Leota Sweetman-McPeek: A Grand 50 Years on Skis

Leota Sweetman-McPeek loves feeling the sunshine on her back in the winter. She finds peace in the smoothness of her skis sluicing across the snow, the quietness of a winter day on a solitary slope. Her greatest joy, however, is seeing other people learn to love these things — and the process of teaching them to appreciate it all. Given her passions, working as a ski instructor was clearly the perfect career choice. So, for the 71-year-old Grand Junction native who plans to give lessons on parallel turns and surviving mogul runs at Powderhorn Ski Resort again this winter, it’s been an incredibly gratifying past 50 years. “I am a born teacher,” she says of the half-century she’s spent as a ski instructor. “I missed it so badly this last year of isolation.”

Photo courtesy of Leota Sweetman-McPeek

Born in 1950, Sweetman-McPeek didn’t learn to ski until age 12. “My dad thought it was a dangerous sport,” she laughs. “Neither of my parents were skiers. Neither of my parents were athletes. I don’t know how I became an athlete.”

Undeterred by her parents’ disinterest, she enrolled in a youth ski program through the now-closed local sporting goods store, Gene Taylors (their Gunnison store is still open), that offered a ski lesson, lift ticket and bus ride up to the small resort of Mesa Creek (now a go-to spot for tubing on Grand Mesa). A few years later, during her first semester as a freshman at Mesa Junior College, Sweetman-McPeek took skiing for her physical education credit. “I developed a passion for it,” she shares. “I absolutely loved it.”

That love motivated her to look into jobs as a ski instructor at Powderhorn the following year at age 19. Her application was accepted, and a lifelong career began.

Over the years, Sweetman-McPeek has taught at multiple resorts — Powderhorn, Loveland Ski Area, Purgatory Resort, Sleeping Giant in Wyoming and Red Lodge Resort in Montana — and estimates she’s given more than 3,000 lessons to skiers ages three through 84. Early in her career, she coached a high school ski team in Cody, Wyoming. Since there wasn’t a ski area nearby, much of their “practice time” was spent playing soccer in an effort to maintain the student athletes’ fitness and foot coordination. Despite the improv coaching regime, her Cody High School team competed — and did well — in ski races throughout the state.

Roger Whitehouse ranks among Sweetman-McPeek’s favorite students. At the time of his first lesson with her, he was 83 years old. “He wanted to learn to ski with his grandchildren,” she remembers, noting his dedication not just to learning the motions but to perfecting them. “What I admired about him was his commitment to do it right, not just do it sloppy. He wanted to be a really good skier.”

When it came to helping her own child learn how to ski, Sweetman-McPeek broke her personal rule. Typically, she says, she strongly advises parents against teaching their own kids, because it causes too much stress for everyone involved. The natural educator, however, couldn’t resist and had her daughter out on planks by age five skiing along behind her. 

“I taught her the basics. She just followed in my footsteps,” Sweetman-McPeek says. Now, when the pair ski together, their similar form and turning techniques are noticeable even to outsiders. “People who watch us comment that we ski the same. We ski in exactly the same rhythm.”

Ultimately though, Sweetman-McPeek hopes to teach her students lessons beyond how to ski effortlessly through tight trees and to navigate the steeps with a grin not a gasp. She wants them to share her love for the sport and her appreciation for the natural environment that makes it possible. That’s why, every time she coaches a beginner down their first run, she tells them to take three deep breaths and take a look both at what they just accomplished and what they can see from their current vantage point. 

“I always have them [take a minute to appreciate] the beauty of looking out from the top of Grand Mesa to see the whole Grand Valley,” she says.

The veteran ski instructor would love to see even more people take advantage of Colorado’s winter playgrounds, especially over on the Western Slope. Though she acknowledges that inversion causes the colder months, January in particular, to be gray down at Grand Junction’s elevation of 4,500 feet, she points to the bright upside: there are blue skies up above the gray. 

“Grand Mesa is at 10,000 feet. You’re above the clouds,” she explains. “If you ski, you get more sunny days.

Though Sweetman-McPeek took last year off from ski instructing due to the pandemic, she’s eager to get back this winter — even though she’s recovering from two total knee replacements. “I should be back by December 21,” she reported. Not that she’s counting the days or anything. The surgery and therapy have been painful, she admits, but she knows it will be worth it. “I plan on skiing another 10 or 15 years,” she says. “I may slow down on the bumps, but I’m still going to be out there playing in the sunshine.”

Originally published in the Winter 2021-22 issue of Spoke+Blossom.