Ok ladies! I have the report from my experience with the Kirkwood Women's focused Clinic!
The clinic was 2 days, full days, Saturday and Sunday. The website says it provides breakfast and lunch, free demos, and video review. This was the case, except for breakfast (this is due to the fact they've had a few different food and beverage managers over the last couple of years, so it seems to change each year). Full disclosure we had a full on powder weekend so i'm sure my experience may differ based on conditions, snow coverage, and weather. We had maybe 15-20 women and i think 6 coaches including a group of snowboarders with a snowboard instructor. So, small groups of about 5 or 6 people to an instructor or 2. The run down went like this:
Saturday am - arrive, get demo skis if need be, hang out, meet each other, brief on the weekend, fill out a paper and waiver. The paper is a self assessment (in very general terms) on what your ski level/ability is. Based on that they loosely grouped us and then we went a did a lap to assess ski ability for groups.
Morning sesh: We were very hyped for the powder so i think they were aware we just wanted to get out there ASAP and get some stashes. We did 1 quick run and split into groups (i do believe this would maybe differ if not a pow day). The groups made sense to me. They were very easy to switch in and out if it wasn't suiting your needs. They split the groups into 3ish categories which to me seemed like intermediate-ish, slightly more sendy/advanced, and then full on hike to terrain, chutes, full send crew more advanced/expert. I was in that middle group and we still covered a TON and got sendy if we wanted to. It was very much up to the group on where we wanted to go and what we wanted to do.
Lunch: sandwiches, soup, salad, coffee, tea, etc. Ours felt short on time because we wanted to ski more in the am. Lunch was fine, nothing special but as noted above, it seems to change a lot based on the fact they seem to keep getting new food and bev managers. The service staff was super nice, plenty of food, they came and took our plates etc.
Afternoon sesh: More skiing, exploring. The weather was pretty rough in the afternoon, low vis, snow, windy. But we went where we all decided as a group we wanted to go.
End of day 3:45ish: Wrap up, share any videos we took, change out of ski boots and go to apres. Tasty apps, wine, fun raffle with lots of winners and nice prizes, goggles, poles, helmets, a pair of skis. Fun way to unwind and chat and get to know each other.
Day 2 Saturday am: More overnight snow, snowing in the am. More or less find your group and instructor and roll out around 9:15. However, the coaches circled up and i think most people sort of mentioned wanting to tweak their day 2 vs day 1. For some that was crank up the send, or take it easier, or do hard stuff but stop and do more feedback/technique. It seems like the coaches were already planning to take more time to instruct and give feedback on day 2 since people were probably tired and sore but it was nice to have the conversation if necessary or talk with your fellow group members about how you were feeling. I personally was concerned about feeling up for everything we did on day 1, again. The instructor talked to me, discussed what other groups were doing, and made it very relaxing and not stressful to do what i want to do but made sure i felt comfortable and like i had a group wherever i went. Since it seemed like so many other people felt similar we took a couple of coaches and a bigger group compared to day 1, skied a few things, talked technique, then ultimately split based on what we wanted to accomplish in the afternoon. The groups to me seemed like - would you like to talk technique and maybe take it somewhat easier or do you want to go rip it up and hit bigger objectives? So again and advanced and like more advanced group. I stayed in that advanced, middle group with mostly the same girls plus some new ones from day 1 which was great to chat with more women. We still were able to push and try hard things (chutes, steeper runs, anything we wanted) but the coach always presented an easier route if we wanted and made it very clear that no one had to do anything they didn't want to. Honestly, as a more timid skier, the hype and encouragement from the group made me try stuff i'd never do. Which was the goal for me.
Lunch: same as day 1 + ice cream
Afternoon: We were definitely getting more tired, as a group, But women still wanted to try new things (awesome!). It was very up to us a group to choose runs and pick places we wanted to go. We broke our runs up into chunks more than we did prior and discussed technique and just skied at a more relaxed pace. Also, The fact the coach was comfortable in taking us anywhere we wanted to go was awesome. The way everything was presented to us, it seemed like nothing was off the table, we were capable of doing anything which was a crazy feeling! Like *I* do ... that?! I never felt like i wasn't technically capable of skiing anything, so much of it is mental. It was great having a group willing to push and explore. More coaching, more filming us today and chairlift feedback from the instructor than day 1. Again my assumption is that perhaps this was due to the crazy good powder day we had on Day1. Skied until about 3:45. We did some drills over on some "groomed" runs off chair 11 and a nice mellow tree run for a cool down.
EoD: Wrap up, say goodbye, return demos, exchange numbers, videos from coach etc
TLDR: i had a great time! yes, it's a tad expensive, but it was amazing to have a group of women who really wanted to send it and love skiing as much as i do. Many of the women had attended this camp more than once, which was promising. We also had amazing powder so i think perhaps could have affected the outline/timeline of the camp. The coaches i had were so cool, so empowering, and just awesome skiers. I didnt get to work with all the instructors but i heard the other girls really liked their instructors too. I cant wait to go again and stomp the stuff i tried this year for the first time. If you have any specific questions, let me know!
