Considering volunteer patrol....school me.

[jmeb]

Go for it. I'll bet you find it rewarding.

I'm leaning strongly that way.

 

[Carolinacub]

I'm leaning strongly that way.

I hope you do Patrolling is very rewarding. As for the time commitment I think you'll find that rather than patrolling adding on to your busy life it supplants a part of it that you won't really miss.

 

[TrueNorth]

Well I passed the ski test. Was much tougher than expected. So now I have to decide just about the time commitment.

I think you should go for it. You seem serious enough about the idea that you would probably be asking yourself "what if?" for a long time if you don't.

The time commitment is significant, especially the first year with training, but the first aid and avy training is useful outside of patrolling. You probably would be skiing on many of the scheduled patrol days anyways, so it's not wasted time.

Probably one of the biggest factors in how much you enjoy it will be the people you work with. You may make some great new friends and look forward to skiing and hanging out with them on your patrol days, or there may be some patrollers whose company you just don't enjoy, and you'll resent being scheduled on days you would rather be doing a storm chasing road trip or backcountry adventure with your non-patrol buddies. Nobody on an internet forum can know how it will turn out for you, but most likely there will be some of each.

Reading the other replies here, how busy you will be seems to vary greatly by hill. On average we probably had 1 or 2 incidents per day requiring a toboggan ride down, but with 10 or so volunteer patrollers on a weekend the chances of being first on the scene to one of them any given day were relatively low. Never saw or even heard of a heli rescue.

 

[CalG]

Reading the other replies here, how busy you will be seems to vary greatly by hill. On average we probably had 1 or 2 incidents per day requiring a toboggan ride down, but with 10 or so volunteer patrollers on a weekend the chances of being first on the scene to one of them any given day were relatively low. Never saw or even heard of a heli rescue.

Just a note of clarification. In North America, A heli rescue at an established ski are is rare indeed! But there are often injuries that are best transported to specialized medical care as rapidly as possible. That would be "life flight" or equal. Some just call it an air ambulance. Outdoor Emergency Care "Ski Patrol Personnel " responders are still first line in treatment packaging and transport to the location where transfer and further transport to a medical care facility can be made.

There are "pick off" situations that occur in the back country that require air transport from the first. That is more common in the Alps or the Sierras than the Adirondacks, and are often not involving snow sports.

 

[kayco53]

Been a volunteer patroller for 4 years now. We do every second weekend and have 12 per shift. We all do first tracks and sweep. Work load is light most days. Usually a rookie and a seasoned patroller are together. We have a shift sign up board so you get whomever signs up with you. Everybody on our shift is good to be with. Find I like patrolling almost more than free skiing now. Wasn't sure about the first aid part at first but found out I really like helping out people on the hill. You get lots of skiing anyways as we never stand in line. Some weekends you have no first aids and other times its 3 in one afternoon.(hint stay away from the lodge) We have had the odd helivac but we are are about a hour and fifteen min away from a hospital.. I take it as a complement when my wife sees me on hill and says I ski like a patroller now. At our hill the ski instructors put on sessions for us to improve our skiing quite often. I would say only do it . If you don't like it only do that season.

 

[Kneale Brownson]

Yeah, you're not making a multi-year commitment (until you get into it and decide to continue).

 

[Carolinacub]

So @jmeb , what did you decide?

 

[jmeb]

So @jmeb , what did you decide?

I'm going for it. It'll be a lot of hours but I think its a good next step in my ski life.

 

[Carolinacub]

I'm going for it. It'll be a lot of hours but I think its a good next step in my ski life.

I can guarantee that some of the rewards you will get from doing this are things you have never thought of. It will bring a whole new perspective to being on the mountain.

 

[mikel]

congrats jmeb.

 

[Wilhelmson]

Since the medical training is one of your primary goals this will force you to do the required learning. Even if you end up never saving yourself or someone else it would be worth it to you. If you find that the weekly grind is not for you then you still will have achieved one of the primary goals.

 

[James]

Have a strategy for lifting the 80lb sled onto the chair. Had a family member end up with back surgery after several years of that.

 

[pais alto]

Have a strategy for lifting the 80lb sled onto the chair. Had a family member end up with back surgery after several years of that.

That’s not necessarily an issue everywhere. Where I work we use these toboggan carriers that are rigged with extra chain links so that the patroller only has to hold the carrier up as the chair approaches and the carrier slides onto the chair, and as the chair continues forward the patroller seats themself (theirself?) and the toboggan is lifted up as the chair advances forward and up. At the top when the toboggan is on the offloading spot the carrier is given a push forward on the crossbar and the ‘troller stands and guides it down the ramp. No lifting of the sled.

