Other Patrol blogs in the blogisphere.

Here are a couple of other blogs from Ski Patrollers out there. It's always cool reading what the people who make up ski patrols are doing. On Keystone patrol we have a very diverse group.

I think it shows that most of us do it because we love the work...........it sure ain't the pay!!

Check out these sites:

http://barkernews.blogspot.com/

http://goneronin.blogspot.com/

Also check out this link. I stole it from Barker's blog. I love it and it cracks me up everytime i see it. I met Erik Weihenmayer in Napal when i was climbing Lhotse. He has a great sense of humor...... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fc43R53Qnkc&eurl=/

OOPS...i'm late for work, gotta go make that mountain safe.

Skier vs. Tree....again!!!

This past Sunday a skier from Europe died at Keystone. He hit a tree. Witnesses say he was skiing too fast and out of control. Yesterday i had to take down all the rope and boo and flagging that we put up to preserve the scene.

The first patroller on scene said he got to the man and the guy was fully talking and only complaining of pain in his arm and leg. The patroller checked and found deformity in his femur so he called for a KTD. He said as he was talking to the guy he started getting fuzzy and only knew his name. After this he called for the ALS pack and any ALS patroller on the hill. By the time more patrollers showed up the man had lost conscientiousness and a pulse could not be found.

CPR was performed and they could tell his ribs were also crushed and his stomach was hardening. He was bleeding internally. They shocked him 7 times and got a pulse back 3 times. By this time the patrollers were doing everything that could be done. Flights were being landed and a double rig was being set up. When they got the man to the chopper the flight nurses took over. He was flown to Denver but was pronounced dead.

He tore his Aorta.

It's amazing that people come to a ski resort and kill themselves. The guest hate us when we ask them to slow down. They hate us when we put up rope to close off areas that could hurt them. They hate us when we cut the lift line to get back to the top. They hate us when we close the bowls to do control work.

BUT....they love us when they're in pain and we're saving their lives.

I just don't get it.

Weekend of friends and snow sculptures.

This weekend in Breckenridge was the International Snow Sculpture Championships. What amazing things these artist do with snow.

It was also a weekend of good friends visiting me. On Saturday my friend Prescott came up and i helped him score some new skis and bindings. On Sunday i had my good buddy Alistair and his family come visit me. I just love his kids. Ben is almost 4 and Luke is 1 1/2. What great kids!!!

One of the sculptures was a slide. It was fast, cold and hard on the bum. Of course i did it a few times.....I mean come on!!

This is Ben.....future patroller.

This is Alistair and Luke.

Patrol Pigs...I love it!!!

http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/showthread.php?t=74233&highlight=patrol

This is a forum on teton gravity's site about an incident that happen on Keystone. It's so hilarious.

At Keystone we pull a pass and send people to a safety class if they ski in closed areas. I was working on this day when this one happened.

This happened on Mineshaft. It takes a lot of snow to open mineshaft because of the way it faces. The run has only been opened maybe 4 days this year.

On this day someone called into PHQ saying that they had a friend on Mineshaft that was stuck and needed help. Mineshaft had been closed for days because the snow on it was nasty and bottomless and stumps and log were everywhere. A patroller was sent to help this kid and had to call for more help because of the conditions....it was actually dangerous. The patrollers got the kid down and because he was skiing in closed terrain he hotted his pass for a week and told him to get the pass back by going to the safety class.

Now the dad is so mad about this that he's suing Keystone. The kid lied and said the run was opened but it had been closed for many days. We have documentation of this and it'll be funny when this comes up in court.

You gotta love these sue happy people. By the way, he's from Texas. I'm embarrassed because that's where i was born.

Oh well.

What a couple!!!!

I love this shot. These two super cool people are Dave and Helen. They live in Boulder and they're my inspiration for many things.

They're skate skiing in North Boulder Park. If Boulder get's enough snow they groom the park for nordic skiing.

What a fun place.

A little tour of The Outback.

I usually don't like working at The Outback. I guess it's because it's so far in back of the resort and it's very slow but it also depends who you work with. On this day we had a great crew and the weather was beautiful.

