Snow (#2) Snow (#2)

Today, the clouds are gone and we have our normal blue sky. Some of the snow seems to have melted, with most of the snow appearing to be above 12,000 feet.

This is a picture from our balcony in Dillon looking south-west towards Breckenridge. The mountains shown are in the Ten Mile range and these peaks are the top of the Breckenridge ski area.

Snow! Snow!

Looks like the first snow of the season here in Summit County, Colorado. The photo was taken just now at about 9,000 feet, so my guess is that the snow line is about 10,000 feet or so, which is about the base elevation of most of the ski areas in the county.

You know when you are nearing ski season when you start having ski swaps. This last weekend, there was one in Breckenridge to benefit Team Summit ski and board team. Team Summit is a successor of the various ski area ski teams, including the Keystone ski team, which in turn is a successor to the A-Basin ski team that I raced for in high school, almost 40 years ago.

I managed to survive the ski swap with only buying a new helmet and gloves. Last year at the Vail ski swap, I ended up buying two pair of skis, two pair of poles (identical, for when I break one), and a pair of boots (not for me). I did try on some boots and looked at skis, but already have one almost new pair of AT skis and should have new AT books on order - and the boots have both AT and Alpine soles that can be interchanged.

So, ski season is just around the corner. I expect to be on skis by the end of October, maybe six weeks from now, and my brother will be even sooner for race training.

Ping Tian Resorts Ping Tian Resorts

A long time friend and family acquaintance, Chuck Tolton, is the VP of Resort Operations for Ping Tian Resorts, which is scheduled to be the largest ski resort in Asia. It will be 20 sq. miles, with a 3,600 foot vertical drop. And that is big. Very big.

Hopefully, I can visit and ski there in a year or two when more of it is in place.

Vail execs ski-jump overseas to oversee Vail execs ski-jump overseas to oversee

Denver Post: Vail execs ski-jump overseas to oversee: Roger McCarthy and Chuck Tolton, both former Vail Resorts executives, have been hired to open up ski areas overseas. Roger is going to Russia, and Chuck to China.

It is always interesting seeing people you know, at least somewhat, in the news. Chuck and I grew around Golden, CO. I didn't know him in HS, since he went to a rival school, but met him a couple years later. I met Roger through Chuck while working at Keystone, when Chuck was the Director of Mountain Operations, and Roger was his boss.

My last run two years ago was with the two of them, plus maybe four others. Chuck took us down through his (A51) terrain park, and introduced us to his toilet bowl feature - which was essentially a half pipe with the bottom end filled in. They had cut a drain with chain saws through the closed end (it took three days, and the radio traffic was quite humorous, as they were cutting from both directions, and kept thinking they were ready to hook up - they missed by about a foot, which made exiting through the drain interesting). We then skied down Go Devil, a very steep groomed expert run on the front of the mountain. I was following Chuck on my downhills while he telemarked, until Roger went screaming by. I figured I might was well do that too, since downhills don't turn very well. A great finish for a great season.

I last talked to Roger in late December when he was skiing with the new president of Keystone, Pat Campbell. They were helping a guest with her skis, when I skied up and took over. I last ran into Chuck at the Keystone Ski Patrol headquarters in early March.

I am not the least bit surprised that they have been able to leverage their tenure at Vail into jobs opening up large ski reasorts overseas. Vail Resorts is the premier ski area company in the country, and probably in the world. Both are extremely well qualified for their new roles.

Skiing and Google Maps Skiing and Google Maps

Keystone Ski Area from space:

This is a satellite picture of Keystone Ski Area, via Google Maps. The area consists of three mountains: Dercum (formerly Keystone) Mountain to the north (top), North Peak in the middle, and the Out Back to the south (bottom). Most of my time over the last five seasons working at Keystone has been on the front (top/north) of the northernmost mountain. This is also the part of the area that I helped clear in the summer of 1970. We cleared about half of what was ultimately cleared in the front that summer, and the area opened for operation that winter.

The way to read the image is that the base area is at the top. There are two base areas, the Mountain House to the left (West), and River Run on the right (East). Where all the spagetti comes together is the Summit area on top of Dercum Mountain. Then, SW from there is La Bonte's Cabin at the bases of the Ruby and Santiago lifts. SE from there is the top of North Peak. SW from there is the Wayback lift, and SE from a bit below the bottom of that is the Outback. You can compare this to the more abstract official 2006-7 Keystone ski area map.

Actually, it isn't a single satellite picture, but rather Google puts together a bunch of them, which I downloaded and reassembled into the image we see here. Interestingly, Google downloads about twice the number of satellite image files than are actually displayed at any one time, at least on my computer. This may be to provide for monitors that can display more than mine can, or to allow a minimal amount of moving the display around w/o having to download more images. In any case, I could only see about half the mountain at any one time in Google Maps, but found that I had downloaded images for the entire ski area.

Ski Season (#10) winding down Ski Season (#10) winding down

Looking west this morning from the top of Keystone Ski Area. The camera would have to be aimed a couple of degrees to the right to see where I am right now in Dillon along that lake in the background.

