Category: Ski Patrol

After over a week of high pressure, I headed up to the Pass for what I was hoping would be a fun day of patrolling in the sun. As usual, I left the house early, and arrived in the parking lot around 7:20 am, in hopes of snapping a few photos with my fisheye lens prior to taking care of the morning activities. I snapped the below shot of the base area, and then headed to find Tim to discuss plans for the day.

A bit later, it was time for the morning meeting, and after discussing the day’s activities, Laurie led a discussion on the medical minute, which included a discussion on assessments, as well as seizures. Having Laurie take over the discussion for a few minutes allowed me to step back and shoot a few pictures, including the one below…

After the morning meeting, we headed out to open the hill, and a number of us (including the OEC candidates who were up to train) made our way to the top of EPA to open the upper mountain. Before we headed out to open runs, Jim England was nice enough to grab my camera and shoot a picture of us at the summit.

I opened Timburr, which wasn’t really friendly right out of the gate, but then headed over to Eagle’s with Anna to ski some better snow for a second lap…

After spinning a couple of laps off EPA, I decided to check in on the OEC training. Laurie, Hannah and Matthew were leading the OEC candidates just off the top of EPA where we typically do avalanche training, and it looked like they were starting out with lower extremity injuries.

After the OEC check-in, I headed back to the top of EPA, and noticed Dan, Doug and Tyler working on a sled and getting some of our signage from the base up to the top shack, so I snapped a photo of them as well…

The morning was going quite well, so I took another lap, enjoying the snow which was just starting to soften up on the south facing runs. Once back up to the top, I pulled out the camera for a few more pics, including the one below of Anna and Jon.

By this point, the temperature was really starting to warm up, and as I poked my head back over to see what the OEC group was doing, I had to laugh (and snap a picture) when I noticed Matthew with just his vest on and no shirt!

Next up, it was time for a couple laps on RTS before heading to the car for lunch, and although the snow wasn’t soft, it wasn’t too hard either, and it was nice to get some technical turns in on the steepest run on the hill.

Back at the base, I enjoyed a well-earned lunch at the car, and headed back out on the hill for what would become a somewhat tumultuous afternoon. At the base before I loaded the lift, we got a call from dispatch of an potential injured snowboarder on Peekaboo. I deployed Anna, who was in the area to check it out, and then worked my way to EPA to load. A few minutes later she replied that she needed a sled, backboard, a BLS pack, and three additional patrollers, and I knew it didn’t sound good.

With other patrollers behind me on the chair, I responded as backup, and requested 3 others for additional assistance. I headed down RTS to the top of Twilight, got the sled and equipment, and headed out. Without getting into detail, we ended up making the call for a helicopter, and readied the landing zone at Sleepy. SPY, hosts and candidates did an awesome job of clearing patrons from the lift and bunny hill, and a short time later, we had the patient to the base area, at which time another incident occurred that required an ambulance ride. With shit getting real in a hurry, I was super happy to see the Life Flight helicopter as it arrived.

The paramedics headed over to our aid room to care for the patient, and ultimately transport them to a higher level of care. I headed back out to run the hill, and worked my way back up to the top of EPA.

Ultimately, the helicopter crew got the patient loaded and off the hill, with the assistance of several patrollers, and things settled down for the rest of the afternoon. The candidates went back to training, and beyond a wild goose chase trying to locate a set of keys for a car that belonged to the family of a patient in the aid room, the rest of the day went smoothly.

When it was time to close the hill for the day, nobody was happier than I was to be done. Just before everyone headed out to sweep the upper mountain runs, I snapped the below pic of Kerstin and Joe basking in the evening light….

Dan was running sweep, and I stayed up top with him while patrol called in the runs one by one. I always get a kick out of staying up top to end the day, and it reminds me a lot of spring missions to the Pass after they are closed — with the only thing missing being the beer!

