A day in the life of a Ski Instructor

Everyday is different and it’s satisfying to know that while you are doing something you thoroughly enjoy, you are also teaching somebody to ski. Typically, the day begins waking up to the smell of coffee and breakfast, sometimes a cooked breakfast of sausage and bacon with bagels or croissants, fruit and cereal and a host of other delectable offerings. All ski instructors must be at the ski school at 9am sharp. Then it’s a case of waiting for a group of skiers to be assigned to you. This gives you the chance to grab a strong hot coffee to help wake yourself up and then lose yourself in conversation with some of the other instructors.

Phil Nolan

Once your group has been assigned, you will be told how long the lesson will be, how many people there are in the group, what standard of skiing they are at and any other essential information. It is then up to you to decide whereabouts on the mountain to go and what drills to use to improve your group’s skiing.

In the main, you will have your group for the whole day, and if it’s a group of young kids, you will have lunch with them so that they are supervised at all times. If it’s a group of older children or adults it’s up to you whether you have lunch with the group or separately with your friends. It’s also your decision as to where you end the lesson.

If however, you are not assigned a group to take onto the mountain, you have a morning to free ski, which is excellent! At 1pm you go back to the ski school to see if there is anyone who wishes to have a lesson for the afternoon. If not, then it’s more free skiing (which is really enjoyable as you have free reign of the mountain).

Once lessons have finished for the day, you can either head home to prepare yourself for the following day’s instruction, refresh yourself with some of the drills that can be used, wax and sharpen your skis and relax in front of the TV or, as most of us did, there is the more popular idea of hitting the bars at the bottom of the mountain to catch up with your mates, have a beer, maybe a game of pool and chill out. One thing is for sure though; a day in the life of a ski instructor is certainly well worth getting up for, even if you’re not a morning person!”

“A day in the life of a ski instructor is probably one of the most awesome experiences I have had to date! You get to spend your days practising the sport you love amid the most breathtaking scenery in the world.”

Samantha Platt

“Having passed the exams we are now all officially ski and snowboard instructors! It was a really proud moment to put on our instructor jacket for the first time and after being trained by other qualified instructors it felt extremely satisfying to finally become one of the team! Over the last few weeks we had all become good friends with the instructors at the mountain so when we turned up for work everyone was really happy to see us.

At 9.15am we were allocated to our groups who we were to instruct for the morning. I was given a class of young children who had never skied before. They were great kids and all really keen to learn. The hardest thing was trying to stop them charging down the slope without me! By the end of the morning they were all getting down the bunny slope without a problem and it was really satisfying to know that I had taught them that. At 12pm I met up with some other instructors to relax for 45 minutes and have some lunch.

At 12:45pm we all went to the ski school to be given our groups for the afternoon. I was given two beginner skiers from America. They were both really cool people and we ended up having a great afternoon on the slopes. At the end of the day a load of the instructors met up to kick back over a cold Canadian beer. I would definitely be interested in continuing to instruct after my time in Canada.

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