Ski Day 8: Another No-Cover Day

After missing last week with a cold (that still lingers, but at least I can move and think and stuff as of last week), I got back on the hill yesterday. It worked out that the Saturday team at T-flats needed a coach, so I swapped so I could stay home today and watch my Steelers in Super Bowl XLIII.

Despite being fairly cold and rather windy, the sun made an appearance and it was a beautiful day. I'd post photos, but I didn't take any. The camera battery was dead. Too bad, too - there was a really cool-looking cloud I wanted to show y'all. And the view of Jefferson above the clouds from Mile was nice.

It was an interesting day up there, as it didn't take long for the injuries to mount. As a training group, we didn't get in on any cases, but I got one just trying to grab a sled to transport it back out on the hill. I had a walk-up, a snowboarder with a scrape on his chin from a fall. Patched him up and he went back out on the hill with a big-ass piece of gauze taped to his chin. Other than the abrasion, he was fine.

But it was a MASH unit in the first aid room. Seemed like all snowboarders in there, which was no surprise to me, given the rather firm snow. I did finally get a sled packed up and took an apprentice - actually, a patroller making the jump from Associate to Hill (sled-driver) - with me to haul the sled over to the lift, and he got some practice uploading a sled.

I missed out on a lot of coaching in the afternoon, as I was given a project to do by one of the paid patrollers. I had to go find some brand new tower pads and replace a couple ratty ones on Molly's. We had replaced them earlier, but the head coach for the day grabbed the wrong kind of pads (the ones for sign-posts). I couldn't really blame him, as it turned out those pads were the only new ones there were. I ended up putting the two least crappy pads back out on the hill.

Sweep was fairly uneventful, except for the two snowboarders we had to help down the hill. It was a boyfriend/girlfriend couple, and they'd decided to take their boards off and walk down the hill. One of the paid patrollers was driving the snowmobile and offered one of them a ride. We assumed it was the girlfriend that needed the ride and the guy could snowboard (this is usually the case - guy takes girlfriend snowboarding for the first time, she gets tired, yadda yadda), but it turned out that she was the more skilled rider (but not by much), so the guy gets a ride and I have to ski with the girlfriend to make sure they get on the lift before we close it up. The run was pretty flat, so I ended up having to give her a tow with one of my poles.

Had To Skip This Weekend

No ski patrolling for me this past (Conference Championship) weekend. Bit of a bummer, too, as the weather looked to be what I'm calling "no-cover weather" this season, meaning it looked like the kind of day I wouldn't have to use my pack cover.

But, there was a damn good reason for it. Those in the know, know, and I'm not gonna say any more on the subject. And I was happy to have to take the weekend off from going to the hill for the reason that I did.

The only thing that really sucked was not having power at the house nearly all of Sunday. I missed the first half and most of the 3rd quarter of the Steelers' AFC Championship win over the hated Ratbirds. I'm finally posting a little about it, now that I've seen the whole game (thanks, NFL Network). I have to say, it was everything I expected from a heated rivalry and a conference championship. I think I might have strained a calf and/or a quad jumping off the sofa when Troy Polamalu intercepted that pass and scored the touchdown that sealed it. Glad to see that the Ravens' RB McGahee is okay. Brutal hit.

I'm stoked to see my guys back in the big dance. Good for the Cardinals, too, for getting there. They've had quite a playoff drought. Whisenhunt has done some great things out there in the desert, but I think the Rooneys made the right choice in Tomlin. Should be a great game. Go Steelers!

Ski Day 7: Training In The Rain

More blogslackery from me, this time fewer days late than last time. Lots of other things going on that are more important than blogging, one of which only a few of you know about, and I'll leave it at that. Maybe it might be time to think about Twitter.

Sunday I was back on the hill, this time at Timberflats, taking a new group of apprentices through some skiing drills and evaluating their skill level to see where they'll land in terms of their training teams for the patrol.

I knew we were in for rubbish weather, given the forecast, but ya gotta do what ya gotta do. I carpooled from Govy up to T-flats with the other two trainers, and we talked a little about what our strategy was.

After the morning meeting and our own little briefing, we set out in groups to help out with opening assignments. I had 3 guys with me, and we helped open up Molly's. We didn't get as much done as I'd hoped before we had to re-join the others, but it was enough. They were all tying clove hitches by the end of it. Hopefully, they'll remember how for next time.

Once we re-joined the rest of the training group, it was time to put them through their paces to see who our 'rock stars' were, and who would be a 'project'. We only had one ex-racer, but the rest were decent skiers, with a couple exceptions. It was kind of fun 'showing off' (demonstrating the maneuvers), and we did get a good look at everyone. We got quite a few drills done before lunch, and since the weather basically sucked, we gave a few folks the option to spend the bulk of the afternoon in the first aid room to learn how things operate in there.

More drills in the afternoon, then sweep. Things were fairly unremarkable, until I checked my phone during sweep - Steelers 28, Chargers 10. Oh hell yes. It was 35-17 good guys by the time I got done with sweep and we were having a mini-debrief at the cafeteria. Few better ways to end a patrol day than finding out my Steelers would be advancing to the AFC Championship Game.

We went to Charlie's for beer and de-brief, and us coaches went over our apprentice teams. I had a soda, courtesy of one of the apprentices, since I couldn't have a beer, but it was still a good capper on the day. I was beat, though - it's hard work showing off on skis all day. :)

Ski Day 6: No Pack Cover?

Whoa...I completely slacked off on posting about Sunday's patrol day. I'm going to back-date this post, but I'm owning up to my slackitude here and now. First full week back at work followed my first patrol day of the new year, plus a lot of Guitar Hero: World Tour with B (so much fun!) and some other stuff chewed up a lot of time I could have spent blogging. Anyway...

Sunday was the first patrol day this season where I didn't have to put on my patrol pack's cover - no precipitation! It was, however, very windy and quite cold, so getting into sled packs for inspection in the morning was challenging with the frozen straps.

After finishing up my opening assignment, I headed up to RC to warm up a little, then headed off to do the rope line on Skyline and the Upper Surprise closure. I was skiing toward the bottom of the upper bowl lift when a bystander alerted me to an injured snowboarder some 300 feet away and a little ways uphill of the bottom of the lift. I called in to RC that I was checking it out, but expected to need a sled, given I'd been told it was a knee injury. I figured I'd get there first if I hiked, so I did.

My sorry out-of-shape ass got up to the injured 'boarder pretty quick, and I did the assessment, called for the sled, yada yada. It was pretty windy, so we worked quickly to get her bundled into the sled and head down the hill. Another case I didn't get to drive the sled, despite my best attempts to convince my 2nd-responder that I should do it. We got her to the first aid room, did some more to make her more comfortable and immobilize the knee, finished the paperwork, and headed back up.

After that, I had lunch, warmed up, and met up with a guy who was interested in joining the patrol. He couldn't make next week's tryouts, and I was asked by the sled-training director to give him a ski evaluation. He was a solid telemark skier, needing some minor technical improvements, but I thought he was definitely skilled enough to handle sled training without any trouble. Turned out he's patrolled elsewhere, so my evaluation was pretty much a formality.

We finished the evaluation and decided to explore the rest of the mountain, which led us over to the east side of the area. I was going to ski a little with him over on Cascade, when I got notified of another injury at the base of Multorpor. I parted ways with the 'recruit', and responded to the case - another 'boarder with a shoulder injury. Assessment indicated a probable subluxation, so into a sling he goes and off we go to the first aid room. Wrapped that one up and finally assumed my post at Cascade. The rest of the afternoon was uneventful, and I headed home. Pretty good day, and to finish it without being soaked was doubly satisfying.