The Ladies Club at Park City Mountain Resort
How many times have you gone on vacation and wished you didn’t have to come home?
Maybe you don’t. There are second acts in life—and in vacation country,
Just ask Vicki Martell, a Harvard MBA with a successful career in banking behind her. She’s now an instructor at Park City Mountain Resort and has dedicated herself to getting moms—and women–back on the slopes.
Park City Mountain Resort, of course, is the home of Snowmamas, the site written by and for snow-loving moms and designed to help make trips to the slopes less work and more fun. (You can meet up with Snowmamas at 10 a.m. Fridays to ski or ride.)
There are also plenty of women’s clinics around the country designed for women to hone their skills, whether they are skiers or snowboarders. Here’s what I wrote about attending one led by former Olympian Holly Flanders. World Champion skier Kim Reichhelm offers women’s clinics from Chile to Colorado, Utah and Alaska and you will find women’s clinics at major snow resorts from Stratton in Vermont to Jackson Hole, WY.
But such clinics require a commitment of time—and money. I wish every resort had a Ladies’ Club like the one offered at Park City Mountain Resort. All it takes is 2 hours and $60.
Women who haven’t skied in a while, said Martell, “don’t want a high powered clinic. They just want an opportunity to get back on the mountain in a non-threatening way.”
Thus Ladies’ Club was born—two hours rather than three, starting at 10 a.m. so that moms could get their kids to ski school and join the club without rushing. It also is significantly cheaper than a three hour lesson–$60 as opposed to $102.
You are also guaranteed a female instructor and with no more than five women in the group, it is designed to be as much about a shared experience (complete with tips on where to eat, shop and spa in Park City) as about ski instruction. “It’s supposed to be time for themselves with other women like themselves,” Martell explained, with local women invited to join.
There are at least two instructors assigned so women can be divided among abilities-whether they want to graduate to intermediate terrain or ski bumps. And you don’t need to be a mom either—the idea is to “have fun for a couple of hours—to have time for yourself!”
We all know ski trips are tough for moms. The idea here is to insure that moms have fun too—at least for a couple of hours. Martell says she knows the dads do. “They get out there and find the challenging terrain.”
This is for the moms—or any woman—who otherwise would be sitting in the condo when she could get outside and have the time of her life,” Martell promises.
For two hours, you don’t have to think about all of your responsibilities—getting groceries, picking up the kids, mediating squabbles. “This is your time, to get outside and enjoy the outdoors.”
And what could be better than that!