Be Safe Out There!

The mountain can be dangerous, freezing temps, whiteouts, avalanches and other catastrophes are out there waiting for the unprepared. In some cases even the prepared.

Wolf Creek Ski Resort lost their Patrol Director, Scott Kay on November 22 from an inbounds avalanche. He was a husband and a father and will surely be missed by his patrol as well as the whole patrol community. He was working an avalanche route, working to keep the mountain and it's guests and employees safe, and was unfortunately caught in one. Wolf Creek closed the mountain for the day in response to the accident.

NSP has reported 22 American Ski Patrol deaths in 52 years which is amazing considering the circumstances of the work. I think that's a merit to the meticulous training that we go through before being checked off to do more dangerous things such as avalanche bombing and ski cutting. (I'm not sure how accurate these numbers are for all patrollers. Does this number include non-NSP patrollers? I don't know)

Our mountain doesn't typically have avalanche concerns. We have a cornice that we knock down on a regular basis and in 'perfect' conditions there is one area that will slide - about 20 feet. Although I've never actually heard of it sliding, it could just be a rumor. The only regular spot that slides is a 'secret' spot that we ski until it slides and the whole 'run' is only about 2, maybe 3 turns long.

We do have other concerns though, people get lost. And they typically aren't prepared. At our mountain we have two areas that will draw people out. These people usually duck under rope lines (trust me, we don't put them up for fun!) or cross 'soft' closures. This is where it would be impractical to actually rope the area off so there are signs placed marking the area out-of-bounds. We make sure these signs are close enough together so you can't pass through them without seeing a sign. Our job is to keep you safe, keeping you inbounds is safe. Going out of bounds is illegal, and at our mountain, doesn't lead you back to the mountain. It leads you further down, away from the mountain.

Another thing I want to mention about going out of bounds is that a lot of them were just "following someone else's track". Can you ask the track if it's owner made it back inbounds? Can you ask the track if it's owner is safe somewhere below? Can you ask the track if the run it took is at your ability? The answer is no, and if you do get an answer, maybe you should get your head checked. Various mountains will have planned treks into it's 'side-country' to show where it's safe and where it's not but at this juncture Diamond Peak doesn't have any planned. Maybe if we get enough response we could do something like that, comment below if this is something that you're interested in.

We've had a few searches in the 4 seasons I've patrolled and I can tell you that skiing down the mountain with a headlamp in a snowstorm isn't the funnest way to spend an evening. The first search I did included our patrol and 3 other agencies (North Lake Tahoe Fire Protection District,  Washoe County Hasty team, and the Tahoe Nordic SAR) totalling about 50 people. We found the man around midnight and luckily for him he was scared but OK.

In Reno/Tahoe we recently lost someone due to wintry conditions in the Galena area (halfway between Reno and Tahoe). Rick Gentry went hiking Nov 21st with just a windbreaker, jeans, snowshoes, bottle of water and gloves. This was during the cold and fierce snowstorm we had before Thanksgiving. He was able to call 911 (yes, that 911) and give a rough estimation as to where he was and that was wasn't dressed properly before his call was cut off. They weren't on the line long enough to pin-point his location but Washoe County put forth a rescue effort. Conditions were dangerous for the rescuers, who found one snowshoe, one glove, and his fanny pack containing water and a few other items. Wahoe County suspended the search on Nov 24th saying they would resume on the following Sunday. As of yesterday Dec 1st, Washoe County halted search and rescue operations for Rick.

I want to note that the Sheriff's helicopter will still be making regular routes through the area and there will be another recovery effort when the weather clears up again.

While Rick will be missed, I want to stress that no matter how well you know the mountain, you always have to be prepared. Always carry a backpack with extra layers, water and snacks in it. Learn how to build a rescue structure and practice building it before you actually need it. Realize that your best bet for survival may mean staying overnight in a structure. Determine this early so you can build it when you have the most energy and you're not freezing, tired, hungry and desperate. Maybe if he had checked out this website which lists various survival techniques and things to pack then Rick and countless others would still be with us.

I want to note that while reading things online is useful, it is in no way a replacement for actual training with a professional. Myself and Diamond Peak Ski Patrol are in no way responsible for your safety in the backcountry should you use just information from the internet.

Sorry for such a long post but bottom line, be safe out there! Be prepared, and learn appropriate survival techniques for the weather you'll be traveling in.

