STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK
Mother Nature might have been stingy with her snow during the first couple moths of the 2017-18 winter season.
But when the snow finally began to dump, those in Sun Valley's elite Mountain Masters program were ready to jump in, schussing through the deepening snow in the Bowls, Inhibition and Upper Picabo Street.
In doing so, they were simply living up to their name.
"The real value of Mountain Masters is for people to be able to ski the whole mountain, to be masters of the mountain," said Drew Merklinghaus, who has headed the program for the past few years. "The value of Mountain Masters is to help people develop the skills to be able to ski off piste or even through race gates or in a terrain park, if they so choose."
While they were biding their time waiting for snow, he recounted, the 85 participants in the program were honing their technique, developing muscle memory as they worked on athletic stance and technique.
"Then when the whole mountain opened up it was so easy to see the impact as the techniques they'd been practicing made skiing the more difficult terrain that much easier," he added.
Mountain Masters is a unique program among ski resorts.
It offers participants a chance to ski with a group five days a week for three hours each day, with Sun Valley's best ski instructors taking turns with the groups for a week at a time. This year a new option of a Thursday-only group was offered, as well, for those who couldn't commit to a full week.
The Mountain Masters meet off the snow for social gatherings at least once a week, as well, with gatherings at the Limelight Hotel, private homes and even Sturtevants, where they were offered special deals on ski equipment and clothing.
Some of the Mountain Masters have skied with the program for years.
Others, like Nick Miller, are relative newcomers. A former lawyer working in Washington, D.C., he retired in Sun Valley three years ago and quickly realized that his former life skiing six days a year had left him an intermediate skier at best.
“I wanted to ski the entire mountain and Mountain Masters has given me the tools to do it. Plus, it’s so much fun,” he said. “I took part in a race clinic and at 70 I thought I would be the first to go when they said, let’s start with the oldest. But, no, there were 10 ahead of me who were older!”
Sibyl Hanson and her 82-year-old identical twin Sandra Sheeline ski in the same group.
“Sometimes they challenge you to do something that’s simply terrifying because you’re dealing with gravity. You can try it and say: I won’t do that again. But chances are you say, ‘I can do that,’ Hanson said. “Plus it gets me about of bed every morning.”
Hanson to Sun Valley from Northern California in 2000. When she broke her leg skiing, her sister came from Long Island to take care of her. Sandra Sheeline got some odd looks from Sibyl’s friends who thought they’d witnessed the most miraculous recovery from a broken leg ever when she took Sybyl’s pass and skis and went on the mountain.
The experience nurtured her own love of skiing, and the two joined Mountain Masters after Sheeline moved here from Long Island a few years ago.
“Mountain Masters has given us friends like us who are active and gung ho about skiing different runs every day, like Upper River Run, and Upper Picabo Street. And in the summer we play tennis and road bike with them—we even bike in Europe,” said Hanson.
Retired doctor Scott Friedman, another recent transplant, has had much the same experience.
“I wanted to improve my skiing for a long time. Having nine different instructors over nine weeks is wonderful because each has a different angle on how to show you to do something. We spent a lot of the winter in Lefty’s in the Bowls and just had a wonderful time. I love the social events, too.”