For more information on the YAP program, please contact Anna Hermann, The YAP Program Advisor or visit WApp YAP Website
What the YAP program means to me
By Maddy Nyblade
After skiing from four in the afternoon until ten on Friday night I was not happy about getting up at 5:30 am, Saturday morning even if it was to go skiing at Blue Knob. But somehow I managed to roll out of bed right into my long underwear and snow pants and 30 minutes later I found myself heading towards Blue Knob for the two-day Young Adult Patroller (YAP) seminar.
Just two weeks earlier I hadn’t even known what a YAP was, but after reading about the seminar for us YAPs I practically jumped out of my skin with excitement for the chance to meet patrollers my own age. Of course my mom told me not to get too excited because the seminar would probably not live up to my expectations, but in the end it most certainly did.
In total there were ten YAPs: three girls and one guy from Blue Knob, one guy from Hidden Valley, two guys from Seven Springs, and Paige Reid, Eve Farwell, and I from Tussey. Liz Hermann, the YAP director at Blue Knob, organized the entire event, which started with a ski lesson at nine. Liz even went out of her way to arrange to have another patroller who telemarked join in on our lesson so I could get some pointers. We then snowplowed and side slipped through gates, practicing kick turns and transition turns every so often. By the end of the morning, we were all definitely ready for lunch. After a wonderful meal of pizza, soup, and red velvet cake, we split into groups and ran through two accident scenarios and then received tons of constructive criticism and advice.
Saturday evening, we all ate spaghetti and meatballs together and enjoyed playing some icebreaker games. I’ll have to say, one of the highlights of the entire trip was taking swings at the bandaged SpongeBob piñata. (Of course, we were only allowed to take a swing after we had correctly answered an OEC question or a trivia question about the NSP.) But the night was not over yet. After eating moose tracks ice cream, we all went snow tubing for a couple hours. As you can imagine, we all slept well that night.
All Sunday morning, we ran sleds down Jack Rabbit, which was more tiring than you might think, thanks to the rollers conveniently located on that slope. We practiced the approach to a scene of an accident as well as how to run each sled position. During lunch, Liz handed out gifts ranging from a helmet to an odor-repelling pouch on top of the bag, t-shirt, and sunglasses she had already given us. The rest of the afternoon was spent free skiing and completing the Extravert Challenge (skiing down Extravert without falling). All in all, I had so much fun that I am planning to go to the YAP seminar at Smuggler’s Notch, VT.