Passed ski patrol skiing test! (Read 1774 times)

And then finally yesterday, *passed* the toboggan test and got a red jacket with a white cross.

Another month, but not so much snow--we'll see.

Congrats!  What mountain?  My husband was a pro patrol at Mammoth for a few years in the late 90s.  Says it was the best days of his life.  I have to nudge him and remind him he didn't know me then

Have an amazing experience!!

Congrats!  What mountain?  My husband was a pro patrol at Mammoth for a few years in the late 90s.  Says it was the best days of his life.  I have to nudge him and remind him he didn't know me then

 

Have an amazing experience!!

It's at a Colorado mountain.

SO jealous!  ...

Please fill us in on what the job is like...and photos!

First, it's a lot of work.  Second, I think there's some sort of allure that it's glamorous.  While I suppose there are small moments of that, it's mostly a lot of waiting, a lot of physical work, a few intense moments, and from time-to-time very sincere thanks from guests and that's the part that's quite rewarding.

We get up early.  I'm usually up before 5:00AM for the drive up and then pulling into the parking lot at about 7:20AM in order to sign-in for the part of the mountain I want to cover.

First thing is trail checks.  As a rookie, this last weekend I got one of the wide green thoroughfare runs that has a lot of fences and stuff to put up.

During the day, on our mountain, we rotate through sitting at the patrol shack waiting for dispatch to send us out on a call.  Saturday, I had four incidents to work.  First, there was an elderly man reporting altitude sickness at one of the on-mountain restaurants.  Hearing that reported, I was foremost concerned about heart attack.  We have an AED at the restaurant.  Second was a ski school student who hurt her knee.  It wasn't anything and she just didn't want to spend the afternoon with the rest of her class progressing in the moguls.  I returned her to the ski instructor for him to deal with.  Third was a woman who took a hard fall and heard her knee pop.  Getting her down in the toboggan, I referred her to the clinic.  The fourth this last weekend was a pre-teen girl with her family in the trees between runs who hit a log or something else under the snow and twisted and broke her ankle.  She was in significant pain, crying loudly and unstoppably, and we were on the backside of a ridge.  Since I was alone, I was able to use a couple mountain hosts and the girl's dad to help safely load her into the toboggan.  After getting a first skidoo tug to get over the ridge, we were busy and I couldn't get a skidoo tug across one of the later flatter areas and had to unzip everything and skate it as the girl's still crying in pain behind.  During the day, I also fetched a drop pole under a lift line in unskied powder.

End of the day is sweeps.  My last incident down in the triage room at the base went late into the afternoon.  I was able to catch the last chair up (after the mechanics had technically shut it down but I wanted to get my backpack and poles from up top).  I didn't have a sweep this day where we make sure nobody's left on the mountain.  Instead, I got to zip down an empty, wide blue at somewhere between 50 and 60 mph.

After, we had drinks with members of a ski club.

The next day I was rather sore from driving three toboggans.

That's kind of what it's like.  About some common misperceptions:

• We cut line to get back to work, not to get another run in.  We can't really help anyone standing in line.  We have to get back up to the top, to be in position for being dispatched.  That's where the public doesn't see us waiting (and waiting).
• We're not cops.  We try to keep it safe and encourage people to slow down in the tighter spots of the mountain, but otherwise, there's very little preventive we do.
• We take collisions very seriously.  The only time this year I've seen another patroller get very emotional at all is when a) one guest was out of control and collided into another guest and has significantly injured them and/or put them in pain and b) the guest causing it has attitude and mouth rather than genuinely human contrition and concern.
• We don't poach.  The only reasons we duck ropes or otherwise go to closed terrain is to do stuff like take a shortcut across the mountain to an injured guest or to prepare terrain for its opening or to fetch a dropped piece of equipment from a lift line.  We also take poaching among guests seriously because of avalanche risk.
• I now actually ski much less than I did before--fewer runs per day.

Other mountains may be different, but that's been my experiences.  It's a lot of work and a broad set of different skills that range from navigation, communications, medical, conflict management, to advanced skiing.