Yesterday was a blizzard, and today was supposed to be one too. Probably the last one of the regular season this year. But the prediction of 90% cloudy and 80% chance of snow doesn't look all that realistic today.

I am getting a bit sentimental right now. We have three more days (including today) of the Mountain Watch program at Keystone, and the last almost five months have flown by. Each season seems to get just a little bit better. And seems a little bit shorter.

Most of the volunteers will be back next year, and we seem to be picking up some each year, so the program is actually growing. We took a big hit four years ago when moved from Guest Services to Ski Patrol, and it has taken that long to build back the momentum we had. But the organizational switch turns out to have been really good for the program - we integrate better and better with Ski Patrol every year, without losing some of our guest services functions.

The problem is with the paid staff. We got a bunch back this year from the previous year, plus we had the same supervisor and lead. But we don't expect that this coming year. Our supervisor has married and is moving away. The lead and a bunch of others are trying to move up to the Ski Patrol, and if they pass their skiing test tomorrow, should be at the top of the list next year.

The program has matured a lot over the last four years. As I noted above, it has become an integral part of Keystone Ski Patrol (KSP). We do what they don't want to do (like traffic control and closing runs) happily. And as importantly, our daily staffing needs often nicely complement theirs. In particular, we have a lot of availability after about 3 p.m. when KSP is sweeping the back mountains, and thus have taken an ever increasing role (now lead) in "Gang Groom", where Keystone grooms part of the front of the mountain between 3 and 4 most days for night skiing.

One of the things that has really been impressive this year is how much Mountain Watch has become proactive. If an injury is called in on the western side of the front of the mountain, we are often first on the scene. This is esp. true in the A51 terrain park, where it is often necessary to temporarily close park features until an injury can be transported. I am not the only MW who monitors the Patrol channel for just this reason, to get an idea of what is going on as to injuries. Of course, we also probably pick up at least half the injuries on the Green runs on the front before they can get called in, as we constantly cycle through those runs looking for trouble.

My worry is that it is going to be hard to duplicate our successes this season next year, given the likely paid staff departures. We do have some very talented younger guys expecting to try for the lead position, and that should help a lot.

So, I will ski hard and work hard the next three days, and then probably only ski once or twice after that this season. Hopefully a nice finish to a great season.

Skiing - President's day weekend Skiing - President's day weekend

This last weekend was a disaster at the ski area where I worked. Friday, it snowed, but didn't stick because of the wind. The area shut down first the two gondolas, then starting with the back, progressively shut down lifts towards the front throughout the day. The Summit Express shut down at 2:15 and the Montezuma list at 2:30. Indeed, it shut down between the time we got to the top of the Peru lift and when we got down to it, about 3 minutes later. This left the Peru Express and the fixed lift in the beginning area running, for probably around 10,000 guests. Not pleasant.

We missed the excitement Sat. morning, as I-70 was shut down for awhile for avalanche blasting. This did manage to thin the crowds just a tiny bit, but... Everyone was so psyched to ski over the three or four day weekend that it was near capacity. I heard that the Outback Express lift had a 20 minute wait, which is near record.

But the big problem for me was that there were so many injuries, and a lot of them were not trivial. I worked on four that needed backboards, and one other that was a clearly broken leg. And there was one Flight for Life. Things got so bad that instead of dispatching patrol from patrol headquarters, they were being dispatched before they got to the top of the lift. Then, on my last run of the day, I found a 9 year old kid with a badly twisted knee. That took another half an hour, and so I signed out at 5:15 (I try to sign out by 4).

But just as I signed out, I heard about someone hitting a tree between Last Hoot (steepest trail on the mountain) and the Peru lift. Our Mountain Watch supervisor was the first employee to get there and called it in, again. The guy was apparently sliding in and out of consciousness. But luckily, there is no traffic there, and more MW weren't needed. Still, I listened on my radio to the patrol bringing down the backboard, BLS (Basic Life Support) pack w/O2, etc. as I started my drive back to Dillon. A long, exhausting, day for all concerned.

I should add though that the snow was nice - freshly packed powder, and I did enjoy some nice turns in it. I was on software skis, and they worked great. But mostly, I just worked.

Radios (#2) Radios (#2)

The Motorola G68 radio I got came with a 220 volt charger. It fit into a 110 socket, so I figured that I would just charge it twice as long. But the first two times I took it up onto the mountain, the battery went dead w/i an hour. I figured that it was either a charger or battery problem. After all, the batteries that came with it weren't that big. So, I first ordered a 110/220 step up transformer, then a new charger, and finally two large capacity batteries.

The 110/220 volt step up transformer showed up first, and when I plugged my charger into it, all of a sudden I got different lights for normal and quick charging. Hmm.. So, I let the radio charge at normal over night, and then gave it an hour or two of quick charge, and then took it up on the mountain. And, voila, it worked just fine, lasting the entire day.

In retrospect, it should have been obvious. Motorola typically uses 7.5 volt batteries in its commercial portable radios. The charger is supposed to put out 10 volts to charge that. But if it is designed to convert from 220 volt AC to 10 volt DC, then when faced with 110 volt AC input, it is likely to output closer to 5 volt DC to the 7.5 volt battery. No wonder it wouldn't charge.