Once upper mountain sweep was over, we swept Twilight without a hitch, and then headed down for a lengthy debrief of the day’s incidents and activities. Finally, it was time for some well deserved beers, and I pulled out a Pray for Pow stout from 10 Barrel Brewing, which I was hoping might help turn the tide against the stubborn high pressure ridge that seems to be planted firmly in place off the west coast.

Unfortunately, my Pray for Pow beer didn’t bring any pow back to us (as I’d learn in the coming several weeks), but it sure did hit the spot, and made for really nice ending to an otherwise stressful day. Drinking a good beer in the company of my ski patrol family at the end of the day reminded me of what I really enjoy most about patrolling, and soon the stress of the day was washed away with the laughter of the parking lot crowd hanging out by the campfire. All in all, I’d have to say it was a pretty good day on the mountain.

After a pretty fun day of turns the day before, I headed up to the Pass with Shaun in tow for my first patrol day of 2022. The forecast was calling for mostly sunny skies, and the snow looked to be in decent shape after several feet had fallen over the prior several days. We pulled into the parking lot and I geared up, and then headed over to the patrol room to get ready for the day…

Around 8 am, we started the morning meeting and discussed plans for the day, which included sled check-offs for existing alpine patrollers. We also had a quick conversation about assessments and upper extremity injuries, and then it was time to head out and open the mountain. After making a run, I headed back to the car and got Shaun, and we headed back out on the hill.

We made some good runs on the front, and enjoyed the snow on Good Time and High Lead. After a couple of runs, we headed down at 10:00 am so I could spend some time with the Spy to get them lined out for the day. While Anna and I were working with the Spy, Shaun headed back out on the hill to make some more turns.

After working with the Spy on various activities around the base, I headed back up top to EPA to get ready for sled-checks. Both Joe and Ian were up and set to lead the sled running, and we determined High Lead would be a good run for the check-offs.

I ended up running the sled with Tyler, and brought it down to the top of High Lead unloaded. Laurie then hopped in, and with me in the handles and Tyler on the tail rope we headed out.

The run was a bit on the icy side, and it took me a minute to remember that instead of trying to muscle the sled it was better to push down on the handles and engage the break to make the sled do the work, and then feather the handles as needed for navigation. Once Laurie reminded me of that, it was smooth sailing down the run. Halfway down, Tyler and I switched, and he took over the handles while I grabbed the tail rope. The check went smoothly, and soon we were back out on the hill ready for another run.

I linked back up with Shaun at the top of EPA, and we made a couple more runs together, and then I wanted to check out RTS with Dan while Shaun skied one of the front side runs and would meet us at the base.

RTS was in pretty good shape — it was definitely skier cut, but the packed powder skied well and we enjoyed turns down to the bottom.

As the afternoon wore on, we made a few more runs on the front side, finishing up with a couple on Timburr, after receiving clearance from the area to do a little chain saw work and cut up a couple of trees that had fallen on the run —- one that had fallen a few days prior and one that had just fallen the night before.

We made our way down to the base after checking on John and Dave who were working with the saw, and then headed up for another lap. There was an empty Cascade 100 that needed to go up, so I grabbed it and headed up. At the top, Laurie was waiting to greet me, and I snapped a pic of here getting ready to take one of the OEC training sleds back down to the base….

It looked like we had plenty of time for another run down Timburr, and I wanted to stop and give John and Dave a hand with the tree work. By the time we got there, they had cut the log from the new tree up into large chunks, and Calvin and I helped them with rolling/pushing them off the run and out of the ski path.

After our work, we made it to the base just in time to catch the last chair for sweep. Shaun rode up with me and was happy to be able to help with sweep.

While we were waiting for sweep to begin, I pulled out the camera and snapped a few pictures of the sun setting over Diamond Peak, with Shaun in the first one and Anna and Tyler in the second.

Closing began a few minutes later, and we swept the hill clean without incident. At the base, we held a quick evening meeting, and then it was time to enjoy some tasty Red Chair beers from Deschutes Brewery that I had brought up for everyone. The cold beer hit the spot after a long day, and it was a great day to end my first patrol day of 2022.

