Ski Days 14-17: Some Me Patrol, Some Ski Patrol

Well, it's been too long, so much of the detail will be absent from the recap of the last 4 ski days.

Feb 11th: Took the day off from work to go skiing. This was a brilliant plan, really. The roads were in good shape, there was plenty of snow, it was sunny and relatively warm. Not much goodness in the off-groom, but the groomers at Meadows were in fantastic shape. The mountain was pretty much empty, so I started off making gigantic high-speed turns off the Vista chair for a good chunk of the morning. Later in the morning, I decided to head off over to Shooting Star, but I saw that the area photog was shooting on the face at Mt. Hood Express, so I decided to find out what the deal was there. I made some decent turns there and stopped to chat with the guy.

His name is Grant Myrdal (on the web: grantmyrdal.com), and he's one of those really cool guys who has a neat job and enjoys it a great deal. We talked a little about what he does and what drives his decisions to shoot where, etc. He told me he just shoots and shoots and shoots, and people can either check the photos out online and order, or drop by the lodge in the afternoon and do the same on the big screen. Then he recommended I make a few more runs and make some larger-radius turns next time.

So I did. And it was FUN. I made about 4 runs through there, talked to Grant a little more, then set off for Shooting Star.

My best shot. Photo by Grant Myrdal

I made a bunch more runs, then dropped in to the lodge to check out my photos. Grant was still uploading when I arrived, so we shot the breeze for a bit. Once the upload completed, we reviewed my photos, and I picked a few to buy. I skied a little more after that, and called it a day kind of early. I had skied pretty much non-stop, so I felt good about packing it in around 2:30.

Feb 13: Training with C Team. Um...it was windy. That's about all I can remember. One of our snowboarders had kind of an unsettling first run with a loaded toboggan, where she felt like she was on the edge of losing control, but she regained her composure and really just kicked butt the rest of the day. The skiers continued to make good progress, but they all still need to square up their shoulders. I think they've figured out why, now they just need to do it.

Feb 18: More 'Me Patrol' at Meadows. I took another Friday off work, and had hoped to ski with Barkernews, but he couldn't get the day off work to join me. I had a late start, and was just generally bumming the whole day. I was having a great time while I was skiing, but I just didn't feel well all day. Kinda like having a mild cold, or maybe really faint flu-like symptoms. Every chair ride seemed like a chore that I didn't want to do, but once I got off the chair and making turns, that all kind of went away. My right foot was hurting a lot, though, and after a while the skiing just wasn't enough to cancel out how I was feeling. I should have gone up on Wednesday or something. I did manage to find some stuff out in the canyon, though, and had a great time shredding it. But at the end of the day - which for me was about 1pm - there just wasn't enough fresh epicness to cancel out my illness and the fact that I was flying solo again.

Our view of Mt. Hood, from the top of Ski Bowl

Feb 19: Training with B Team. Holy crap, was it windy. We were training at Ski Bowl yesterday, and it was CRAZY windy. Upper Bowl was on standby, with the telemetry reporting 60+mph winds. Since it was that windy at the bowl, it was worse at Meadows and Timberline. I took a look at their Twitter feeds, and it sounded like all of T-line was on wind standby for a large chunk of the day, and the same for Meadows. Ski Bowl was super busy, and there were two races going on. But we managed to get some really good training in. Not only that, one of the regular B Team coaches was shooting some video, so we got to review and critique some of the training afterward. B Team are definitely a fun bunch, and they work hard as well. I'll skip some of the details to protect the guilty, but there were some...interesting moments unloading toboggans from the chairlift. Nobody was hurt, and no equipment was damaged, so all's well that ends well. And they definitely learned from it.

B Team!

Slacker

I haven't posted about my ski days in a while. I'll get to it.

Ski Day 13: Big Windy @ Meadows

I know they've had days of higher winds at Meadows, but I'm calling today's post "Big Windy" because I got to witness the destructive power of the wind firsthand. But I'll get to that in a bit. Don't worry, nobody was hurt, and we didn't have to evacuate a chairlift.

Today was my first time back with A Team since the opening weekend of training. I hadn't seen them ski/ride in about a month, so I was excited to see their progress. I'd been told they were really doing well. The rain changed to snow just about the time I pulled into the patrol building in Govy, so I was hopeful that the "chance of snow" that was forecast would hold up.

