TR Elk Mountain, PA, Women's Clinic 3/1/14

marzNC · Mar 7, 2014

In January, I checked out Elk Mountain and learned about their monthly Women's Clinics. On March 1, I attended and had a good time. @maggie198 also attended.

The Elk Women's Clinics have been going on for 20+ years. They are for women ages 21 and up, intermediate and up. The flyer says it starts with those who have "mastered the bunny slope but need a hand to tackle the intermediates." The most advanced group is described as working on "rhythm and timing, balance and style" including bumps. Elk has a couple pretty decent bump runs. Cost without rentals for women without a season pass is $95, which includes the group lessons, lunch, and social hour (1 drink). The phone number for reservations is 570-679-4400.

After getting organized 8:00-8:30, the morning group session is three hours. The afternoon session, 1:00-3:30, is for "skiing, practice, and personal critique." There is a social hour afterwards. Since I drove to VT afterwards, I left right after lunch.

I stayed at the Microtel Inn in Dickson City (next to Scranton) that I discovered on the earlier trip in Jan. The GM/co-owner is a skier and a regular at Elk. It's about 30 min to Elk from Dickson City. Plenty of time to enjoy the included breakfast, which includes eggs and make-your-own waffles.

marzNC · Mar 7, 2014

There were four groups. Green, then group of intermediates who were later split into blue-blue and blue-black, and black. maggie198 and I were in the black group with two other women. One had done the clinic before. The other had been skiing for quite a while but had never had a lesson. On one lift ride, I saw her husband and two young daughters working their way down the bump run. She'd learned from him.

The instructor for the black group was a Level 3. We mainly did stuff on groomers since most of the group was not interested in dealing with bumps. In the beginning, she was not giving specific feedback to each individual. She would make general statements without naming names. Once someone said that we didn't want her to hold back, she was more critical and that made the lesson more useful.

For the last run, we went over to the shorter trail that is normally allowed to bump up, but it was relatively flat with baby bumps. It had been groomed after recent rains. She took me for an extra run before lunch on the bump trail since I had to leave early. Didn't coach much, but I enjoyed the run. Did mention one tip that I hadn't heard before.

Mid-morning the idea was to get some video. But there was a problem with the battery pack, so that didn't work out.

After lunch, the instructor wrote out some ideas for each of the students to keep for reference.

Overall, I was happy with the experience. Especially since by 10:30 the lift lines were getting longer. So being able to cut the lift was useful. Given that a lift ticket was $60, adding $35 for the lesson and lunch was pretty reasonable. I added a tip for the instructor as well.