All is not wasted though. The new charger is supposed to trickle charge and has a light that changes color when the battery being charged is fully charged (like the more expensive Motorola chargers). And the specs on the battery that came with the radio would suggest that it is probably only good for 8 hours, if run on low power, and kept warm - which is problematic at a ski area. This way, I can carry the smaller, original, battery as a spare, JIC one of the bigger ones runs out during the day through overuse (battery usage estimates are based on the assumption that you mostly listen).

I should add that scanning worked fairly well, except that there is about a 5 second pause after each incoming transmission where it isn't scanning. So, I do know that I missed one or two messages that were walked over by another frequency.

Nevertheless, it was a simple matter to set up the radio with channels 1-6 identical with our usual radios. Then channels 11 and 13 were set up with their receive the same as 1 (SP) and 3 (MW), but to transmit on 3 (MW)'s frequency. Then the radio was set to scan just these two channels. The result is that I scan channels 1 (SP) and 3 (MW) during the day, but always transmit on 3 (MW). Then, when our MW dispatch shuts down at about 4, I turn off scanning and just use channel 1 (SP).

Early morning at Vail Early morning at Vail

Early this morning at Two Elk lodge at Vail:
Two Elk of course is the multimillion dollar lodge that the eco-terrorists burned down a couple of years ago. I seem to remember some people being finally arrested for it this fall.

I am somewhat ambivalent about it, as we used to hike through here once a year with my mother's hiking group. A short, steep hike up a couple thousand feet from the old U.S. 6 east of Vail, lunch where this lodge now is, and a 5-7 mile hike down the valley past the bottom of Vail's bowls to Minturn. My father got some glorious pictures of the wildflowers there - we have a couple of them framed hanging around the condo and his house.

In any case, I picked this picture this morning because of the sun coming up over the mountains. Looks to be another Beautiful, Boring Day in Paradise.

Travails on the Mountain Travails on the Mountain

Monday was a nice day skiing after a cold weekend. Saturday the wind was bad enough that most of the ski area was closed, leaving three chair lifts running on the front (Dercum's) mountain at Keystone. I did run into a long time friend Monday who had been the mountain manager there and had left in a dispute with Vail Resorts. This was the first time he had been back on his old mountain since then. Looks like he is going to land on his feet though, given the offers he is getting.

Then, I ran down the mountain for gang grooming to close a trail on the bottom. Nine grooming machines ultimately came by and I raced up the Summit Express to try to catch them at the top. But for some reason or another, they were downloading on that chair, and shut it down to half speed when I was about half way up (usually, they don't download on that chair when the gondola running next to it is still running, but did so Mon.) Barely missing the cats on the top, I raced off after them, just to run into some minor emergency a couple of hundred yards down.

When that was over, dropped by our dispatch, picked up another radio, and headed down Silverspoon to look for speeding racers. The problem is that the Summit HS team, as well as Team Summit, train at the local areas in the afternoons. Kids are kids, and these kids are good enough to ski fast when they have the chance. So, we had a gauntlet set up down that run on the way to their course on Haywood. I'd told them a week before to take another route, but... But the other Mountain Watch were gone, and I only caught about a dozen of them, they weren't that bad this time, so let them go after a little lecture.

I cut it close, catching the patrol shutting down the Montezuma lift. Rode up with one of the supervisors, and then headed down the ridge to my dispatch to turn in radios and sign out. And then disaster struck.

I got a call from the patrol dispatcher on our land line. And she asked that I go to the bottom of the Peru chair to help a kid find his bus. Fine. I got ready to go, and she called back to tell me that he was actually over at the top of Peru (a couple hundred yards away from me). I humped over there just as lift ops was shutting the chair down for the night. It was now about 4:30, and I got on the phone with Guest Services trying to enlist them into this effort. Of course, a lot of them had gone home already... Any case, they set up to meet us at the bottom of the gondola and we started putting on our skiis to head down, when the guy mentioned that this was his first day on skiis. So, we were about 2 1/2 miles by trail from the bottom, he had a half an hour to catch his bus, and this was his first day on skiis. I remember asking myself: why hadn't he downloaded there when the lift had been running ten minutes earlier?

Of course, by now, ski patrol had shown up for sweep, and we were hanging them up. Which turns out to mean hanging up the entire patrol because they all connect up down on the mountain. Which is why they were a bit surly about it. Only solution was a "taxi" ride by snomobile down for the kid. Only of course, the patrol "do" was off somewhere else. While waiting for him to show up (and three other patrol glaring at us), I got the kid to try to talk to someone on his bus on his cell phone. About the third time, I got him to have the kid at the other end hand the phone to an adult, and I took the kid's phone and gave him the phone number of guest services. Oh, and by now, the patrol "do" was there, revving his engine to indicate that we should hurry.