The final day of the year had arrived, and Shaun wanted to make some turns for his first day of the season, so we headed to the Pass for a day of lift serviced riding. I wasn’t on duty, but after checking the schedule it looked like it was going to be a light day for patrollers, so I threw in my coat and pack to give P4 a hand. We pulled into the patrol lot around 9:00, and shortly thereafter were geared up and ready to go.

We took a first lap on Twilight, since EPA was iced up and not quite ready to spin yet, and cruised down By George. By the time we got to the bottom, it looked like EPA was ready to go, so we joined in the big line to catch a lift to the top. Given that it was a holiday weekend (with the 31st being a holiday for many since the 1st fell on Saturday), I wasn’t surprised to see a ton of people at the mountain…

We met up with Dan and Cindy, and caught a ride to the top with them. At the top, for some reason, the area had a snowcat parked out past the unloading ramp, and it made for a nice spot to snap a quick picture. After that, we skied down and made a run on Good Time Charlie, which was in really nice shape. Shaun skied it nicely, and I was happy to see his skills gained from the year before were still there.

Another long wait in line at the bottom followed, and then Shaun and I made several more laps on the frontside runs, starting with Eagles, then High Lead and then Timburr.

Around noon, it was time to head to the car to enjoy some lunch, and we got to visit with Carolyn (a former patroller) in the lot. The snow, which had started falling earlier in the day, kept falling, and there was nearly 3 inches of new by the time we headed out for some afternoon turns.

As we headed back towards EPA, I noticed a sled that needed transporting to the top of the hill, so I had a patroller load it for me and then we headed up with it in tow. Shaun wanted to ski Success, so after taking care of the sled up top we dropped in over the edge and skied some surprisingly decent snow under the chair.

The rest of the day was filled with turns, and Shaun did really well for his first day out of the year. We called it a day a few minutes before sweep, and headed to the car to change into more comfortable clothes. Shaun was content to get into a video game on his phone, while I was content to get into a tasty Rippin’ NW Pale Ale from Sunriver Brewing Company.

I finished my beer as I cleared the car of snow and ice, and we were ready to hit the road. All in all, it was a great day, especially considering I was able to spend it with Shaun, and definitely much easier that my previous patrol day a few days earlier, with a lot less work!

Having missed my regular patrol day on Christmas, and knowing P3 was looking super thin for the 26th, I was looking forward to heading up to the Pass to give them a hand and also hopefully score some fresh snow in the process. The forecast was calling for 8-10 inches overnight, and I was shocked when I called the snow phone while heading down the road from my house to hear the report of 24 inches overnight and still snowing heavily. Traveling up the highway to the Pass was a bit slower than normal, with snow on the valley floor, but I managed to pull into the parking lot around 7:30 am. Toby and a few others pulled in shortly thereafter, and everybody was pretty excited for the day.

It didn’t take me long to gear up, and soon I made my way to the patrol room. It was clear a significant amount of new snow was present, with at least two feet of fresh, on top of the several feet that had fallen over the previous three to four days.

While we got ready for the morning meeting, I set about clearing the snow off the patrol room roof, and Ian happened to catch a photo of me from under the roof — the pic below reminds me a bit of being on the back side of a waterfall, or in this case, snowfall!

By 8:00 am, we had the morning meeting, and discussed plans for the day. It looked like there would be a significant amount of digging to start with to get the base area dug out, as well as a bunch of tower pad work in addition to other deep snow related activities.

After the morning meeting, we headed out quickly to help the area dig out from the significant overnight dump. Our first task was to dig out the EPA ramp, and then we gave the lift operators a hand digging out and setting the fencing around EPA. It was difficult work, but eventually we found all the fencing and were able to reset it, and we had the ramp looking good.

The next priority was to dig out under the chair at the base, since a significant amount of snow had fallen/blown in overnight there as well. Sam, who was back for winter break, donned a sled vest and gave us a hand…

By 9:40 or so, things were looking good, and the lift started spinning to the delight of the significant number of folks waiting in line. Below is a pic of Toby and Sam showing our nearly finished shovel job….

