Big Snow, New Jersey
This was a rockstar trip! It all started with my wife wanting to see P!NK, the singer/songwriter. I did some research and found out she was playing on October 3rd at the Metlife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. It just so happens that Big Snow, USA’s only indoor ski slope/ski area is directly across the street. I mean, you can literally walk to each of the venues. On the night of the concert we did just that.
I have some contacts at Big Snow and I pitched to them that I wanted to do some Fall clinics to get people ready for the ski season. This would also help me offset the cost of the trip to go see P!NK. The owners/operators agreed to work with me and we launched a couple 2 hour clinics. Big Snow has 2 hour slope access times because they have a limited number of space on the slopes. I also really wanted the opportunity to run back-to-back clinics. Why? Because working at a destination resort out west, I rarely get a chance to work back-to-back clinics. I wanted to practice.
I had four groups. Good news that I didn’t get skunked on a group. Some groups were larger than others. These participants were hungry for instruction. Some were general recreation skiers while others were ski instructors.
I asked the first group what they wanted to do and they asked to work on short turns. These make a lot of sense to do in Big Snow because there is very limited terrain. While you can do bigger turns, there are often people on the slope and short turns are a little easier to navigate. Don’t get me wrong, I did some really big turns in there too which were a lot of fun.
I had one participant who taught himself how to ski on YouTube. He was amazing. I was impressed with how far he had come from watching videos. He skied very fast and had trouble slowing down. He also wanted to learn how to pole plant. I showed him a quick progression that I teach to kids to get them to “plant” their pole. He caught on quickly. And one of the women I skied with in the first session joined me and this gentleman in the third session.
On Thursday, October 3rd, we had a rockstar day! We had flown in my wife and my kids and we were all going to attend the P!NK concert. My friend and owner of Big Snow offered us to join him in a box at the Metlife Stadium. So we had a total of 8 tickets. I also reached out to another connection and scored some tickets to the indoor amusement park in the American Dream Mall. The American Dream mall is 3.7 million square feet and Big Snow is just one of the many attractions. We surprised my niece and nephew and we were off to the races on the rollercoasters and had a blast. Some of the rollercoasters are really good. We did them again and again. Then I went to teach a clinic while my kids got sugared up at “It’s Sugar” - a three story tall candy shop located in the mall. Next, we went to the concert and it was amazing. All-in-all it was such a fun day. I think my kids are now expecting this annually! We will see, I had so much fun with it all. I would love to get back there.