DECEMBER 17, 2009 ISSUE
Len Bauer, Snowsports Director of Sugar Mountain
“I love teaching, coaching, skiing, snowboarding and being a Dad. I love watching people around me learning and coaching the fun of sliding,” said Len Bauer, snowsports director of Sugar Mountain Resort, pictured at top left. Bauer is a 30-year veteran of on-the-snow teaching, through which he met his wife, Michelle (pictured at top right), and trained countless ski instructors.
Len Bauer, director of snowsports at Sugar Mountain, keeps his team of instructors coming back year-after-year yearning for more experience and ongoing camaraderie.
Perhaps it’s his credentials—garnered from over 30 years of on-the-snow teaching at Sugar Mountain Resort, Beech Mountain Resort, Okemo in Vermont and Alta in Utah—that attracts and sustains the respect of his professional colleagues and annual staff of 70 instructors. Bauer is a fully certified Professional Ski Instructors of America (PSIA) Level Three ski instructor, a Level Two snowboarder of the American Association of Snowboard Instructors (AASI) and a member of the United States Coaching Association.
His staff includes five Level Three ski instructors and a large compliment of Level Two PSIAs and AASIs. In snowsports, achieving the Level Three certification is analogous to matriculating to a PhD in academics. Ski and board instructors train and attend multiple annual clinics, normally working for years to reach the fully certified status.
Maybe his aplomb for coaching was inherited. Len Bauer stadium at Raleigh’s Enloe High School is named for his father, a football coach, and his grandfather coached hockey in Long Island, N.Y. Bauer also coaches soccer and T-ball in the Watauga County Parks and Recreation leagues.
In conversations with his long-time instruction staff, it’s evident that Bauer’s contagious enthusiasm for snowsports and dedication to his work trumps his other significant qualities.
“Len is one of the most organized, compassionate and fun people you could ever work for,” said Flo Davis of Foscoe, a veteran ski instructress at Sugar Mountain since 1976. “He cares greatly about his position and his employees.”
“I love teaching, coaching, skiing, snowboarding and being a Dad. I love watching people around me learning and teaching and coaching the fun of sliding,” Bauer said during a long interview in which he paraphrased the following note he wrote to this season’s incoming staff that shines a little light upon his successful philosophy.
“It is time to slide when you wake up in the morning. So eat something good, brush your teeth, wash up, get dressed and on your way to Sugar Mountain with a positive attitude. If you love teaching, skiing or snowboarding, understand that the reason for coming to work at Sugar is to provide our guests with the safest, most enjoyable experience possible, treating our guests as friends. Our guests are not an interruption to our work; they are the reason we are here. If you love sliding, please come to work. If not, please stay at home.”
Bauer credits his longevity at Sugar Mountain to an overall mountain attitude of being the best. Praising his fellow department heads for their team spirit and sharing the attributes Sugar has to offer, he pointed out some of the advantages skiers and snowboarders of all levels enjoy when visiting the mountain.
“Our indoor snowsports facility is ideally situated in the middle of our teaching areas making it easy for me and my staff to monitor the on-the-snow teaching activities,” said Bauer. “We have a large playground snow area that’s perfect for our beginning Sugar Bear and Polar Bear programs. The magic carpet area adjoins the playground and Easy Street is a few steps away.”
Easy Street, a very long and gently graded slope, is arguably the Southeast’s best beginning area serviced by its own lift and safely situated away from the traffic of the main slopes.
Sugar Mountain has been fateful to Bauer. During the blizzard of 1993, when snowboarding was in its infancy, Bauer and a handful of others were on the slopes experimenting with snowboards, teaching each other. They got snowed in and had to spend the night in the Sugar Mountain Lodge. As providence would have it, one redheaded ski instructress named Michelle who—according to Bauer’s retelling of the story—had to be rescued from the slopes by laying down on her snowboard. They fell in love, got married and now live in Matney with their three children—Kody, 15, Lili Moon, 8, and Sam, 6.
An avid ski and snowboard instructress in her own right, Michelle is a registered nurse at the Watauga Medical Center and can be found most days on the slopes with camera in hand recording precious experiences for Sugar’s clientele.
All the Bauer children are accomplished skiers and snowboarders for their ages. Mom and Dad started them out on the snow at around 14-months-old. Kody races in the J4 division of the United States Ski Association (USSA) and is a junior instructor at Sugar’s Snowsports School. In addition, all three children participate in the High Country Junior Race Series (HCJRS) of which Len is a coach.
“I want to mention the wonderful race training program for High Country families that the Sugar Mountain Ski and Snowboard Foundation sponsors,” Bauer said. “Parents get a great return on their investment. The race training takes place every weekend, all thru the holidays and a couple of afternoons during the week. It’s a win-win situation for parents. They drop off their children and have the peace of mind that their kids spend the day on the mountain in a safe, organized, instruction program under the guidance of certified instructors. The racers have their own room at the Lodge to store their equipment and meet.”
Bauer went on to say that Sugar Mountain season passes for ski team members are available at reduced rates. Contact the foundation by email for more information on enrolling children in the program at Winston@BayouSmokehouse.com.
Racing is a large component of Bauer’s work. Prior to becoming snowsports director 18 years ago, he was head of race instruction. Under his auspices now in tandem with the foundation and other mountain departments, Sugar Mountain hosts USSA races and the HCJRS and NASTAR (an acronym for NAtional STAndard Race), which is the world's largest recreational ski and snowboard race program. In addition, the race teams of Lees-McRae and ASU train at Sugar.
Assisting Bauer in his endeavors is Dwayne Dancey, long-time snowsports supervisor and Boone native.
“To Len, ‘Life is a good thing,’” Dancey said. “That’s his favorite expression that we instructors kid him about. Seriously, Len is the ultimate optimist. All our instructors are happy to work for him; he likes helping people and ensuring that Sugar Mountain is the Southeast’s best place to ski and snowboard. I’ve never heard Len say a bad word about anyone.”
For more information, click to www.skisugar.com/skischool/.
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