As soon as the lift started spinning, patrol hopped on and headed for the top to gear up for opening the hill. Toby and I donned our avalanche gear and headed over to RTS to do control work, and it was deep. Thankfully, Ian closed the run while we were working, and even though it was super deep, we only saw minimal movement. It did look like a small natural release had occurred earlier, but for the most part we were able to control it without incident. Then it was time to call the run open, and head down to get some of the goods. I dropped in first, and then snapped a few pictures of Toby tele-skiing through some of the deepest snow I’d seen in awhile.

We worked our way down the run, skiing one at a time for safety, and then headed over to Amber’s to see if we could work our way through the deep snow to exit to Twilight. Fortunately for us, several other folks joined us after about 5 minutes, and we gang skied the run (which wasn’t groomed) to get a track in for an exit. It took about 10 minutes with about 8 of us, including Jensen and a few others, but we finally made it out.

I headed down George, and then loaded EPA to make one more run, this time on Timburr, after checking on a stuck skier up top. After riding the deep blower pow, I saw Toby working on tower pads on Midway, and decided to give him a hand. It was ridiculously deep on Midway, and getting to the tower pads presented a significant challenge, but eventually we got them done. I snapped a few photos of Toby “skiing” between the tower pads, as shown below….it was literally waist deep with skis on.

After working my ass off for most of the morning, I caught up with Dan for a few runs in the early afternoon. We spun a couple of laps on RTS, and Dan was kind enough to take a few photos of me getting into the white room, even after the area had been open for over half the day…

After skiing RTS, I grabbed the camera back and returned the favor of shooting a few photos of Dan on Timburr, and then we worked our way back to RTS for one more lap before heading down to the base to get some well deserved lunch.

It was really refreshing to enjoy a hot microwaved lunch of leftover Pad Thai on a cold day, and I wolfed it down quickly. The snow was great, and there was still work to do, so I headed out to the truck to drop my lunch box back off before we headed out. While there, I grabbed a quick pic of the beer I’d brought for the day, a super tasty Dark Star stout from Fremont Brewing. Although I would enjoy this beer after the day was done (and I did), I can say without a doubt that this is one of my favorite stout’s of all time.

With lunch over, Dan and I headed back out on the hill, and headed up to RTS. Our plan was to get a crew together to work on tower pads on Twilight, and to take care of fencing that was still up at the bottom of RTS (from earlier in the year when the area got a cat stuck). We were successful in getting the fencing picked up before it was totally buried, as well as getting some good turns in the process. When we got to the bottom of RTS, I took my board off to work on the fencing and immediately sank up to my chest!

Next up, Dan and I fielded a crew and headed down Rough Cut to work on tower pads. This was easier said than done, since Rough Cut hadn’t been groomed, and also hadn’t seen a skier all day. We started down, and it was brutal. Our crew consisted of myself, Dan, Mike, Ken, Stefan and Jan.

I ended up having to walk down the entire run (turns were impossible) in chest deep snow. After me, Dan was able to keep his skis on and basically skin in waist deep snow. By the time the third or fourth person came down, they could (slowly) ski in our track. This system worked pretty well, and allowed us to be as efficient as we could given the super deep conditions.

By the time we reached the groomer at the base of Twilight, all of us were dog tired, and super happy to get out of the deep snow. I must admit, after 12 years of being on patrol, that was probably about as hard as I’ve ever worked.

After the brutal tower pad work, I had time for one or two more laps before heading up to help with sweep. I got to share a ride with Jen on one of the rides up, and it was really nice to get to chat with her since she’d been out for quite awhile with health issues. I snapped the below photo of her on the ride up, and it puked on us while we visited, like it had done all day long…

By 4:00 pm, I worked my way to the top of EPA to help with sweep, and it was starting to get dark. I drew a closing run of Timburr, which meant more work to take care of the fencing around the snow gun, as well as the race shack. No worries though, I still had a little energy left in the tank, and was just super grateful for all the new snow.