And then were were off, racing to the bottom, the "do" and I, to be passed by a lift ops "do" about halfway down. You don't see them open up until the mountain is empty, and then they scream down the slopes. I stopped and talked to a couple of patrol about 2/3 of the way down, asking that they tell their dispatch that we were now below them. And I lost the "do" there. So, I continued screaming to the bottom, cutting over onto River Run at Dercum's Dash. One of the patrol there yelled at me as I went by, and came down angry that I hadn't stopped. I saw Guest Services with a guest in their little vehicle at the bottom, looked around, and the "do' was coming out at Ina's - I had managed to pass him as he took the longer way. I got everyone together, and that was that. And the patrol who had yelled at me to stop appologized, and told me that if I was going by the "Green Light", could I help him. But the "do" driver offered to take me back up Ina's so I could get to the other base area, and took the offer. And that was where all the patrol were congregating, making sure that the mountain was clear after sweep.

It turns out that the group that this kid belonged were all a bit mentally disabled, i.e. borderline retarded. I didn't figure that out until I took the phone from the kid, and Guest Services found out when one of their adults called the number I had given him. Because we didn't know, we didn't realize that though the kid obviously realized there were a lot of problems, he didn't really understand what they were. We all made a lot of mistakes assumming him "normal", up and down the line. No wonder he didn't realize the implications of being stuck on the mountain 2 1/2 miles from the bottom on his first day of skiing with all the lifts shut down, etc. To my small credit, I think I was the first to realize that this was a borderline crisis. But, as I told the patrol dispatcher later: Alls well that ends well.

Motorla GP68 Radio Motorla GP68 Radio

Working at Keystone ski area, we use two-way radios heavily. They are 4/5 watt UHF radios, and there are some 35 or so sets of UHF frequencies in this county tied up by or used by the two Vail resorts. (I say sets, because most of them are duplexed, meaning different transmit frequencies, with the transmit frequency 5 mhz above the receive to work with repeaters).

Our lives on the slopes are controlled by our radios. That is how you know what is happening, and thus, where you should be and what you should be doing. My problem, and that of much of Mountain Watch, is that our radios are the dregs, most at least a decade old. They have been heavily used and are quite heavy. Another problem is that we get and drop off our radios at the top of the Peru lift. This means that the first ride up and last run down are w/o radios - and the later is when you run into a lot of accidents.

So, I decided to get my own radio, since you can pick them up on ebay for under $100. My first shot, a Motorola P110 is nice, but I am still having troubles getting it programmed. But there are so many of those on ebay that when I get it figured out, I may go into the radio business selling to the other experienced Mountain Watch.

Then, I started seeing ebay auctions for Motorola GP68 radios. They looked great. Fully programmable from the front. Powerful, light, and with great volume.

The problem is that they are "gray" goods, shipped in from Hong Kong. Motorola never distributed the radios in this country, but apparently did extensively throught Asia and Europe. My guess is that the reason that the radios are "gray" is that they can scan the entire frequency range they are designed for (in my case, 430-470 mhz). And this means that they may be usable on some public safety frequencies.

And, indeed, Motorola seems to have used different battery configurations for just this reason - these charge from the bottom instead of the rear like all the other two way Motorola portable radios I have seen. Still 7.5 volt batteries - just different form factors and charging points.

So, the battery charger that they come with is 220 Volt, and does not work on American current. Indeed, the charger is the first one from Motorola that is a one piece unit - all the rest have a transformer plug that plugs into the actual charging unit (and, of course, I have one of those transformer plugs).

The answer to that problem is purchasing a 110/220 volt converter for about $10 aimed at just this sort of thing. They are aimed at running European and Asian appliances, etc. on American power.

The next problem was programming. The "manual" that came with the radio is an obvious copyright infringement. Some pages from some manuals have been photocopied and stuck together in a .pdf file on an OEM mini-CD.

I was despairing until I ran into documentation through Google for the AP73 that was considered functionally equivalent to the GP68. And, after reading the AP73 User's manual, programming the GP68 was a snap. The first channel took maybe five minutes to figure out. By the third or so, it was taking me about a minute or two per channel to program in a transmit and receive frequency and a PL/DPL signalling frequency and then assign it to a channel. Then, I turned off scan for all except two channels, and I was done.

The only complaint I have so far is that the channel scan isn't a priority scan, and if you aren't careful, you can find yourself transmitting on the wrong channel. I want to be able to scan channels 1 and 3, giving preference to 3, and then transmit on 3. I just have to be careful when in scan mode. We operate on 3, and the patrol on 1. But then we move to 1 when our dispatch shuts down at about 4 p.m., at which time I turn of scanning. Oh, and if you are going to be operating in the mountains, you need to slap on a longer antenna.

Early morning at Keystone Ski Area Early morning at Keystone Ski Area

A couple of early morning photos of Keystone Ski Area. This first one looks down Schoolmarm ridge down on Dillon Lake below:
And this second photo shows North Peak and the gondola to it, as well as the top of Mozart run.
Both photos are from the top of Dercum Mountain. The first faces west, and is taken from the top of the Summit House. The second faces south.

Skiing - photos of 10th Special Forces Group Skiing - photos of 10th Special Forces Group

The Army's Tenth Special Forces Group out of Fort Carson, CO, is the only American military unit that trains on skiis any more, and they do it primarily here at Keystone. Here is a group of them lined up just under our "SLOW TRAIL OF THE DAY" sign at the top of Dercum Peak heading down Schoolmarm ridge:
Here, they have started working their way down the mountain:

I ran into them at the end of the day Tuesday, the second day on skiis for most of them, and they were doing great. These are truly our Best and Brightest, and their ability to pick up skiing so quickly is just one more illustration of this.

