JAY – Six-year-old Jacob Lamarre gripped a ski pole that instructor Krista Allen was holding sideways in front of him as the two glided carefully down Spruce Mountain.
It was a nippy 6 degrees, and snow was falling steadily but that didn’t stop Lamarre and other youngsters from learning to ski and snowboard Monday morning at the mountain.
Sixteen children have signed up for the three-day ski school, said mountain Manager Dana Allen. It costs $10 an hour, with $8 of that going to the instructor and $2 going to the Ski Club, he said.
His daughter, Krista Allen, 17, of Livermore Falls, has been teaching kids to ski during ski school for four or five years.
“It’s fun; a great experience,” Krista Allen said. The younger kids who are learning are the future generation of skiers, she said.
Future skiers like Jacob Lamarre, who was busily concentrating on what he was doing. With all his winter gear, all that could be seen of the Livermore Falls boy were his eyes and forehead.
“Skiing is really good,” Lamarre said, as he made it down the hill once again without falling.
His mother, Jennifer Mitchell, was watching her son from the clubhouse at the top of the bunny slope. Since a couple of her son’s friends know how to ski, he wanted to do it too, she said.
“He was very excited to come,” Mitchell said.
He was a little hesitant once he had the skis on, she said, because he hadn’t realized how slippery it would be, but he got over it quickly.
Allen said there are a variety of methods to teach a novice to ski, including using a ski pole or a harness to guide them.
Instructor Cassandra Purington, 18, of Livermore Falls was taking a break at the clubhouse while her pupil, Kyle Souther, 5, of Livermore Falls ate a hot dog and drank some hot cocoa at a table with his mother and grandmother.
“He wanted to try it,” Souther’s mother, Angie Braley, said. “I figured it was time.”
Purington has been teaching younger kids to ski for about four years.
She doesn’t let her pupils use their own ski poles while they’re learning to ski, Purington said.
“It is an extra thing they have to worry about,” she said.
Instead, she starts them out learning to snowplow with their skis, she said. Her goal is to have her students be able to go up and down the mountain themselves by the end of the three-day school.
“He is doing good,” Purington said of Souther.
Like Krista Allen, she enjoys the job. “I get experience and to learn different things,” she said, “and I like working with little kids.”
Comments are no longer available on this story