Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, April 11, 1994 TAG: 9404110147
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BY SU CLAUSON-WICKER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
As Snowshoe ended its skiing season Sunday, ski school director Bob Koontz was bidding goodbye to a whole slew of folks who will be taking new jobs, ranging from riding the New River rapids for pay as guides, to lifeguards, to a ranger in Alaska's Denali Park. Some even will return to the real world of accountants and attorneys.
One Snowshoe ski instructor is changing gears without even leaving Cheat Mountain. Mark Poore, instructor and director of Snowshoe's racing department, heads down the slopes on his bicycle almost as soon as he mothballs his skis. Poore, a national bronze medalist in downhill bike racing, oversees Snowshoe's mountain biking operation.
``I'm a biker at heart,'' said Poore. ``Here in West Virginia, we have real good Mid-Atlantic skiing and world-class mountain biking.''
In Pocahontas County alone, Poore says, you can find almost 2,000 miles of mountain bike trails - 100 of them within the Snowshoe resort. ``And then there's 9,000 acres of nearby national forest, all of it biker friendly,'' he adds.
Starting April 30, Poore will lead biking tours, operate the retail shop, and do bike repairs. He's already started cleaning up the trails and riding through the brush scouting new ones.
Julia Morton, also at Snowshoe, will devote more time to her law practice now that ski season has ended. From December through April, the Charleston, W.Va., lawyer spends Friday afternoons through Tuesday mornings at the resort giving skiing lessons. This year she also served as attorney for the West Virginia Senate, an obligation which kept her in town many weekdays during the best skiing months.
``This year I was so busy with my `real' job and ski school, that I didn't get to ski Cupp Run (Snowshoe's longest ski trail) until February,'' she said. ``We part-time instructors often only get to ski for an hour in the morning. Of course, that's the best snow anyway.''
This summer Morton plans to teach swimming, visit China, and do enough legal work on oil and gas leases to keep her in ski equipment and travel money.
Scott Hanson, a Snowshoe instructor from Bedford, already has started his fourth season as videographer and raft guide for Mountain River Tours in Hico, W.Va. ``I'm having the most fun of my life,'' said the kayaker, who records footage of rafters on the New and Gauley rivers. A former float fisherman, Hanson became a professional rafter three years ago, when he realized he enjoyed the paddling more than the fishing.
Bud Frantz, who started guiding raft tours on the New River 20 years ago, was guiding a commercial tour for Class VI River Runners of Hico, W.Va., only hours after he spent his last afternoon as director of the Winterplace (W.Va.) ski patrol.
``I love them both,'' he says. ``Snow, rapids - it's all white water to me.''
The excitement of rafting, he says, is that ``you can go through the same rapids and something can happen that has never happened before. The river can be totally different.'' He also likes meeting the variety of people. Class VI's customers have included Day Quayle and Saudi Arabian royalty.
Jeff ``Tiny'' Elliott, a guide and trainer for North American River Runners, has flip-flopped between the rafting outfit and Winterplace ski resort, both near Beckley, W.Va., for the past two years. Even before Winterplace closed on March 27, he was training prospective raft guides on the icy New River.
``I'm a river runner - I'm going on my 16th season,'' Elliott says. ``When I was working a North Carolina ski resort, I'd go kayaking when it rained. I've tried to work year-round jobs as an apprentice chef and a telephone operator, but I always came back to the river. It's fun, but you don't get a lot of benefits and it's a lot of hard work. It's like being a priest - you do it because you're called.''
by CNB