Over the years, I have talked to some of them, and apparently their unit is dedicated to the part of the world that includes Afganistan. Some have been there twice already.

So, Tuesday when I was riding up a chairlift with a soldier from Hawaii at Keystone for a biomedical conference, and he called the ski training a boondoggle, I said, fine. I just wish that more soldiers and marines could utilize the same boondoogle, training to ski under our bright blue skies while waiting for their next deployment to the Middle East.

Skiing - 01/22/07 photos Skiing - 01/22/07 photos

Some Keystone mountain pictures from earlier this week. The first one shows our "SLOW TRAIL OF THE DAY" sign just as you start down Schoolmarm Ridge:

Next is our "THIS RUN MONITORED BY MOUNTAIN WATCH" sign a little below the previous sign:

This is taken right at a "SLOW" sign on a big roll right below the "Denver Cliffs". This is where I do a lot of my speed control (normally I am looking uphill). You can barely see the top of the Peru and A51 lifts lower down the ridge in a clearing.

That is a snowmobile lane to the left. Keystone added these on Schoolmarm trail for the places where snowmobiles have reduced visibility, such as here, coming over a big roll, after a teenage girl racer was killed at Vail hitting a snowmobile going uphill.

Skiing - 01/23/07 Skiing - 01/23/07

Another beautiful, but less boring, day in paradise, skiing this afternoon at Keystone. Again, the first couple of hours were mostly spent doing nice high speed carving turns on mostly empty runs as I patrolled looking for anyone skiing faster than I, or, more importantly, injured or needing help. Not a lot of speed control needed on days like today.

We had a lot of Mountain Watch on the mountain today, though I really didn't see many of the others doing speed control either. Ran into a bunch of them on a wreck about half way donw Schoolmarm ridge. And somehow, checking my radio, I managed to lose my whistle. It took me months to find a plastic whistle with a ball inside. Before that, I had to use a metal whistle with a ball, or a plastic one w/o. The metal one was a lot better, but it has the tendency to stick to your lips on really cold days. So, a plastic one with ball inside is optimal. The problem is that outside ski patrol usage, there isn't a lot of call for them, and so they are hard to find. Usually, I have it clipped to my jacket, but was wearing a radio harness today, and clipped it there. Somehow I dislodged it as I worked my radio as I skied by the wreck.

The next run, I heard of another wreck in the smaller terrain park, and went there to help, closing the third jump on the jump line. Maybe not needed here - the two big jump lines in the bigger park do need to be closed for accidents, since they have very blind landings. Luckily, Mountain Watch dispatch is pretty close to the top of the A51 terrain park, and we are getting a lot more agressive about sending people to assist whenever we hear or or see accidents there (partially I think at my urging - last year I happened to see the patrol pick up a BLS pack at the top of the Peru lift and got a lot of kudos for calling in backup for shutting down a jump for a major back/neck/head injury - I repeatedly suggested after that that we get more agressive, and our dispathers have). This one wasn't too bad - it did require a long (back) board, but not O2, etc.

Then, about 2:20, I was riding up with Guest Services, and a call came on our radios that the River Run gondola was being shut down at 3:15 (it turns out for maintainence). I was stopping at PHQ (patrol headquarters) to warm up for gang groom anyway, and went through the Summit House looking for anyone in street clothes to tell them to download early, if they didn't want to ride the Summit Express chair down.

As with Monday, we were overmanned for gang grooming, so I was posted to the top (PHQ) for any help that was ultimately needed. But today, Patrol was stretched thin, and we volunteered to help them. I was asked to sweep Frenchman for gang groom. That fired off about 3:45, so was unable to have my hot tea and warm up. I did have time though to go back upstairs and tell the food and beverage people the why for the gondola shutdown (they were all in street clothes, and so were appreciative of my warning).

I then Helped the patrol at the top of Frenchman pull the rope and set the signs, and then headed down, tailing the last people on the run. I then pulled the rope at the French Connection (the cutover from Irishman about 1/4 of the way down). Then, I ran into a complication - a woman walking down with her snowboard. Her two male companions were riding slowly down with her. Obviously, we wouldn't get down in time at that speed. I sent the guys down, and skied slowly with her for awhile. Then, about half way down, I ran into additional traffic coming in on 3rd Road from Wild Irishman. The patrol shutting that off was late. But he showed up then, and I left the woman walking down the treeline with him, and followed the rest of the guests down, clearing the run about a minute before the grooming machines showed up to head back up Frenchman. I helped the closure at the bottom of Irishman/ Paymaster, and then headed up Montezuma to help on top.

I got there in time to meet the grooming machines as they reached the top of Frenchman, and helped them through the traffic at the top as most of them went over to the "dark side" for their night of grooming. Usually, I would then run drag (ski rear escort) for the four machines heading down Schoolmarm ridge for the terrain parks. But today, I decided to check Frenchman, and found the French Connection closure still up. Pulled that, skied to the bottom, back up, and down the ridge to our dispatch to turn in my radio and check out.

