Advice from the Purple Chair: Black Diamonds

At ski resorts, hills with a green circle on their signs are the easier hills, blue squares are more difficult, and black diamonds denote the hardest hills. Here is a six-year-old student I had yesterday just before skiing her first black diamond. She did great! Before we skied Smokey, I had her follow me on one of Nub's Nob's hardest blues, Southern Comfort. Although not as steep as Smokey, it is narrower and therefore a good test hill. If you can make it down Southern Comfort in control, you should be able to ski Smokey. On both hills we made turns that took us back and forth across the hill. On black diamonds, falling is okay, but losing control is not. My final advice for skiing black diamonds for the first time is to do it in the morning. Legs will be stronger, snow will be softer, and the hill will be less busy. Have fun!