Snow Tubing Hill Attendent, Beaver Creek, CO

So this past week, I started my new part time job on the mountain. Last Thursday, I got there to meet my supervisor and go over some basic training at 8 a.m. (this is early in comparison to my recent schedule which comprises of doing much of nothing). After 2 hours of learning some stuff, operating one of the carpet lifts, rules, and the day to day, I grab an hour break and start the job.

It's not all that complicated. We need to set up the snow tubing hill with break mats and setup the tubes initially. Then from 1 - 6 p.m. I'm pretty much outside doing various tasks. I'm either at the top of the lanes, pushing people down, or at the bottom, fixing placement of break mats and helping out little kids who need a hand, or at the bottom of the lift, making sure people are getting on properly, or at the top of the lift, making people are exiting properly...... and that's about it.

Being at the top of the lanes is fun! You get to talk to parents and kids, and then spin them down or race down with a neighboring lane or whatever they want to do. The kids love to spin as fast as they can; so a lot of times, I'm digging in for a short start tugging a kid, then whipping around 10 ft later to get them to spin. I would get sick if I were them. They're fun and cute though. I didn't expect this, but after the first day of moving around equipment and launching kids down the hill, I was so sore and tired. Too bad though, still 3 days left before a day off. By Sunday, my shoulders hurt and I think I pulled an ass muscle. Lol. Off all things to be sore.... its fine now.

Also went boarding today with some co-workers. We were all newbies at boarding so it worked out. I must have fallen like 20 times within 4 runs. One of them was a bit timid so ended up leafing down from side to side a lot. Not me though. My philosophy with learning snowboarding is to just go, which causes me to do face plants, and tumble around. Some hurt, some were hard. Definitely gonna be sore. On a catwalk, I was just cruising along, then caught a front edge. Bam! Face in the snow! Another was going down a hill and just gaining too much speed. I wipe out elbows first, board flips over a top of me, and I'm suddenly in a sitting position with a cloud of snow engulfing me. Most were just sliding on my ass 5 - 10 ft. Or kneeing down. I think those hurt the most. I'll get the hang of it. I'm sure there's more to come before I get good at boarding.


Leaving Beaver Creek, we saw this reindeer and owner. That's something you don't see everyday. It was really mellow and people were getting photos taken and stuff.