After spending all day Saturday practicing various outdoor emergency care scenarios in town, it was time for the patrol’s annual on-hill refresher at the pass. This year was a bit different for me than previous years. Since I’m going to be co-hill chief this year of Patrol 2, I didn’t spend the entire day leading the lift evacuation scenarios, which was cool because I got to spend some time doing rope work and other useful refresher activities. Nevertheless, lift evac is the primary purpose for having the on-hill refresher, and Patrol 2 had our crack at it around mid-morning.
The first step is having the tower climber, Donny in this case, place the rope over the haul line. I snapped a few photos of Donny looking small at the top of the Twilight lift with my wide angle lens. Lots of blue sky in the frame….
With ropes placed and ready to go, we set about lowering everyone out and making sure all had a chance to get refreshed. I snapped a few photos of the patrollers at work during our session….
Once the lift was evacuated, the remainder of the day was spent reviewing avalanche, radio and search and rescue protocols. Even though it was supposed to rain, the weather didn’t disappoint, with mostly sunny skies overhead all day…
By 4:00pm, the day was nearly complete, and after getting all the gear put away, the refresher weekend was complete! Now it’s just a matter of Mother Nature providing a few feet of needed snow, and the 2017-2018 season will begin!