I make it a habit of skiing slowly down Schoolmarm my last run of the day looking for hurt or injured guests in need of assistance. This also keeps me a bit safer, as that is the most likely time to be injured.

About 3/4 of the way down Schoolmarm, as the trail opens up and a lot of trails run into together, for the last time, I saw a guy sitting on the snow with his board off. I skied up, and saw that his face was bloody. He didn't think that he was that hurt, but somehow I thought he was wrong. So, over his resistance, I called the patrol on my cell phone and told them where he was, etc. I then started asking him questions to determine his alertness, and when he didn't know the day of the week it was (he kept saying Saturday), I called PHQ again and told them he had reduced alertness and was a bit flaky.

A ski patrol showed up, and I told him my observations. I then left him with the patient, and went to direct traffic. Three more Mountain Watch showed up on their final sweep and joined in, one with traffic control, and two directly helping the patrol. He called for a long (back) board rig (toboggan), and another patrol showed up with that. As the four of them were putting on a neck brace, strapping him to the backboard, taping his head to it, etc., a third ski patrol showed up, on her final sweep to the bottom. Aparently, about this time, they activated truama at the medical center at the bottom, due to the patient's increasing flakiness. Also, apparently, his pupils weren't right either. Both evidence of some head trauma.

The patrol were soon off with the patient, on their way to the medical center. In cases like this, the patients aren't given a choice - they aren't released until seen by a ER physician. The four remaining Mountain Watch cleaned up the (now frozen) blood. Luckily, we no longer have to bag it in biohazard bags (though I do carry some), as any pathogens are supposed to die w/i ten minutes in this environment. Nevertheless, it still has to be cleaned up, so I gave two pair of gloves to another MW, and he filled the one pair with the big clumps (wearing the other pair). We then buried the rest. And then, we were done, almost an hour after I signed out. (I will adjust my time tomorrow).

It is times like that that make Mountain Watch worthwhile. I may have saved that guy's life today. He was likely to try riding down on his own, and my guess is that the blood was building up in his brain as he sat there (as evidenced by his increasing flakiness, etc.) He would ultimately have been noticed, if not by a guest, then by one of the Mountain Watch who were about ten minutes behind me (and joined me at the scene), or by the third patroller, who was also making her last sweep down the mountain. The difference between us and the guests is that we are actively looking for this sort of thing, and they aren't. Ski patrol calls this "eyes on swivel". It takes a month or so every year for me to click back in, but I was obviously clicked back in for this. And my second call to PHQ, after I had determined the lowered alertness may have gotten patrol there a bit faster. After I dumped my skis at the MOB, I ran into the patroller who had shown up with the long board rig, walking back from the medical center. He is a paramedic, and was the one to activate trauma. He thought that I had done just fine, and that it was only when they had determined that the patient's alertness was lessening as they finished loading him that they knew that they had a real medical emergency.

And, that is why I work there - for the times when I do make a difference.

Skiing - 01/22/07 Skiing - 01/22/07

Another beautiful boring day in paradise. A friend of my mother's from Boston used to describe Colorado weather that way, before giving up and moving back to Boston. The problem is that there are just too many days in Colorado where there are few, if any, clouds in the sky. Arizona has this too - but there, this gives you nice winters, but 120 degree days througought much of the summer. Here, in CO, it gives you nice winters and summers. Up in the mountains, those cloudless skies are even deeper blue, and contrasted against the white snow, it is gorgeous.

Last week, we did have cold and snow. This week, it is just a bit cold - somewhere around a high of almost 20 degrees. But, as with the dry beat of Phoenix, this is a dry, dry, cold. So dry that people I know who come here ever winter from La. have a humidifier and still get nose bleeds. Luckily for me, I am a native, and thus don't have problems with the lack of humidity.

My day, as with many of my skiing days, finds me at the computer around 7, handling emails, and doing a bit of patent work. Business is a bit light right now, as things wind down every year for the holidays, and don't get going again until about February.

My goal most skiing days is to be at Keystone by about 11:30 and at the top of the Peru lift before noon to check in and get a radio. This means getting dressed a bit before 11 and walking out the door no later than 11:15. As I work as a volunteer, I use employee parking, fairly close to the Peru lift, where I put on my boots. I have four pair of skiis at the Mountain Operations Building (MOB) right above that lift. I mostly ski on a pair of Atomic Beta Race 10'22s that my next brother sold me cheap this year. They carve well on fairly hard snow, possibly made even better by his addition of some race chargers (adding maybe another half inch of height under my feet). Red skiis, yellow race chargers, green bindings, and orange poles. I also have at the MOB a pair of Beta Carves for soft snow (matching the poles), some fat Coyotes for deeper powder, and a pair of Rossi downhills for opening up (with curved poles to match).

