Wow, how the time flies!

So, I know I was going to update this often but... I've been slacking. The following post is about 15 days late! Sorry about that. I'll try to make at least one post a week.

So where to start? Well, we had a record breaking Christmas day. One thing that's nice about Diamond Peak is that it's never really busy. Even though the line looks long it only takes about 5-10 minutes to get on the chair.

One crazy thing about the holidays is dealing with people who don't think through their actions. 13 people in a short 1 hour period all made bad decicions (and I'm only guessing it was one hour, who knows when some of these people went to the top!). Person number one, decided to ski out of bounds and got lost out of Solitude Canyon, this happened near closing and we still had a mountain to close. Luckily for everybody involved we had cell phone contact with him and we let him know how to get out to the road. As we were closing upper mountain we came upon 11 people struggling down, most were walking, others were struggling and a few others were laughing at their friends. I'm not sure exactly how long it took for them to get down but as I was waiting for them at the bottom of Lakeview Run, where we shooed them all to, they were walking from the top of the run. Some were more 'advanced' then others and when they made it to Freeway they were able to ski down. As this group was making their way down, the guy in Solitude made his way to the road and was picked up by the mountain manager (I'm sure they had a plesant conversation). At this time I'm a little frustrated that my headlamp is in my rescue pack in the car and not in my day bag with me. By the time the large group made it to the top of Freeway (at which point they continue walking), we get another report that there's a missing person, this time someone skiied under the rope from Eagle Bowl and was heading down to the Ponderosa Ranch (yeah, the one from the Bonanza). So FINALLY these walkers get down off the hill and Dennis and Corben go back up on the mountain to find the kid. Luck was with us again because he too had a cell phone and we were able to talk to him.

Also something about cell phones is knowing a few numbers by heart. A couple days ago we picked up a guy in the terrain park who hurt his back. He hurt it pretty badly and refused transport by ambulance, wanting his wife to drive him instead. The ambulance insisted, but they can't kidnap the guy. Unfortunatly for him he didn't know her cell phone number because it was in his cell phone. Guess where his phone was? Yep, in the wife's car, where were the keys? On her person. I'm sure you can see the dilema. Our mountain is small but it's amazing how big it can get when you're looking for one generic person. Four hours later, he's still sitting in the patrol room in incredible pain and we finally find his wife getting on the tram. Geez!

As far as the rookies go, they're in red now! They passed the sled test and medical tests then hiked Luggi's to get their jackets. They're excited to be full fledged patrollers and not be teased by everybody for being in a different uniform. I'll post a picture of them together soon (pictures are hard right now because I only have a camera phone). We're still training and we gave one of them a tree well/knee with spinal precaution scene. The 'patient' was altered and combative - real fun scene to work.

I'm sure each patroller has one story of something that's happened where they have that moment 'yeah, this is why i'm patrolling'. Sure, you like skiing and helping people out but where's that 'ah ha' moment? I might have mentioned that for me is was a four hour search my rookie year. For my buddy Ethan he said that it was a 'midnight' powder run after we weren't utilized in a search. (BTW, I was there and I'm pretty sure it wasn't midnight when we skied down.) And for Corben it might have been him hanging out of a chair and cutting down an unruly tree (pics to come). If you're out there reading this, let me know what your moment was.

Wear some sunscreen and pray for snow!