By Christian Green

This article, on Nancy Oakes Hall Women’s Scholarship recipient and Blacktail Mountain Ski Area Snowsports School Director Erika Mitchell, appears in the Fall 2025 issue of 32 Degrees.

After nearly three decades as a certified instructor, Blacktail Mountain Ski Area Snowsports Director Erika Mitchell wanted to take the next step in her teaching career. For the past eight years, the 30-year PSIA-AASI member thought about obtaining her Alpine Level III certification, but she needed a little extra incentive. That encouragement would come in the form of a couple PSIA-AASI scholarships.

“There are some really great benefits to scholarships, but I think the number one thing is it helps you shape your goals into reality,” Mitchell said. “Once you submit that scholarship application, it puts it on paper, gives you a timeline, and then makes you accountable.”

MISSION RIDGE TO BLACKTAIL MOUNTAIN

At 14, Mitchell began her instructing career at Mission Ridge in Wenatchee, Washington. By the time she was 17, she had become a certified Level I alpine instructor and would go on to earn her Level II a couple years later, along with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in education. She and her husband then moved to Montana, where they raised their five children.

When her kids were old enough, Mitchell took them to Blacktail Mountain to learn how to ski. During their first lesson, her prowess on the slopes caught the eye of her kids’ instructor, and by the end of the day, Jessi Wood, Blacktail Mountain’s ski school director tracked her down and offered her a job. Shortly thereafter, she began teaching lessons once a week at the resort, which lies just to the west of Flathead Lake, the largest freshwater lake in the continental United States west of the Mississippi River.

After working part time for a few years, Mitchell was again approached by Wood, now the general manager at Blacktail Mountain, about becoming education specialist at the resort. “She said to me, ‘I feel like we’ve been misusing you. You have this great background in education and all this experience. Would you be interested in starting a training program?’”

Mitchell recalled that she said yes without really knowing what she was getting into, but she was excited about the challenge. As she began to wade through PSIA-AASI’s resources, she learned about the association’s annual national scholarships and decided to apply for the Small Snowsports School Scholarship. “The reason I even applied for it wasn’t so much for my school as much as it was to help me be a better trainer,” she said. “I felt like I needed mentoring, connections, and to discover what resources were available in my region.”

Once Mitchell was awarded the scholarship, she planned to use some of the funds to bring in regional clinicians to conduct certification clinics. But she also wanted to pick those clinicians’ brains. Enter Northwest Region CEO Kirsten Huotte, who reached out to Mitchell after she had been awarded the scholarship (In Montana, both Blacktail Mountain and Whitefish Mountain Resort are part of the Northwest Region.)

Huotte connected Mitchell with trainers and helped her set up clinics at Blacktail Mountain, which was a driving force for the instructors to pursue certification. “All of a sudden there were certification goals on our calendar, and it shifted the focus in our school to professionalism and certification,” Mitchell said.

Once certification became a priority for Blacktail Mountain’s instructors (on average, about half of the 30 to 40 instructors are certified), Mitchell turned her attention to pursuing her Level III, as she wanted to become the best trainer for her instructors and to prove that she could earn the highest level of certification.

ACQUIRING THE TOOLS SHE NEEDED

After applying for and receiving a Blizzard Tecnica W2W Hilaree Nelson Education Scholarship in 2023, which she used to attend Northwest Regional Academy and pay for a portion of her Level III exam, Mitchell set her sights on the Nancy Oakes Hall Women’s Scholarship.

The first time she took the Level III exam, in 2024, she passed the skiing and movement analysis portions. Then, after receiving the Nancy Oakes Hall Women’s Scholarship last year, she used the funds to focus more on her teaching. “Since I didn’t have a local group to train with, I was purposeful in setting up my intermediate-advanced ski lessons to mimic how I would approach the teaching portion of the exam,” Mitchell said. “It was nice to feel comfortable with the teaching process and not have to stress about the adverse conditions during the exam.”

Thanks in part to the scholarships she’s received, Mitchell also noted that she’s been able to acquire the tools to reach her certification goals. “I found that the intensive three-day learning with other members who have a common goal is very effective in attaining that next level,” she said of her experience at the regional academy she attended. “In a small snowsports school, you get to a certain point where you look around and you go, ‘OK, I need somebody to help me take the next step.’”

As she was pursuing her Level III, Mitchell, who had by then become training director, began to focus more on creating relevant content for Blacktail Mountain’s kids’ and ladies’ programs, as well as its Alpine & Snowboard Cadets program. “One of the big things we’ve done recently is started a teen leadership/junior instructor program,” she said, adding that a key component is mentorship.

In addition, some of Mitchell’s other duties include organizing and scheduling school groups, some of which travel up to three hours to learn how to ski and ride at Blacktail Mountain. “We’re big on building lifetime skiers, and we have a program in which fifth graders ski for free,” Mitchell added.

She’s also currently serving as snowsports director until the assistant snowsports director is ready to take the reins later this winter. Then Mitchell will return to concentrating on what she loves: educating and training.

During her time in Montana, Mitchell has appreciated the support she’s received from the Northwest Region Office and Blacktail Mountain, both of which have played a key role in helping her reach her goals. “There’s never been a moment that I’ve not been able to get support or direction from either of them,” she said. “If anybody out there is thinking about applying for a scholarship, I would say do it. And if you’re not really sure where to start, call your regional office because they can be a wonderful resource.”