By Hilary Prescott Clark
My name is Hilary Prescott Clark and I’m 30 years old. The hobbies that I love to do in the winter time are snowmobiling and Alpine skiing. I ride with my dad on the back of our snowmobile. I also can drive our snowmobile.
All of my life I have loved to ski. I have raced through the ranks of the Junior Race Program and I raced downhill in High School. When I got older I talked to my mom about working at the local mountain during the ski season. I wanted to work there because I loved to ski and share my passion of skiing with other people.
After talking to my mom we started looking for job openings at the mountain. Having my mom’s support made it easier to get a job. After a while we found the right job which was coaching kids of all ages how to race downhill. I was really excited to get this job because I love to work with kids.
For seven years now, I have been working at the mountain. The things that have gone well are learning to set up a race course. In order to set up a race course you need to bring gates up the chairlift in bundles of 20 gates. The race courses can change a lot which can be frustrating but my boss shows me what to do. I love to show the kids what drill we are working on. The older kids get to run a full length course. We have steep pitch; that’s why the younger kids get to run half of the full course. I feel it’s rewarding when I get to see the younger kids grow up and see how much they have improved.
This year’s season was really difficult for my coworkers and me. It was a difficult season because of the variation in the snow conditions and weather. It took good team work to make it a successful season and because of that we all got coaches bonuses.