Thanks for the recommendation, I'll check it out!

His books are great, too! "Reading the Forested Landscape" totally changed the way I look at the woods up here.

Mud season here means you may be walking your bikes, because the mud can be like a foot deep on some dirt roads.

I've tried so many different days and times and around 2:30 pm on a Tuesday has been best. That's the post-free-sample-for-lunch crowd and pre-afterwork crowd. Mondays and Fridays are the worst weekdays and I wouldn't dream of going on a weekend.

This lady is well regarded: https://www.swimwithannie.com/ She does lessons at The Essex spa, which is pretty warm. Don't know if she's in your price range though.

Ski instruction can definitely feel like "and then you draw the rest of the owl" once you get to a certain level. There's always more to learn! Seems like an unmet need in the marketplace.

I'm not 100% sure, but I think most instructors have deals with their home mountain that doesn't allow them to take private clients there. But they are sometimes willing to get around that by skiing at a different mountain. So if you have an instructor you already like, you could ask them to do that.

Finding more advanced instructors is harder, for sure. A couple of my friends have had some luck with an advanced backcountry ski course. Not exactly what you're looking for but might be worth checking out? Sorry I can't give a more specific recommendation.