun trip although I have to admit the crowds and scale of Whistler went against everything I go to Canada to find!  I like my small town resort with no lift lines, untracked tree runs and soft snow.

In 2008/9 I returned to Silver Star for my second season, this time getting a house on the mountain with two of my friends.  Global recession had kicked in and as a whole the mountain was suffering from a lack of visitors.  As a result we worked five day weeks and had more time to free ski.  This year I was also acting as supervisor in Star Kids, basically two days a week I made sure lessons went out on time, managed the team, planned the lessons for the following day and generally oversaw the centre’s activities.  In the busy times this translated to less time on snow, in the quiet times it gave me a chance to go free skiing more and I managed to sneak in some free training sessions and the odd powder turn!

I took my Level 3 exams in 2009 which I didn’t pass but got some good feedback and experiences and continued working toward.  I also tried snowboarding for the first time as well as cross country skiing.  The benefit of being an instructor at a mountain is the chance to borrow gear for other disciplines and even just try out new skis, borrow powder skis and so on, especially if you remember to be nice to the rentals manager.  The Mountain also gives staff some pretty reasonable discounts on new gear as do most of the other local stores.

I had another opportunity to visit Red Mountain in 2009 and was reminded once more of how much I enjoyed the area and terrain.  The ski resort remains my all time favourite place to ski and as my own ability improves it offers more and more challenges.

In 2009/10 I returned to Silver Star for my third season, again as supervisor in Star Kids.  As anyone who watched the Winter Olympics will know, the snow was not the greatest in 2010.  As often seems to be the case Silver Star did not suffer as badly as some Canadian resorts but it was still the worst snow I have experienced there with no big powder days and ice and slush on offer far too often.

That said, a bad day on the snow is still better than a good day off it and I think I still skied pretty much every day.

I took and passed my Level 3 in 2010 as well as taking my Level 1 cross country ski instructor course.  I managed to get to Banff to ski Lake Louise and Sunshine both of which promised much but were suffering with the same snow conditions as the rest of the province.  I also took a couple of friends to Red Mountain for a few days and introduced them to the mountain.  I think it’s safe to say they left as Red converts, helped by some of the best snow we’d seen all season!

I am planning my return to Silver Star for my fourth season in 2010/11 with the intention of moving to the adults ski school to teach more adult lessons which I feel I need to in order to progress my own teaching and help me plan my lessons better.

Three years in and I am still in love with ski instructing and whenever I am asked I call it my career rather than accountancy which I am still forced to return to each summer in order to earn a living in the UK.  Teaching people to ski is literally the best way to earn a living I have found and the gives me the ability to ski every day of the Winter.

I was once told that instructing was a great career as long as you gave up any hopes of financial security.  I can certainly now appreciate that sentiment and in my three seasons I have seen plenty of people come and go, doing one season as an experience but not being committed to the job as a future which I can understand.  My own situation, with a career and qualifications behind me has given me the benefit of being able to earn a good living in the off season meaning that I can simply enjoy the skiing and not be worried by the relatively poor pay.

That said I teach because I enjoy it, I enjoy the team spirit and the challenge to improve my own skiing and teaching all the time.  There is still a thrill to be had from getting a beginner to make his first stop and turn or from finding a nice lip in the woods for the kids to take some air off or getting someone to carve a turn on a perfect groomer.

I am not a naturally gifted skier but I am dedicated to it and intend to keep working on it and plan to take the Level 1 examiner course this season and aim for the Level 4 in due course.

My ultimate goal would be to work in Red Mountain and teach on the Nonstop program.  What better way to close the circle of my experiences?

If you're an accountant with snow-based dreams, find out about your potential Nonstop career break on our course pages.