Girls’ day out…on the slopes

Two ladies are on a mission this winter—to get more confidence and more smiles out of female skiers out on the slopes at Sun Peaks.

Laurie White and Chase Wolfe are a fun-loving, high energy duo who’ve had guiding and instructing experiences under their collective belt. This season the sisters will be running a ski program for women called Ski Sisters.

From working as guides, they’ve discovered that many women don’t fully enjoy a ski vacation for several reasons.

“They always try to play catch up with their husbands or can’t ski with their family because they’re holding people back,” said White.

“Single women come to the resort. I’ve guided some women that are just there by themselves and they’re looking for somebody to ski with.”

As a result, they’ve decided to come up with a program called Ski Sisters. The only requirement is that participants must be 18 and older and already know how to ski.

“The Ski Sisters are all about having fun,” she explained. “We’re both guides and instructors, but it’s not about going out and just doing regular type lessons. We take the women out and we go at their pace and we teach them how to use all parts of the terrain on the mountain. And they end up having such a good time.”

The main goal of Ski Sisters is to get women to have fun while skiing, learn some helpful ski advice, and if they’re up to it, even step out of their comfort zone. The Ski Sisters are there to accompany them all the way.

“We get them on a lot of terrain that they never would have tried by themselves or risk going into.”

When women are relaxed and are having fun, they tend to ski better, said White.

“I’ve had people from Australia come in and they’re quite confident skiers but they never would have found all the terrain and had as much fun out. They just needed to get their confidence. They were having fun because they weren’t trying to catch up to people. We were going at their pace.”

White says the trick in building confidence is to weave the instruction into the experience seamlessly so the participants don’t even know they’re being taught.

“We do teach but they don’t know it. We get them using the terrain and we get them to be more balanced on their skis. But when we go at their pace, they’re truly not out of their comfort zone. We will not press their safety zone; we will push their comfort zone a little bit, but only when they’re ready to do it.”

“When ladies go into lessons, there’s an expectation that after one hour, or two or three hours of lessons, they’re all going to transform into these miraculous skiers. You can have fun on the mountain at any level if you know how to do it. You don’t have to get better and better, as long as you’re out there with a big smile on your face.”

When the Ski Sisters did their trial runs for the program last year, one experience that stood out was skiing with a mother and daughter team from Ottawa.

“They had such fun they’re bringing a party of 40 to Sun Peaks this year,” she said.

It looks like with these Sisters’ help, there will be no woman left behind.

The Ski Sisters program will be available every Monday, Wednesday and Friday starting Nov. 20. Sign up for a full day ($135) or half day ($75). Contact the Sport School at 250-578-5505.