Beginning skiers and snowboarders invited to ski school

There are a number of ways people can learn to ski or snowboard.

Sometimes it's friends who become the teachers, which, at times, can be a harrowing experience for students. Tales of first-timers being taken to the top of a mountain and left there to get down on their own are not uncommon.

Then there is the full range of programs offered through the different ski schools at resorts. Professional instructors are a sure way of jumping on the learning curve quickly and effortlessly.

It was 59 years ago that the late Alf Engen came up with the idea of linking friendly classes and professional instructors and founded the Deseret Morning News Ski School.

Over the years, the program has graduated thousands of skiers and, after seven years of offering snowboard lessons, produced a couple of thousand new snowboarders.

Make it easy, inexpensive and professional, Engen would say, and people will fall in love with the sport.

Fifty-nine years on the slopes is proof enough the Engen was right.

This year the program will start Nov. 18. Skiers will go to Alta and snowboarders to Snowbird.

For a fee of $35, students will receive three two-hour lessons from professional ski or snowboard instructors. They will begin with the basics — learning to walk with the long extensions on their feet — and finish up by making linked turns on a gentle slope.

They will also learn to load and unload from a chair lift.

The general consensus is that to bypass some of the pitfalls of learning the two sports, prospective participants should take a lesson or two.

Strange as it may seem to nonskiers, once a pair of turns is linked, in an upright position, skiing and snowboarding won't seem all that difficult.

Instruction also makes skiing and snowboarding a lot safer and more fun.

The three lessons will be Nov. 18, Dec. 2 and Dec. 9.

There will be a split session for snowboarders at Snowbird. The first session will start at 9:30 a.m. and the second at 1 p.m. There will be a maximum of 150 applications for each session.