We swept the mountain clean without incident, and took care of the fencing at the gun and the race shack, then gathered around the patrol room for the evening meeting as it was getting dark. Everyone was beat after working like dogs all day, but it was super nice to be able to score such deep powder and to take advantage of the lifts that I don’t think we even cared.

After the evening meeting, we headed to the cars, and I enjoyed that super tasty Dark Star stout while changing out of my patrol gear. My truck had over a foot of snow on it, which made for over 36 inches of snow in the past 24 hours, and probably 60 inches of new snow in the past three days. After digging out and heading down the road, I thought to myself that while it may not have been the deepest day I’d ever been a part of, it had to rank right up there at the top. One thing’s for sure, winter is here, and I couldn’t be happier about it!

December had arrived in the mountains, and it was time to head to the Pass for the annual candidate/make-up refresher. I met Dan around 7:00 am, and instead of loading snow gear into the truck, we loaded saws instead, hoping for a little time in the afternoon to work on clearing a few saplings on the runs. We made the drive up highway 58 without incident, and soon found ourselves at the Pass ready for the day’s activities.

Since there was some wind forecast for the afternoon, we decided to move up the chairlift evacuation as the first order of business for the day. I ran through the evac plan with the candidates, and then we headed over to Sleepy to to practice. After explaining how to belay, lower, communicate, etc., we got to it. I did manage to snap a few pictures of the veterans who were there for the day as a make-up, including John, Stefan and Chris below…

Next up was a talk about the avalanche gear and the routes we run on the hill, followed by me organizing some of the lift evacuation equipment for deployment on the hill. Then, the rest of the group went on an area tour, while Dan and I had a quick lunch and then started off up the hill with the saws for the afternoon. After clearing our activities with the owner, we headed up to the top of Twilight to check on whether we wanted to start at the bottom of RTS, but ultimately elected to head up top.

The drive up the road, through Tait’s and onto Boundary went smootly, and there was just a little residual snow left in the area. The area was looking really good, although it looked more like early October than December. Nevertheless, we made our way up top, where Tim was doing some work on the EPA top shack.

After giving Tim a hand moving some concrete blocks, we donned chaps and safety gear, and headed over to the top of RTS to continue the work we started a few weeks prior. We cut for a couple of hours, making good progress on the hemlocks and grand firs that were surprisingly much bigger than the past year. Even with all the cutting we’ve done on RTS over the years, it seems like there is always plenty more to do each year.

After a couple of hours we’d had enough fun, and decided it was time to head down and get off the hill before dark and time to get some food. Looking back to the south, I snapped a photo of Dan with Diamond in the background, while he took a picture of me looking west…

We worked our way back up to the top and loaded our gear back in the truck. I pulled out my beer of choice for the day, a really tasty Squeezy Rider IPA from Deschutes Brewery. Instead of drinking it up top, I decided to enjoy it down at Gold Lake with the brats we were planning to grill, so back in my cooler it went.

On the way down, we decided to take a look down Escalator and over to Northern to see if there was any snow at all left on the runs. Escalator was looking pretty poor, but there were actually a few small skiable patches on Northern. As Dan joked, “we should have brought the skis.”

On the way down, we stopped at the big corner and cut a tree down that was right in the middle of the run that we’d identified on the way up. With Dan’s electric chainsaw, it’s super simple to make a quick cut, and then we were on our way.

From KP, we headed down to the base, and then after locking up, headed down to Gold Lake snowpark for some dinner. We had the brats on the grill, and were enjoying our beers, when Bill pulled up from down the road. We had a good chat with him, opined on whether or not we were going to get any snow this season and be able to get open, and talked about the challenges of hiring lift ops this season.

A few minutes later, Bill and his wife headed down the road, and our brats were done. We scarfed them down, finished off the rest of our beers, and headed down the road ourselves. As we turned out onto the highway, both Dan and I agreed we were probably done cutting for the year. The only question remaining was, how much would it snow and would we be able to capitalize on any of our efforts this winter? Only time will tell….