It kinda did. But it wouldn't be all snow all the time. We got a little sleet, a little rain, and a whole lot of wind.

The A-Teamers were almost as good as advertised. They were handling things pretty well, but it's my personal opinion that they need to take a day and go back over some fundamentals. Especially now that they've run loaded toboggans, since they now have the experience of trying to control all that extra weight. I gave them my usual feedback (get the upper body square to the fall line, get the feet apart, etc.), since the skiers on the team were all pretty much having the same problem. It was working, until they got into some steeper stuff and probably panicked a bit. Once they trust the stance/technique, they'll be money. They'll get there.

After a bunch of runs over on 3-D and O-Ring, I was skiing down behind the group, watching them run the toboggans on the flats, when I heard and felt a pretty mighty gust of wind. I was approaching the trail merge where Voyager/Nettie's meet, so looked uphill to my right to ensure nobody was coming down the hill. I just happened to see what I estimated to be about a 70-foot-tall tree snap off about 10 feet above the base and fall to the ground. The snap from the breakage was LOUD, as was the mighty WHUMP of the tree impacting the trail. I skated, then hiked uphill to make sure no one had been hit, but I already knew nobody had, since I saw nobody to my right when I checked at the trail merge.

I radioed it in, and had a couple apprentices grab some nearby signage while I directed traffic. Another patroller in the area came up with a drill so we could get the signage in the ground, and they later set more markers. They ended up having to shut down Shooting Star due to the wind hazard. I wasn't surprised by that - there were some trees near the lift that were swaying an awful lot after the one I saw went down.

After lunch, we worked on some even steeper terrain, since the team's coaches felt the gang could handle it. They did fine, but we had a couple of instances where things got a little dicey. Nobody was hurt, but a couple apprentices sure owe one of their compadres a pitcher of beer at least. With fatigue setting in, the team's coaches made the call to pack it in for the day, and I was glad they did. I'd developed a pretty nasty headache by then. The weird thing about it was it didn't hurt when I was skiing - only when I stopped or sat on the chairlift.

I'd brought a Terrible Towel up with me, ready to give it a twirl and chant "Here we go, Stee-lers, Here we go!" at any Steelers fans I saw on the hill wearing their gear, but I didn't see any. Oh well. Didn't see any Packers fans, either, so I'll chalk it up to game-day preparations or something.

Ski Days 11 & 12: Sunny Training and Foggy Captaining @ Timberline

Got lazy again and haven't posted, sorry about that. But back on the 22nd, I actually had a patrol day where I didn't need my pack cover. Or rain gear of any sort. I even had time to take some pictures.

Ski Day 11 was a freakin' GREAT day. Clear skies, warm temperatures, and pretty fast snow awaited us, and I was guest-coaching with B Team. They're a pretty fun bunch, and they all seem to 'get it' - not just in terms of picking up the stuff we're trying to give them, but understanding the big picture. They have a good set of coaches, too, so I don't know how much more time I'll get to spend with them this season. I hope the 22nd wasn't the last time before they test out.

We worked on a lot of sideslipping fundamentals and some carving work throughout the day, and the morning was focused more on 'rope-a-goat' - drills without the toboggan where we get them used to handling the tail rope of the toboggan. Tail-roping is the toughest aspect to get totally wired, so we're giving extra emphasis on it and starting early.

They did get to drag empty toboggans around, too, and learn how to upload them on the chairlift. Later in the day, a couple of them got to feel what it was like to lock the handles and have a little weight behind them. It was a good exercise to help stress the importance of all the stance and balance stuff we'd given them earlier in the day.

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Ski Day 12 was last Sunday, and while it started out beautifully, the weather didn't stay that way. I was Hill Captain for the first time at Timberline, and things there are a little different than at Ski Bowl. I think I did okay for my debut there, but there are a handful of things I'd like to do better next time. I had a good crew, though, which is always a good thing.

It was a pretty busy day, and the terrible visibility on the lower part of the mountain didn't help things. I don't know if any of the cases we had could be attributed to the visibility, but it certainly seemed like it could have been a factor if people weren't careful. I ended up spending a lot of my time covering for some bump shifts, since we had so many cases in the late morning to mid-day. But I managed not to botch anything up, sweep went okay, and everybody made it back for the debrief.

I did manage to visit with the training group very briefly, and it was nice to see the C Teamers again. Looked like they've continued to make progress.