This year, despite all the blizzards that seem to be hitting Colorado, the snow is usually relatively hard. Not ice, but a mixture of manufactured snow laid down before the end of the year and some packed powder on top, heavily groomed every night. Just soft enough that carving is a lot of fun. And, thus, I mostly ski the Beta Races. They are an about four year old race ski that my brother has upgraded from, and so can also move, if the need arises, as it does a couple times a day working MOuntain Watch at Keystone. They are comfortable at reasonably high speeds - I hit terminal velocity on the two runs that we patrol today a couple of times. This means that I was going straight down, w/o turning, and no longer accelerating. And doing it comfortably. It usually takes into January for me to do this, and in years past, usually only did it on my downhills. But I picked up two pair of GS skiis this fall, and they work almost as well at that. But mostly, I just carve back and forth, using up the center half of the fairly wide slopes, maing GS sized turns.

The object of carving is to not skid your skis. Skidding slows you down, and most skiers skid, at least some. So, the best carvers can move down the slope at almost the same speed as someone going almost straight, but covering a lot more distance.

One of the harder things to learn about carving is to keep my weight centered over my skis. The problem is that I spent better than 35 years on straight skis, where you needed your weight forward. Thus, I often find my weight too far forward, and my tails skid a bit. Just like hitting terminal velocity, it seems like it takes until Jan. every year to find the sweat spot on the skis, where my weight is perfectly balanced, fore and aft, and my tails don't wash out even a little. And I still don't have perfect runs, top to bottom. But I am happy if I can make a half a dozen fairly perfect well carved turns in a row.

So, back to the beautiful, boring, day. It was cold enough that there weren't many people on the slopes. That meant that we didn't have to do much speed control, and would get cold if we just stood around doing speed control. So, I spent a couple hours doing fairly high speed carving runs patrolling the greener runs at Keystone. I would typically stop maybe twice for a minute or two each time, and then go on. Mostly, it was just high speed carving turns under perfect blue skies on a run almost by myself.

Then, around 2, I was riding up the lift with a ski patroller, and we heard of a neck/back injury on Frenchman. I popped down there, did traffic control for the patrol attending the patient, helped get him into the sled, and got some witness statements filled out. I escorted a couple to the top, where I bribed them hot drink coupons, and, as we all warmed up (me, for the first time that day), a nurse, who was the first on the scene, had found the patient barely responsive, and called the accident in, filled out an witness statement. I also gave them all the gum I had or could find in the patrol room.

Then, I screamed down to the top of Haywood for crowd control for gang grooming. I beat the 9 grooming machines by about a minute, but luckily, we were overstaffed. Then, to the bottom of the Summit Express, to follow the four grooming machines that split off for the Terrain Park down Schoolmarm ridge. Back to the top, and a slow ski down the same Schoolmarm ridge to our dispatch on the top of the Peru lift. I turned in my radio, and started down Silver Spoon for a last slow run to the bottom, looking for injuries and worn out guests needing assistance. Unfortunately, they had race training for junior racers, notably the Summit County High school team, on Haywood starting at 4. They were using Silver Spoon to warm up. Unfortunately, it is (officially, but not actually) a green (beginners) run, and there was still a ski school class on it. So, I ended up stopping a bunch of them, and yelling at others for skiing much too fast down it. I then caught them at the top of Haywood, and asked for a coach. The coaches hadn't shown up yet, so, I warned them that if they did that again, they wouldn't be racing at Keystone again. They were all respectful.

Then, since Haywood was closed, I skied down Schoolmarm, again slowly, and ran into another Mountain Watch in a confrontation with a pair of middle aged snow boarders. Apparently, the woman was getting leg cramps and was walking down. Her boyfriend (older than I by two years) was riding with her. They went down one of the snowmobile lanes that we have to protect everyone when the snowmobiles go uphill. This is usually grounds for at least a warning, and possibly a ticket revocation. The Mountain Watch guy was half their ages, and it wasn't going well. Both the guests were trying to protect the other. Finally, I was able to get the woman started walking down the hill with me, and separating them ultimately calmed things down. I skied slowly with her to the bottom, and gave her a pair of hot drink coupons. By the time she got down, her legs were no longer cramping. Her boyfriend was there to meet her, and hopefully, alls well that ended well. I ran into the MW guy involved at the MOB and he thanked me for the backup and help.

I also ran into the director of the ski patrol there, and told him about both of my occurances on the way down, as I believe in keeping management aware of potential problems they may face. His reaction to the racers was that if it had been he, instead of me interaccting with them, race training for the day would have been cancelled for at least the day.

Addendum - the racers were back Tues., but Keystone ran the Argentine lift for them, and that kept them off of Silver Spoon. Much less chance for them to ski fast enough to terrorize the paying guests.

Ski Season (#9a) - Blizzard of 2006 Ski Season (#9a) - Blizzard of 2006

Thinking about the title of this post, I am still a bit surprised that I have managed to ski through the last two blizzards in Denver. In both cases, the road conditions on I-70 made travel from there to the ski areas impractical for most, resulting in those of us lucky enough to be snowed into the ski areas having the ski areas and all the powder to ourselves.

The previous blizzard was more exciting than this one. From Dillon, I couldn't get west to Frisco, Breckenridge, or Vail, but could get to Keystone and A-Basin. The result was that these areas were even less crowded than during the blizzard last week.

And as a bonus, we really did have a White Christmas this year. Indeed, we got another storm Christmas Eve. We had dinner at the University Club in downtown Denver, and the roads were questionable. But since they invariably only do one seating there a night, our being a half an hour late was not an issue. In any case, there was still a couple of feet of snow on the ground at my father's house on Christmas day. A white Christmas indeed.

