Just when you thought you'd seen it all. (Or what is the weirdest thing you've seen patrolling?

Reminds me of a few years back. Probably 5 years or so. Found a similar kid on Spruce Peak at Stowe. This was in it's Big Spruce days before trails had been widened HSQ installed, etc. I'm skiing through the woods with some kids and we come across a walking corpse of a child with no skis or boots, and no skis or boots anywhere in sight. It's windy, snowing and about 10 below zero. I picked this kid up and carried him out. About halfway down we ran into on e of the patrollers looking for him. Apparently he had been missing for about 2 hours! He had gotten separated from his dad while skiing n the woods. Hiked back up to find him and had taken his boots off after getting soaked when he broke through into a stream. I really did not want to know what kind of condition his feet were in. His dad was really mad that I didn't bring the skis and boots out too.

I'm surprised he didn't look at you in disbelief and say, "don't you know it takes a village to raise a child?!?! What's wrong with you?" 
I hope you just looked at him in disbeleif and said, "you're welcome."  and skied off.

Saw something interesting today.

A snomaking extension pipe about 50' +/- on a 360* swivel apparently was left unsecured.  The pipe leaned out over the trail where it was intended to deposit the snow.  It and a bunch of others has been that way all day, but the wind came up while I was passing it and causes it to rotate into the lift.  It just missed me, but proceeded to "clock" each chair behind us.  It was hitting the shins of the riders!  Every time the chair would pass the pipe, the people would scream or yell from the "hit".

As soon as I got off I told the liftie to get a patrolman down there asap.  The "hits" themselves were not too serious, but if someone got their ski tangled it could have easily caused a fall. This was a dangerous situation.  The liftie was clueless.  One of the guys a few chairs back arrived at unloading and started yelling to stop the lift.

Meanwhile, I ski over the the patrol shack and explain what's happening.  The patrolman looks at me and says we don't deal with snowmaking.  With that he turns around and goes back inside with 4 or 5 other ski patrollers.

What do they have union rules? All the guy had to do was, with one hand, swing it out of the path of the lift.  I could not believe the response.

Fortunately I was off the lift

I would have taken the fall in exchange for a life time lift ticket and comped meals WITH DRINKS!!

I hope those who were hit by the pole had the good sense to report it.  Free hot chocolate.

I had already brought my skis inside when the wind had started up so that they would not blow away. I had to put my skis on in the shack as there was no way possible to do it outside in that wind. However, with my skis on I would be unable to close and latch the door. I tied a rope to the door so I could pull it shut and tie off on a tree to hold it closed. I exited and was barely able to keep on my feet even in the lee of the shack. With difficulty I was able to tie the door shut. It was a short uphill walk directly into the wind to get to Sluice which starts right on the shoulder of the mountain. The wind was whipping right over the shoulder. I was immediately blown backwards and could not even hold myself still. I had to make a quick choice to either go down Narrow Gauge or I would be quickly blown past that. There was no way possible for me even to get back to the shack and phone in the change of trails much less make my way to Sluice. I choose to dive down Narrow Gauge while I still could. Less than 100 feet of vertical drop later the wind was under 10 mph. The line of demarcation was sharp. I could throw snow up and after rising straight up for a few feet  it would suddenly take off like shot from a gun. I could stick my pole up into the wind and it was almost ripped from my hand. The rest of the run down was quite pleasant.

The #3 T-bar at Sugarloaf ran (runs?) beside Narrow Gauge and it's 47 degree headwall.  The Patrolmen had to walk up the T-bar line from the base and either direct people to get off and cut through the woods in groups where possible, or walk down besides the T line.  On the very steep sections getting off the T-bar is very difficult and someone needs to assist a person getting off so they don't get a fractured jaw or something by the t-bar violently snapping up suddenly when the weight is released. There had been an accident where a woman fell off the T and received suspected fractured ribs and dislocated shoulder or something of the sort.  There is a mid lift safety switch that had to be tested every morning by the first man up.  I would let myself off the T, which is harder than you might think on a steep section, hit the switch and have 2 minutes to self load back on. There are/were also comparably steep sections on the #5 T-bar on the other flank of the mountain.

That day was terribly weird.  I really liked sweep.  Suddenly the mountain was quiet.  I frequently did the "staying for calls" routine as highest up when on Gondola or #3/#5 T-bars, listening to the birds and the natural sounds of the mountain after the clanging of the cogs were shut off.  Sometimes we would hear voices in the woods from people who were trying to hide and stay on the mountain after closing.  Sometimes, as last on the mountain I had to come down with a sled.  The weirdest was going down one evening in pitch dark and whiteout conditions.  That is a separate story.

Still can't believe this one.  We were in the process of closing down the hill, and the patrollers were taking the lifts up and preparing for the sweep. There was an Eastern European couple who had brought their friend's daughter.  The woman was an excellent skier, but the man... well, let's just say he was able to put on a pair of skis.  They decided to start their last run, and the woman and child head down # 4, which is directly under the lift.  The man, whom we will refer to as "Numbnuts" for the rest of this little tale, waits a bit before joining them.  Why?  Well, he was taking his camera out of his pocket.  Numbnuts then proceeds to straightline the trail while filming himself.  You can see where this one is headed.  Unfortunately, Numbnuts, due to the fact that he was grinning inanely into his camera, did not see a thing.  His girlfriend and the little girl had stopped in the middle of the trail to wait for Numbnuts, and he came to join them.... without looking... at full speed.  He hit the little girl and catapulted her into the next time zone.  She bounced of the snow and started crying.  She showed many of the symptoms of a concussion,, including a really nasty bump on the noggin, but her parents signed a refusal of trreatment form and went on their merry way.  I don't think Numbnuts will be watching that video very often.

