By Andrew Vetere

Skiing icy slopes at dangerous speeds is the closest I have come to being a ski racer. I used to pretend I was on my way to winning an Olympic Gold Medal while I skidded down trails in New Hampshire.

In between those Olympic glory daydreams I watched from the lift while racers carved deep turns on steep, icy pitches. I believed that only racers could achieve the perfect skiing technique. But racing was not for me: I chose to be restricted by ski area boundaries rather than blue and red gates. The skin-tight racing suits also didn’t appeal to me. To me, skiing should be all about fun, not competition.

My recent experience in a Carving Park showed me that learning good racing technique can increase the terrain for recreational skiing and provide endless fun.

At Belleayre Mountain in the Catskill Forest of New York there is a movement to make learning to ski more fun for all levels of skiers. Belleayre is the second U.S. resort to introduce a Carving Park in 2006. The park is a small racecourse that uses a series of small brush-like gates connected to a wireless timing system.

The Carving Park is based on a technique that Belleayre Mountain President Tony Lanza called “stealth learning,” where participants have so much fun skiing they don't realize they are improving their skills. It makes ski racing more accessible to more people and helps improve their recreational skiing technique.

“Gates are always a draw for the public,” said Charles Tar, Belleayre Assistant Superintendent. “People see racing gates and may not think they’re good enough to go through them. [The Carving Park] is something they can do and really like.”

Carving around gates teaches skiers to use their edges more efficiently, said Tar. The gates are strategically arranged so skiers are forced to follow through with their turns, meaning they will miss the next gate if they don’t stay on their edge long enough. The gates are arranged in a way that gives the skier a choice of three different paths down the course. Time handicaps are added to the skier’s time depending on which path the skier chooses.

Jim Cardenali, director of Cardenali Ski Camps, recently used the Carving Park at Belleayre for a ski training drill, and I had the opportunity to join the group. Cardenali, a ski instructor and racing coach for 30 years, runs a series of camps each winter at a variety of ski areas throughout the east. According to his website, www.cardenaliskicamps.com, the goal of these camps is to “improve your tactics…and to have FUN.”

Cardenali stood at the top of the course in his ski boots, leaning on a pair of poles while he coached campers, pointing out their flaws while they carved around the gates. I had been in the arena for only two minutes and had already learned how to use my poles and upper body to distribute my weight and cut seconds off my time.
The more I skied the course, the better my time and technique became. My Olympic daydreams came back to me as I weaved in and out of the gates. I felt like I was just a skin-tight suit away from beating Bode Miller himself. Suddenly I realized I have just experienced “stealth learning” at Belleayre Mountain.

Andrew Vetere is a journalism and mass communications major at Saint Michael’s College. He wrote this article as part of an internship with the Eastern Ski Writers Association, an organization focused on promoting the highest standards of snow sports journalism.