The Outback is steeper terrain and 2 of our 6 bowls are back there. On this day i went for a long hike and toured parts of the Outback that i've never seen.

This is a shot of the signs and direction post as you start to get into the 2 bowls. The bowls are North and South Bowls. The sign post has Hotham Aus. and Moab Ut. on it....nice!! You can see that North Bowl drops to the left and South Bowl drops to the right.

In this shot you can just make out the cat that can take you to the very top. It cost $5 and it's for the weak or the skiers who are in a hurry. I feel patrollers should never be seen on the cat, but that's me.

This shot is once you hike to the top it's looking back at the signs and where Outback PHQ is. Now South Bowl drops down to the left.


This is a shot of when i'm hiking up to the top of South Bowl along the ridge. Man, i need a better camera.

This is a shot looking across to the edge of South Bowl. Outback PHQ is just above tree line on the small peak in the back. I did a big horseshoe hike and ski to get to this point. Where i'm standing is beautiful. It's on the ski area boundry and behind me is some amazing backcountry skiing. It's an area we call vega and it get majorly wind loaded. Good skiing but deadly.

The trees in front of me are the Tele Trees. People don't ski here because of the hike but you can always find good snow and good times.

Well, that's it for the tour....exit on your right please!

BORIING!!!!!!

Man, it's been so boring on patrol this week that i have nothing to write. Sorry about that folks.

Today I'll get some pixs and find something to write about even if i make it up.

The one thing i can say is it's been so beautiful during the days. The sun is in full shine mode and the temps are kinda warm.

A fallen 'Troller.

Poor Steve was skiing across a slope to help a guest when he crossed his ski tips and fell causing him to pop his ACL.

Man, it can happen so easily.

He'll have surgery and will be in dispatch for some time.

I think that's a pulse???

I was on a wreck yesterday with a 16 year old snowboarder who was unconscious. These are always scary scenes to be a part of. You never know what you'll roll up on.

I was 1st out and told to go to Frenchman and look for an unconscious man surrounded with a lot of blood. Yikes!!! I grabbed a rig and a crash pack an 2 other patrollers followed. The 2 patrollers skied faster so i was behind. As i roll up i see no blood, that's good. One patroller has the head and starts trying to get response from the guy. His family was around and we got info. Me and the other patroller start working like a well oiled machine. He was getting O2 and i went in to find a pulse. " I have a pulse". Whew, that is always a relief. We call trauma activation, O2 is applied and i start getting vitals. By this time the kid starts to come around. He's only knows his name.

Another patroller shows up and takes incident command. I give him all the vitals and he relays them to the clinic and we begin packaging (backboard) the kid. Immediately we ski him down to the clinic and get the scene cleaned up.

It truly is amazing when you're part of a scene like that. It works so well and everyone knows what the other is doing and what they need.

COOOOOOLD!!!!!!!

Holy smoke, this was a cold day.
I awoke to a -16 degree morning and it didn't get much better as the day went on. It's days like this that make working outside not fun.
I would take a ski run and mid way down i would feel my finger tips freezing. By time i reached the lift my fingers were hurting bad. The ride up the lift was nothing but pain. Get to the top and enter PHQ and it was all i could do to warm back up.
I think it's suppose to be this way all week.
I think it's time to pull out the down mittens.

Tuning at "Tunes!!!

I spent Fri and Sat working at Neptune Mountaineering in Boulder, Co. helping with shop work. The Tune Shop manager ( Chris Donharl ) blew his ACL and work was getting stacked up. He was doing good and he wasn't too much in the weeds but it was nice helping out. I learned alot about tuning with machines. I mostly do mounts and waxing but it was cool learning about the machines.

That's a picture of Chris and the Tune Shop and his crutches.

Neptune's is an awesome place to work with alot of fun people.

Horn Hat's everywhere!!!!!!

In Breckenridge this week is Ullr Fest. Ullr is the god of winter. It started with a bonfire nordic ski, then Ullympics ( drunken craziness ), and yesterday a parade. Why the parade is on Thursday, i don't know.

