I was standing outside the car, pacing back and forth, listening to trees fall in the distance. The darkness was uncomfortably lit up by red lights and snow fall. After what felt like days we finally arrived home after a six hour commute that is typically terminated by two hours. My adventurous first day as an official patroller began when my alarm clock lit up at 4am. Normally I’d snooze twenty minutes or so and cuddle with my sleepy pup but my excitement forced me to get ready. With the heavy snowfall also brought optimism on the drive up for a good day. Once we arrive I strap on a radio, aluminizing the reality this dream of mine has become. I borrowed a patrol coat that seemed to fit as well as cinderella’s glass slipper. Once all the buckles were buckled, clips clipped, and zippers zipped, the morning meeting began. I felt like a splash of cold water hit me harder than the black coffee I had that morning; once they announced my new title as patroller.
My job for the day is to shadow, help, and learn as much as possible from experienced patrollers. I head up the mountain to open and there is a long line behind the lift, I make my way through the crowd to the other patrollers as we wait to open. This long wait was the first of the abnormalities to happen this day. Once we get to the top I open Charlie’s in the heavy wet powder and WOW am I out of shape!! Once I sweat my way to the bottom we ski a few more runs to patrol the premiss. I go in to talk to the SPY (“Ski Patrol Youth”) to grow a new understanding of their thoughts, opinions, and responsibilities. Part of my new responsibility is to guide the SPY and help them with anything they might be missing or have forgotten. About two hours later I take a lunch break with my sweetie then head over to Twilight to shadow the same experienced patroller at “bump.” Bump is the one-two hour shifts patrollers take at the top of lifts to be sure there is always a patroller at the top of certain runs. This job was enjoyable because we were in what felt like a sauna while it was freezing and snowing outside; after half an hour of warming up and drying our mittens we head over towards EPA to lift tower pads. It requires at least two people to lift the tower pads; one person unbuckles and holds it up then straps it again while the other patroller somehow puts snow underneath to hold the pad up. This is very difficult because it consists of 15” of fresh heavy snow in your skis on a downhill slope. With some miracle and a lot of sweat we managed to fix 8 of them just the two of us. This was another wake up call to get in shape.
This job would typically be done with more patrollers but we were short a few because they were on search for a missing person. This was definitely an abnormality because the missing person was not found in the bar.
Once tower pads were successfully completed it was time to close up the mountain. I headed over to Peak two which I hadn’t yet been to that day, abnormality number three. I close a run then hike up to EPA and close a run on the front side. The day is almost said to be over when we come back to clock out and have a meeting. I was in a bit of a rush because I had an Oscars party to go to that night so I go to get the car and scrape about 10” of snow off that had fallen throughout the day. Once I am almost finished I see my dad coming caring all of our bags to the car, he sets them down and just as we are about to load them, our hill chief runs over them by mistake. Abnormality number four! Once we figured out how to get them we slid all over pulling out of the parking lot. Within our first ten minutes of driving there were about six mini avalanches that came down on the side of the road right before our car! Scary!
Then, an Elk walks right in front of our car. For those of you like me who have never seen an elk this close, it was huge! Abnormality five and six!?
Once we finally start driving normally we stumble upon scattered, bright, red lights on the road to mark off an accident. It was our friends, two patrollers who had flipped their car. We get out to make sure they were okay and to collect their belongings. Once they got put back together we continued driving to find another car crash. Another patrol member.. a tree had fallen in the road right in front of him and he had no option but to drive over it which messed his car up as well. As we were all stunned with what we had seen, we help and continue on our journey home just to discover seven more car crashes that night.
We eventually got home a quarter til midnight. Resulting in a long day.
It was a weird day but that just says a little about patrol. Whether it is a blue bird powder day with no injuries or a day like the one I just described, the WPSP is always going to work hard and have a good attitude. We never know what we are in for but I can guarantee you WPSP is prepared for it all.
My history with Ski Patrol
Thankfully, I have always been fortunate and have been surrounded by ski patrol my entire life thanks to my dad. My dad taught my siblings and I how to ski when were three years old and we have been skiing ever since. Willamette Pass and the patrol have become my second family and my home away from home. Easy to say, it wasn’t a huge surprise when my siblings and I wanted to join SPY; leaded by the amazing Dave Brown. I was on SPY for five years, beginning in seventh grade and skipping Sophomore year because I was in Finland. SPY consisted of students between the ages of about 13-18 to learn and participate in ski patrol. I fell in love. I thought all of the ski patrollers looked like badasses in their red coats and I found it inspiring how each member uniquely brought a necessary piece to the puzzle. Every member seems crucial in their own way; which has created an unstoppable team at WPSP. My sister and I were candidates our senior year of High School, the season we hardly opened. My sister and I balanced our last year of High School with taking a rigorous OEC class. This class was definitely challenging but it was led by two people I highly admire which made it that much more worth it. Once we completed and passed the class we became “OEC certified” which is what you need to become a patroller. We were that much closer to the finish line!! However, we were only 17 at the time so we were not able to become patrollers. This year, since I have ended up at home for the winter season of my gap year. I completed and OEC make-up refresher, something that is mandatory every year or you will be required to redo the class. Then the patrol was willing to have me for the time being and interviewed me via conference call. While the interviewee’s were all people I am friends with and know well, it was very nerve-racking. Luckily, the interview well and I became a member of WPSP.