Are you ready?

So you love to ski or ride, you've read my little Intro and the post about the refresher weekend and you're thinking to yourself "I don't know anything about medical stuff" or "I don't want to get into the medical profession" don't fret. We all started somewhere and our patrol consists of engineers, rocket scientists, pilots, ret. military personnel, authors, financial advisers, entrepreneurs, computer programers, college students as well as paramedics, nurses and ER docs. Basically, if you have passion for the mountain then we want you here.

What I hope you take from this post is that all we're looking for is for your skiing/riding to be at upper intermediate level or better, attend and pass the Outdoor Emergency Care class (or have a current OEC or EMT cert), and attend and pass the on-hill training (just because you have a cert, we want to see you do it with our own eyes, on snow). While it's not technically a requirement, we're also looking for someone who is good with kids and beginners as that's what we deal with mostly at our mountain.

On-hill training consists of medical and toboggan training (my favorite part). Once you pass these you become a full-fledged patroller, capable of handling a scene from the moment you hear about it all the way through transport and handing them off to the EMT's.

If you're still excited about becoming a ski patroller but are worried about your skiing/riding ability don't worry. We're at the beginning of the season now, giving you a year get your butt in gear. When everybody is riding the groomers, hit up the crud, crust, ice, slush, and powder. Ski in different light/visibility conditions even the rain. Be able to take more then a few runs before your legs get tired. And a little upper body strength and cardio never hurt anybody. The mountain is operating every day and so are we.

That's it for now until the season starts, unless I can think of anything else to post. See you on the mountain!

Refresher Weekend

In any medical profession, refreshers are manditory and Ski Patrol is no different. It's probably more important then EMT's or RN's because most of us use our skills for only a small part of the year. As for me it's been 8 months since I used any skills so I can tell you that I was ready for some practice.

Refresher Weekend was set up this year into four different sessions.

• Thursday night was a CPR refresher, this is manditory every year if you're a NSP member even though CPR is typically refreshed every 3 years. I think this isn't too bad an idea since, like I said, most of us only use our skills four months out of a year and it seems that it changes every year anyway.
• Friday was a new one this year, dedicated to refreshing the instructors, not on what they instruct, but on how they instruct. I had a lot of fun at this refresher, and I think that it's a great idea from NSP because there are some 'tricks and tips' that you tend to forget when you get in the rut of teaching. Everybody learns different and this class helps with that.  I want to note that this class was only manditory if you're a ski patrol instructor on our mountain or a registered NSP Instructor. So that means the rest of you get a day off :)
• Saturday was the medical refresher where we go over 1/3 of the Outdoor Emergency Care (OEC) curriculum, some of the bigger topics like shock are refreshed every year and other, less typical things such as pregnancy/birth are discussed every 3rd year. Another great thing about the refresher is that people from other mountains come due to various reasons so we get a lot of different imput.



self evac training Nov 2008

• Sunday consists of on-the hill training. I'm pretty sure this is how a lot of mountains do their refresher, we do it along with the medical refresher training because we have a lot of out-of-town patrollers and while cpr, instructor, and medical refreshers can be done anywhere, the on-the hill is on the hill for a reason. Each mountain has it's own specific needs so learning a chair evacuation at another mountain is fun, it doesn't really help you in refreshing how your mountain does a chair evac. This year we worked a lot on rope basics and our two main chair evac systems.

It sounds like a lot but it's one weekend out of the 8 months we're not working and for me and others, it's really just a way to get back in touch with friends we haven't seen. Ski Patrol is unlike any other job I've had, this will probably be true for anybody you ask (unless you ask a Firefighter) because we're spending all day together. We really become a family and we're always looking for like-minded individuals to join us.

Back together again

Intro

not me but I know who it is

Hi everybody, I'm starting this blog as a way to recruit people to join our Ski Patrol at Diamond Peak.

We recently had a meeting where our low membership numbers came up as a subject. We decided that this is a recruitment year culminating possibly with a class taught this summer to prospective patrollers. I got the idea to blog our season to appeal to a younger crowd and also thanks to a crazy blogging job I read about at The Canyons in Park City, Utah.

Right now we still have a few weeks until we open but most of the lake is hoping with skiing activity thanks to two recent storms. Some of the old-timers say they've never seen a November like this (thanks la Nina!). I'll keep you updated as the season progresses.