Staying the Course: Observations of a First-year Guide

Editor's Note: Little had Amy White known that a chance encounter between two men in an RV park would be the start of her next adventure! One day, her husband found himself in said park, doing some work on their home away from home. He struck up a conversation with another guy doing some work on his own vehicle. As that gentleman happened to be our very own Patrick McManus. Well, it was all over for this brave soul, who first guided at the 2016 Methow Valley Regional, and whose adventures in Tahoe Donner have gotten her so excited, she hopes to bring her Mom along to 2019's ski week at Snow Mountain Ranch! The following article is an adaptation of the speech Amy delivered during SFL 2018's Banquet Night awards ceremony.

For those of you who have never done it, guiding is hard work. By the end of the first day of skiing the beautiful Tahoe Donner trails with the vivacious Tiffany Jessen, I was mentally dragging from the focus required for guiding, combined with shouldering the weight of feeling responsible for someone else's safety. I was sleepy-tired from waking up at 6am because Tiffany convinced me to go to Nino's stretch class. And I was physically fatigued from skiing all day from when the earliest bus arrived to when the latest bus departed, chasing her down the hills across the ski resort as she gleefully double-poled away from me.

Added to all that, we had a jam-packed schedule of activities in the evening and my skier wanted to do it all (no surprise, as her somewhat quiet/shy exterior hides an adventurous and spirited enthusiast who'd attended two, prior International ski weeks). When I finally got back to my room at 10:30 that night, I was exhausted. I scanned through our program, counting the number of days left, and thought to myself, boy, this is going to be a long week.

As I got more comfortable guiding and accustomed to the routine, though, the days started to fly by. I learned to recognize when my guiding directions were and were not needed and we dialed in what a little left really meant (which was not turn as far left as you can). We spent hours together on the trail, sharing stories, giggling, and keeping a tally of how many times we took out the other person. (I'd like to point out that I won: I took her out three times but she only got me twice.) And then, there we were at Saturday, and I was dismayed to find the event nearly over.

One particularly memorable moment from the week was a maiden voyage down the emergency- only exit stairwell (before we were granted permission to use them) with Tiffany, fellow guide, Karen Anderson, and skier extraordinaire, Charlie Wirth in a last ditch effort to make it to the buses after watching six or seven jam-packed elevators pass us by. (Well, technically it was a single elevator that went up and down six or seven times because the rest were broken). We were concerned we might set off the building alarm or that we'd be completely lost when we exited to the street level and that we'd miss the bus and would get stuck wandering about trying to get our bearings in downtown Reno; yet, we decided to give it a shot. So we wound down seven flights of stairs, through long hallways poorly lit by flickering fluorescent lights and lined with emergency sprinkler systems until we came to a set of four doors--our final exit to the street. We huddled briefly and agreed to run off in four different directions if the alarm bell started, and then we pushed through the doors. To our delight, no alarm sounded and we found ourselves directly across the street from the waiting busses.

I suspect we all have stories like this about how a positive attitude, some flexibility, and a sense of adventure made a week of many unexpected challenges (like lack of snow, lack of elevators, buses that changed parking orders daily, and six days of soggy sandwiches and wraps) such a huge success and oh, did I mention, so much fun.

So I think we should give ourselves a round of applause for the great times we've had, for the friendships we've made, and for our perseverance. Thank you all and I'll see you next year!