 

[CalG]

That’s not necessarily an issue everywhere. Where I work we use these toboggan carriers that are rigged with extra chain links so that the patroller only has to hold the carrier up as the chair approaches and the carrier slides onto the chair, and as the chair continues forward the patroller seats themself (theirself?) and the toboggan is lifted up as the chair advances forward and up. At the top when the toboggan is on the offloading spot the carrier is given a push forward on the crossbar and the ‘troller stands and guides it down the ramp. No lifting of the sled.

Protocol at your mountain question on carrier use.

Sled handles locked in forward ready to use position, or handles folded back over the sled pack with the carrier over both?

I've seen it both ways. At my area we use the folded handle method. Man handling sleds though turnstiles etc is hard on shoulders (I'm down to one good one due to this)

I want to try the extended handle method, but the rings need to be mounted forward on the sled to do this correctly.

 

[ZionPow]

Folded back. We refer to our carrier as a "hoxie".

 

[CalG]

Folded back. We refer to our carrier as a "hoxie".

curious term? etymology?

By the way, a work sled full of carriers is HEAVY! And great training for the rookies!

Hauling a sled full down from the summit to be racked on the fence rails at the base of the lift.

We used to send them down on the chair backs. But then some ding a ling ambassador got himself conked loading the darn things, so management took that out of the computation. ;-)

 

[Carolinacub]

Protocol at your mountain question on carrier use.

Sled handles locked in forward ready to use position, or handles folded back over the sled pack with the carrier over both?

I've seen it both ways. At my area we use the folded handle method. Man handling sleds though turnstiles etc is hard on shoulders (I'm down to one good one due to this)

I want to try the extended handle method, but the rings need to be mounted forward on the sled to do this correctly.

I've done it both ways, the trick to doing it with the handles locked is to throw about 10 lbs of snow at the ass end.

 

[pais alto]

Protocol at your mountain question on carrier use.

Sled handles locked in forward ready to use position, or handles folded back over the sled pack with the carrier over both?

I've seen it both ways. At my area we use the folded handle method. Man handling sleds though turnstiles etc is hard on shoulders (I'm down to one good one due to this)

I want to try the extended handle method, but the rings need to be mounted forward on the sled to do this correctly.

Handles locked forward when the ‘burrito’ (folded yellow tarp with a ~25 lb duffle containing trauma supplies*) is strapped in to the rear of the sled to counter-balance the handles. The burrito takes up the back half of the sled. The handles are folded back when the sled is empty. We use Cascade 100 sleds with the rings mounted by the forward and middle retaining strap locations. The sleds are balanced that way.

Did that make sense? I don’t have a picture handy.

If you put an extra link or two in the carrier handle hooks so that it can be raised just to the level of the lift chair without lifting the sled off the ground, then it’s a little easier to move the sled with the handles folded back. I wish I had pictures to help explain.

We repack the burrito duffle with supplies at the aid room after each use so that the sled is ready for use, and ferry it to it’s on-hill location via lifts. We keep a few sleds at each top patrol shack and position others at strategically established locations around the hill.

*a wood, foam, and webbing quick leg splint, ladder splint, cardboard and foam arm splint, SAM splint, cravats/triangle bandages, nitrile gloves, a few bleeding supplies, and padding foam. A few sleds have backboards in them, which doesn’t affect the balance. Edit: also two wool army blankets in the duffel. So I guess the burrito is 20-25 lbs.

 

[Carolinacub]

Handles locked forward when the ‘burrito’ (folded yellow tarp with a ~25 lb duffle containing trauma supplies*) is strapped in to the rear of the sled to counter-balance the handles. The burrito takes up the back half of the sled. The handles are folded back when the sled is empty. We use Cascade 100 sleds with the rings mounted by the forward and middle retaining strap locations. The sleds are balanced that way.

Did that make sense? I don’t have a picture handy.

If you put an extra link or two in the carrier handle hooks so that it can be raised just to the level of the lift chair without lifting the sled off the ground, then it’s a little easier to move the sled with the handles folded back. I wish I had pictures to help explain.

We repack the burrito duffle with supplies at the aid room after each use so that the sled is ready for use, and ferry it to it’s on-hill location via lifts. We keep a few sleds at each top patrol shack and position others at strategically established locations around the hill.

*wood, foam, and webbing quick leg splint, ladder splint, cardboard and foam arm splint, SAM splint, cravats/triangle bandages, nitrile gloves, a few bleeding supplies, and padding foam. A few sleds have backboards in them, which doesn’t affect the balance.

well yours was a better answer than mine but mine was simpler

 

[ZionPow]

We are fortunate that 2/3 of our mountain is serviced by 2 top to bottom gondolas. Both gondolas have work cars to carry equipment and toboggans to the top shacks, We only have 2 chairlifts that we use must our hoxies (carriers) to transport toboggans to the top shack.