Still more from Ira (Ira Riklis is on LinkedIn):
So, when Mike was still a ski instructor, and was being paid to ski with me, he wore, as did all members of the Vail Ski School, a medium blue uniform of ski pants and a tufted ski parka which had across the front a black and white stripe starting at the left shoulder and dropping diagonally to the lower right corner of the front of the parka.
Thusly identified as a Vail Ski School instructor, we were allowed to use the special line at all ski lifts designated for the use of the Ski School. That meant that we almost never waited more than a few minutes in a lift line, even during peak ski days or peak ski hours.
Today, this is much less of a problem than it was thirty years ago. With the massive amounts of skiable terrain and the four person, high speed lifts, large numbers of skiers can be moved up and around the mountain very quickly. Although, at peak times and at particularly popular ski runs, it is still a frequent possibility to spend a good 30 to 45 minutes waiting, in ski equipment, to get onto the ski lift. But 30 years ago, an hour in a lift line was not at all an uncommon experience.
Of course, once Mike was no longer with the Vail Ski School, and we were skiing together just because we enjoyed each other’s company, we were no longer allowed to cut the ski lift lines. So, unless we wanted to spend a great deal of time on lift lines, we had to work out another method.