marzNC
Angel Diva
Have you noticed that @AltaEgo is an instructor at Roundtop? She hasn't posted that much lately. Perhaps try to check with her.At Roundtop, you have to sign up as a novice, beginner, intermediate, or advanced lesson. I'm not sure what I should say. I definitely don't want to hold a group back if I can't keep up, so I'm leaning toward intermediate.
The advantage of an "advanced" group lesson is that it should be taught by a L3 instructor, or a L2 with comparable experience. In theory, L2 certification is only good for teaching beginners or intermediates.
There is always a "slowest" skier in any group lesson. Had a couple in my Taos Ski Week last week. One was an older woman with perfect form on groomers but fear issues in black bumps, even when they weren't that steep. The other was a middle-aged woman who had never had a lesson who learned as an adult from hard charging friends so had plenty of experience on steep terrain but terrible form and stance. Instructor kept telling her to "stand UP." I was in the middle in terms of ability (and age, average age around 60). I opted to avoid skiing behind the no-lesson skier because it would distract me. But otherwise it was fine that there was a spread in the ability within the group of six. Not going to complain when paying $300 for six 2-hour lessons. Happened to luck out and had one of the most senior instructors at TSV, with over 30 years experience after passing the Full Cert exams (equivalent to L3 exams).
Do you know about the 1-day Women's Clinics at Elk? Happen once a month, usually on a Saturday. Not particularly easy to find out the dates and details without calling the Elk Ski School as I remember. I was in the advanced group with a L3 instructor and three other women when I checked it out on the way north for something else. None of the other women wanted to even try the bump run. Learned a few good drills that day.
Elk has a strong ski school partially because one of the trainers does a lot of PSIA-E instructor clinics in general. Watched him teach my Mnut instructor with a group of other L3 instructors for a couple days (prep for DCL) several years ago. Absolutely fascinating to observe L3 instructors struggle with a drill on baby bumps that the trainer made look sooo easy. He was not holding back on comments as they tried their best. No one else was on the slope besides them and me, so he was yelling pretty loud. Only one out of the seven students came close.