Private Snowboard Lessons at Sugar Bowl
Sugar Bowl is the one mountain where we teach genuine private lessons rather than coached mentorship days. If you are riding rather than skiing, you are booking Jason, and this page explains why that matters and how to get him.
Your coach: Jason
Jason is our snowboard coach, and he only teaches snowboarding. That is deliberate. Plenty of ski schools hand a snowboard lesson to whoever is free that morning, including instructors who ride well but teach skiing most days. Riding and teaching riding are different skills.
He holds PSIA-AASI Snowboard Level II and the PSIA-AASI Children’s Specialist credential, with more than 20 years riding and 10 years teaching on snow. Before that, and still, he has spent over 35 years coaching on the water. Windsurfing Magazine once named him one of North America’s instructional superheroes, which sounds like a joke until you watch him diagnose a stance problem in one run.
He teaches ages 6 to 80: first-timers, kids’ groups, all-mountain riders, powder, and off-piste.
What he is unusually good at
Reading how you learn, then changing his approach. This is the part most instruction gets wrong. Two riders with the same problem often need two completely different explanations, and the useful skill is working out which one you are inside the first few runs rather than the last few.
Equipment setup. A surprising share of snowboard problems are not technique at all. Stance width, binding angles, forward lean, and boot fit quietly cause things that look like bad riding. Jason spots those before spending your day drilling a fix for a problem the board is creating.
Cues that change several things at once. Rather than a checklist of six corrections you cannot hold in your head, he tends to find the one instruction that reorganises the rest.
Who books a private snowboard lesson
- First-timers who want the first day to go well. Day one on a snowboard is harder than day one on skis, and it is the day most people decide whether they will ever come back.
- Riders stuck at intermediate. Usually a stance or edge-pressure problem, and usually invisible from the inside.
- Kids. The Children’s Specialist credential is a real qualification about how children learn, not a marketing line.
- Anyone moving from groomers into powder and trees, which asks for different movements rather than more of the same ones.
How booking works, and what it costs
Jason teaches at Sugar Bowl. Booking runs through the resort at their standard rates, the same as any Sugar Bowl private lesson. Rates run from around $799 for an all-day private up to about $1,300 in peak season, covering up to three people. What this page changes is which instructor you get.
Tell us your dates below and we pass the details to the Sugar Bowl office, who will call you to confirm and take payment. The resort’s general booking form assigns whoever is available, so going through here is what ties the day to Jason.
Frequently asked questions
Can I book Jason directly through Sugar Bowl instead?
You can book a lesson through Sugar Bowl directly, but you cannot reliably request a specific instructor that way. Their office assigns whoever is available. Going through this page is what ties the booking to Jason.
Is this different from booking a lesson at Sugar Bowl?
Same lesson, same resort, same rates. The difference is that you are choosing the instructor rather than being assigned one.
Can a skier and a snowboarder share a lesson?
Not usefully. A private covers up to three people, but ski and snowboard instruction are different enough that one coach teaching both at once shortchanges everyone. Book separately, ride together afterwards.
What if Jason is not available on my date?
We will tell you honestly rather than substituting someone quietly. If another of our coaches suits what you are after, we will say so. If not, we will say that too.
Do you teach snowboarding anywhere else?
Sugar Bowl is the only mountain where we teach genuine private lessons. Elsewhere we run Mountain Mentorship, which is a coached day rather than a lesson.
New to snowboarding entirely? Read what to actually expect on day one first. Or see all our private lessons at Sugar Bowl.