Anyway, it's a fun event that Breck has every year.

The pix are fuzzy because i didn't realize my camera was on macro...oops!!

My favorite place at Keystone.

This is me skiing on the top of Independance Bowl. My buddy Mark Cafiero ( http://www.sixpeeps.com/ ) snapped this photo of me while he and I were sweeping and closing the bowl.

Fire in the hole!!!!!

These are pix of a bomb hole and the debris left behind on the top of Independance Bowl.

A few days later we had a big wind event so we had to go up and cut the cornice that built up. As I was cutting and dropping the cornice it was causing small soft slabs to release.

It was actually very beautiful

Science is good, bombs are better!!!!!

The Big Hang!!!!

The boys in red just doing the Big Hang on a sunny day.

6 Broken Bones!!!!!!!

Yesterday i was part of a Wreck.

A woman hit a tree on her left side. When Mark C.and I got to her she was in full on scream mode. Her husband was freaking out and telling us to hurry up and fix his wife.

We made radio calls for more hands and more equipment. She was against the tree and in pain. We got her surveyed and found pain and deformaty in her left hip femur area and defomaty in her left lower arm. She also had pain in her lower leg, she said shin.

We got her from wrapped around the tree and splinted and backboarded and took her out the Gulch Rd where an ambulance was waiting to take her to the clinic.

A little later we called the clinic to get an update and that's when we found out she had fractured her Tib/Fib, femur, and all the bones in her left arm. 6 bones in all......now that's painful.

She will be OK and everyone on scene did an incredble job.

Sweet hat and shades!!!!!

OK, so this is what happens when a patroller goes through the lost and found box.

Wearing the cool hat and shades gave my boy Josh an attitude. On sweeps, the closing of the mountain, when we see each other on sightings between trails we say "clear" to each other but on this day when anyone said "clear" to josh he just said "F-You" back to them.

Damn, this guy makes me laugh.

AVALANCHE!!!!!!!

This weekend i was helping to teach an avalanche class. I love doing it because i love to see the students come away on Sunday with the knowledge to travel safely in the mountains.

The classes are through 10th Mountain Huts( http://www.huts.org/ ) with Aspen Alpine Guides doing the teaching ( http://www.aspenalpine.com/ ).

On Saturday is the first day we go out in the field. We spend that day looking at avalanche paths, digging pits, doing bonding test and route finding. About an hour out the weather turned bad. The clouds moved in and the wind picked up to speeds in the 40 to 50 mph range with the temps dropping into the low single digits. After about 4 hours in the field we all had to turn around to get back to the hut to thaw out.

One of the best exercises we do with the students is the final companion rescue exercise. We set up a mock avalanche and have the student teams find 2 buried people with beacons and one buried without a beacon. It's great fun and the students learn lots.

During one of the rescue exercises the instructor, who was acting the part of a victim, had her beacon still on transmit. No one in the rescue party told her to turn her beacon off so she stayed close to one of the guys doing beacon search all while screaming "where's my Barney". The student doing the search kept getting low distance numbers on his beacon until the instructor walked away from him. The student with a puzzled look on his face said" hey, hold it, my buried guys going away from me......ahhhhhh!?!???!!!!!".

My favorite set up is the simulated buried person with the glove and ski pole sticking out of the snow.

Also, on Saturday we got word of a big avalanche set off on Berthoud Pass near Winter Park. It ran big and knocked 2 cars off the road and 8 people were injured

All in all, what a great weekend......for us.

I had visitors!!!!!

This is the whole Scheuer (minus Steven, he had to go back to Dartmouth) clan and the whole Zumba clan.

From left to right this is Lauren Zumba, Lisa Zumba, Michael Scheuer, Mark Zumba, Camille Scheuer, Amy Scheuer and Pop's or Camille's dad, Gerry.

What a great family. I miss them all already and they just left.

Check out this super cool Patroller.

This is Amy Scheuer. She's Steven's (who's in this blog earlier) sister.

She's for sure, one of the most super cool people i've met in a long time. I had to get a picture of her with my patrol vest on.

She'll be a telemarker one day...oh yes she will.