Ski Season (#9) - Blizzard of 2006 Ski Season (#9) - Blizzard of 2006

This last week was pretty good skiing. I worked for most of the week at Keystone. Wed. and Thurs. were the Blizzard of 2006 in Denver, and the snow was very nice. A bit cold both days, but few on the slopes, so we rotated fairly quickly and didn't stand around as we do when there is a lot of traffic.

Wed. afternoon was somewhat a disaster for us. I had already done a couple of almost non-stops when I arrived at the bottom of Paymaster for Gang Grooming at 3 p.m. The plan had been for the grooming machines to come up Haywood, over the top of the Argentine lift, then down River Run, up it to Spring Dipper, and then over to the "dark side" (the unlighted back). But as the cats were on Haywood, we found that they were going to go up Silverspoon instead. So, I rushed to the lift, jumping in at the front, raced the cats up the mountain, and then skied down to the top of Silverspoon to shut it off. I beat the cats there by about 2 minutes, and was joined a minute or two later by two others. Then, a quick run down the freshly groomed trail, and to the bottom so I could help shut down the River Run access. Back to the top, and helped close Spring Dipper.

Luckily, by Thurs., they had it figured out a bit better, and things went a lot better. They are now doing the full pretzel, which is what we are used to from previous seasons.

Ski Season (#8b) - good snow Ski Season (#8b) - good snow

It turned out to be a decent day sking. We really didn't get that much snow, but it was nicely groomed. It was a bit cold and blowy, and, as a result of that and it being a Monday, the slopes were fairly deserted.

So, we didn't stand around much today, as we usually do. Rather, we would cycle through on a fairly regular basis. I was averaging one run every twenty or so minutes, though I think I did get one cycle down to about fifteen minutes.

Yesterday, I was on a pair of Atomic Beta Race GS skis that I had bought from my brother. They work very well on hard snow, like we had yesterday, but not as well as on soft pack. Today, I was on my newer Atomic Beta Rides. These are softer and have a shorter turning radius (the Beta Race GS are 22 meter skis, and this pair of Beta Ride are 20 meter skis). I think a nice pick for both days.

Today, with the entire trails to play with, I had a gas. Its pretty easy to get the skis up on an edge, and ride that around. So, I could make big arcing turns at a pretty good speed, back and forth across the trails. Great fun. And I played with a bunch of different techniques. First time this year to Mambo (which uses a full rotation of both arms and poles to initiate turns). I tried standing fairly upright and moving my weight back a bit, feeling the entire ski carve. On the other hand, my higher speed technique requires a lower body and butt. I haven't gotten that one down, as my weight is still a bit forward (which I notice because I am gettinga little slip in the tails).

Finally, again for the first time this year, a modern short-swing, where my body stays in the fall line, but my skis carve back and forth under me at a pretty good clip. The problem though with this is that the classical short-swing would scrub off a lot of speed through skidding the tails of one's skis. As I was working on my carving, I was minimizing that old-style skidding, and as a result, was accelerating instead.

This all got me thinking about why I love skiing. Part of the answer of course is getting out and excercising, often under blue skies on good snow here in CO. But part of it is also that getting your skis to really carve is almost intoxicating. It is such a great feeling, and the faster you go, the better it feels.

Ski Season (#8a) - trauma Ski Season (#8a) - trauma

In my previous post, I talked about the three life threatening injuries at Keystone yesterday. In my five years working Mountain Watch at the area, this is the most I have ever seen at once, and should not be taken as any indication of the safety of the area. Rather, it is clearly a function of the way that statistics work.

That said, one of the things that makes working in Mountain Watch so rewarding are days like yesterday. Not only did we (and I) make a difference, but the coming together of everyone in this sort of situation is reward in itself. I had been teasing one of the ski patrol earlier, and she hadn't been taking it as well as she had in previous interactions. But then an hour later, we found outselves standing in the same line keeping the guests away from the chopper and moving everything that might blow away. And later, a well done from and to all.

That line though wasn't just red (ski patrol) and yellow (mountain watch), but also dark-gray/red (operations), and dark blue (race team/terrain park). We had lift operators and food-and-beverage jumping in, and, indeed, it was one of the later who yelled the loudest to clear the area for the ambulance, when the chpper was taking off, and the all clear.

Then, back on top, we had the light blue jackets (Guest Services) jump in to help us with the closure of the Spring Dipper run (because Flight For Life was landing a chopper about half way down the run). Everyone, but everyone, pitched in.

And most of the guests were understanding, if a bit curious. That later is expected. But we did have some who bitched and moaned about trails being closed. All I could say to them was that they would like it done for them if they were the one hitting a tree on that slope (I won't know until today what really happened there - the hitting of a tree was a hypothetical), and their survival depended on being in a Level 1 Trauma Center w/i 30 minutes (or Level 5 w/i 5 minutes) of being evacuated.

Update - the person who was airlifted from Spring Dipper did indeed hit a tree. He was airlifted to Saint Anthony's Central west of Denver (the closest Level One trauma center), where he died.