A SKI IN THE DARK

In late March of 1970 at Sugarloaf we were having one of those warm very wet storms that dumps several inches per hour of mashed potato snow.  It was midweek and few enough skiers that the trail was untracked for each skier.  Unfortunately it was wet, heavy and sticky rather than powder which I learned to appreciate after moving to the Salt Lake City area.  I was up top on number 5 T-bar. The gondola was closed with zero visibility on the snowfields. For much of the day I was the only patroman there as three or four had a day off and many were out shoveling snow where it drifts over the T-bar tracks.  I had spent the morning doing that and it was my turn to stand watch while my partner shoveled.  About 3 pm I received a call from the office telling me that the mountain was going to shut down early as we couldn't keep up with the snow and sweeps were going to take extra long as visibility was essentially zero. I couldn't even see the unload area from the shack.  Both sides of each trail had to be physically swept as visuals were impossible and we were shorthanded.  I was to wait for calls.

This was my first day back up high on the mountain after a minor ankle sprain.  I could ski hardpack just fine and handle a sled, but mashed potatoes was something else.  About 4 pm I called the office for an update because I hadn't seen any patrolman up there yet and it was getting noticably darker.  I was told they were still trying to get the other side of the mountain cleared.  We were deep in the clouds with very heavy snow falling in a total whiteout.  I couldn't even see where the snow in the air ended and snow on the ground started.  At 4:30 pm I was starting to get worried.  It was getting darker by the minute and still no patrolmen.  I called the office again.  I was told that they were all on the way up now and it would take the whole crew 2 runs each to sweep that side of the mountain.  That would mean I would be able to start down about 5:30 pm.  I told them that it would be dark by then, so how was I supposed to get down?

5:30 pm came and went and still no call to start down.  I called in and told them I was getting quite concerned.  It looked like full dark outside the shack.  There is no safe and easy way down from there.  The person on the phone said she would pass on my concerns.  Finally at 6:00 pm the call came.  I was to come down Wedge which hadn't been swept yet, a very narrow trail that gets narrower all the way down to the mid-mountain cat track.  Because of conditions I wouldn't have to bring a sled.  Nice.  Anybody that had been there since the mountain closed was under a foot or more of snow by now anyway, and in the dark nothing could be seen.  

I stepped outside and instantly thought "No Way!".  As my eyes adjusted I could catch the slightest hint of darker dark which were trees at the trail's edge.  I had to go over one trail and was able to do that.  The only sound was the soft rustling sound of snow falling on snow.  There was no wind.  Everything sounded "muffled" as it does in a heavy snowfall.  I literally could not see my hand 6 inches in front of my face.  Here I was with 2200 vertical feet of mountain between me and the patrol room, 1000 vertical feet of it expert terrain with 3 feet of fresh mashed potatoes and zero visibility.  I had no radio either as I might have these days.  To say that I was "concerned" was to understate the seriousness of the situation considerably.  I know better than to panic even though THE HITCH-HIKERS GUIDE TO THE GALAXY had yet to be written.

I stood there and contemplated my options.  I could stand there all night.  I could turn around and go back the way I had come climbing uphill a little and make my way back to the shack and tell them there was no way possible that I could come down the mountain in a blacked out whiteout and wait for the snowcat they might be able to get up the mountain for me or spend the night in the shack at least being warm and dry. Or I could somehow find my way down the mountain.  My early training with MAD Magazine took hold.  I knew there were always 3 possiblities; THE RIGHT WAY, THE WRONG WAY and THE MAD WAY.

Standing there all night or until they came and found me was possibly the right way.  Hiking uphill a bit in 3 feet of mashed potatoes and hoping that I could actually find the shack in the pitch dark sounded less and less atractive as I thought about it.  For one thing If I missed, I would be without shelter and without communication and NOT where they would be looking for me.  That was a wrong way.  In reconsideration then I HAD to be where they would come looking for me.  I knew nobody would be leaving until I showed up.  If I didn't show in an hour they would all cram their feet back into their damp cold ski boots and come get me.  I could count on that. 

So it came down to either waiting for them where I was or work my way down the trail to where they could actually get a snowcat in.  I had heard the story of how KT22 got it's name.  That was my solution.  There was a buffer zone of uncut brush before the trees on each side of the trail.  I could traverse until I hit the brush, do a kick turn and then go back across to hitting the brush again.  The trail is very narrow.  I have no idea how many kick turns I made but it was a lot.  Once I got going I found it worked out ok as long as I took it very slowly.  It was about an hour later that the trail got too narrow to traverse.  Snowplowing was impossible in that snow.  So it was straight down until it leveled off at the cat track and then a hard right.  I emerged from the cloud as I came onto the cat track and found my way over to Ramdown.  I could see the lights of the lodge more than a mile away as I was also out of the white-out zone.  About halfway down Ramdown I could hear the engine of the cat.  As I came around the bend in the trail I could see the lights of the cat.  At that point I put on a good show for the rest of the patrol until I got to the cat.  We stopped for a minute.  Everybody was very relieved that they didn't have to do a search with flares high on the mountain in a whiteout looking for me. Then I skied the rest of the way down in the headlights of the cat giving it my best form.  That was one of three times that year that everybody came out in the cat looking for one of us when way overdue.  It was me twice and another patrolman once. All three incidents worked out about the same.  Each time we made it in under our own power in the dark in a snowstorm and were within 5 minutes of the patrol room when found.  It is great knowing that you can count on each other.