It’s hard to believe the calendar says it’s spring, especially considering the winter of 2011-2012 really didn’t get into full swing until late January. Sunday morning started out like many other ski patrol days, with my alarm waking me at 5 am. After brewing up the morning’s coffee for the road and some tea to stash in my patrol pack, I headed out the door and drove to LCC to carpool up to the pass with a few other patrollers. It had snowed a few feet over the previous several days, and conditions looked to favor an excellent day of skiing and riding as we pulled into the parking lot. The hill would be busy today as well, with both senior medical training and RTS belay sled training occurring. After the morning meeting, we made our way out to the hill to open the mountain for the day. I opened RTS, and though it wasn’t the pure fresh powder that dreams are made of, it became clear the run held the best snow on the hill today, and the bumps were in the best shape of the season by far. Here’s a shot I snapped of Raleigh Taylor enjoying RTS a bit later in the day…
After hitting RTS, I helped setup the fencing at the top of the terrain park. With that task complete, it was time to start the regular patrol duties. I headed to the backside and found the snow in nice shape, spending some time riding Escalator and Northern. Most of my runs for the day however, were spent on RTS. After my bump shift on EPA, I headed down for some lunch and to snap a few photos of the patrollers who were working on senior medical scenarios, which appeared to include backboard immobilization…
The remainder of my day was spent making laps on RTS with a few runs on peak 2 thrown in for good measure. Prior to peak 2 sweep, I snapped this photo of Amber enjoying the fabulous snow on RTS…
Peak 2 sweep went off without a hitch. Since I stayed on top to run sweep, I had some time to snap a few photos after putting away the sleds, signs and bamboo. I particularly liked this shot of several patrollers on the peak 2 lift after completing sweep…
Upper mountain sweep followed Peak 2 sweep, and I had the pleasure of making one more run down RTS. After the upper mountain and lower mountain sweep were complete, patrollers gathered in the patrol room at the base area for the evening meeting. Another day on the mountain was complete, and though the calendar says we’re nearing Spring, more snow is in the forecast for the next week!
