No worries: look for a uniformed person with a friendly smile who is only too willing to help. He or she is part of the Snow Host crew, their task is to help.
“They should be looking for people who are very awkward about what they’re doing and get out and help them out,” said Don Sharpe, Resort Director of Business Operations.
This year Don and Program Co-coordinator Angie Farquharson will have Snow Hosts roaming the Parking Lot and not so much at the Ticket Kiosk, so they may help direct Skiers and Snowboarders where they need to go, Sharpe added.
Snow Hosts are adept at spotting the beginners, the newbies to Mount Washington Alpine Resort, and helping make their experience a positive one.
Wendy Woodley and Steve Butcher have “hosted” together for several years. Woodley has been a Snow Host since 1999, and hosts on Mondays with Butcher. “What I like about it is getting to talk to visitors from all over,” she said. “Part of what we’re also able to do is offer free ski tours. We’re not ski instructors but if there’s somebody who hasn’t been on the Mountain before…we can take them around and show them the various lifts and acquaint them with the Mountain.”
Snow Hosts greet people, hand out Trail Maps and answer any questions. They kibbitz with people waiting in lift lineups, helping make the time go faster, Woodley said.
In the afternoons they conduct Canadian Ski Alliance Surveys that are done at Ski Hills across Canada, to help identify the Resort’s demographic.
Steve, Wendy and the other Snow Hosts, numbering over 20, host over 21 days during the season, once a week and extra days during Christmas and Spring Break.
Butcher loves snow hosting for the stories he collects. One such story involves a little girl he encountered one day on a Sunrise Run. “She was mad as a little hatter, kicking her skis down the hill,” he recalls. She said her mom took her down the run and it was too steep for her. Butcher persuaded her back into her skis and soon had her skiing down the steep part with little effort.
“When we were going by her mom, she mouthed ‘thank you’ to me. We got down to the Lift and I got her and her mom loaded on the Chair…here she was propped up on the back of the chair and she waved at me. It made my day.”