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After a month or so of planning, the NSP Level 2 Avalanche course was finally here. This year’s crew was a good one, and after a couple of in-town classroom sessions including trip planning, the class was ready for the weekend at the Pass. Hutch, who was the lead instructor, along with Brian and I, had a fun couple of days of activities planned for the group, and even though there wasn’t a bunch of fresh snow to greet us for the weekend the weather was looking to be beautiful. We spent the first hour or so in the lodge with the group, and after they did some additional trip planning, we caught the chair to the top of EPA with the goal of heading out of the area for some touring and learning.

The sun was out, and we arrived at the top of EPA about the same time as the rest of the Patrol 2 crew. Since I was helping to lead the class, Devin had volunteered to hill chief for me, and it was kind of nice to get a “play” day in for a change.

I snapped several photos of patrollers at the top of EPA, and the sun was bursting out above the fog that was hanging down on the east side. The below shot of Emily, Haley, Michael and James was one example of several…

After snapping some photos, the class gathered at Kris Kross by navigating to specific GPS coordinates, then did some beacon practice before donning skins and working our way up to the top of Peak 2 and then down to the saddle for an approach to West Peak. A few inches of fresh snow coating the trees made for some pretty pictures as we headed up from the saddle.

A few minutes later and we were standing on top of West Peak, admiring the views and discussing terrain options. Our second group made their way up a few minutes later, and before jumping into the next task, I snapped a couple of pictures including one looking back towards the Pass from the top of West Peak and one of everyone including Hutch and Brian.

The next step was for the students to perform snowpit assessments to determine snow stability — which resulted in super stable snow, which was a real shocker given the bomber snowpack. Nevertheless, it was good practice and it’s always good to dig a pit and perform an extended column test and examine the layers in the pack.

Once the snowpits were dug and tests performed, Hutch took off to hide a couple of beacons for a scenario down in SDN while the rest of us split into two groups led by Brian and I. We made some fun turns down the West Peak lift line, and the snow quality was actually pretty decent.

About halfway down, Hutch radioed in with coordinates of the “avalanche” and the groups switched from ski mode to skins and headed up to respond. We toured back up to the ridge and then dropped in to respond. After some confusion on the coordinates that was cleared up with another radio call, the groups responded to both locations and found the buried targets. A ski out through the trees and RTS runout brought us back to the area and we headed back up to work on some additional beacon drills.

My group headed back up to EPA and then to the bottom of RTS to work on beacon practice. The students buried 2 beacons 3 feet deep or so in the RTS runout and took turns finding and digging them out, working on multiple burial scenarios. An hour or so of doing this brought us to the end of the day so we headed down. We were just in time to help with sweep, and I ended up on Twilight after bringing a sled from the bottom.

After sweep, we had our evening meeting and then it was time to enjoy a cold beer and hang in the patrol room with the avy class to debrief the day and discuss the plans for tomorrow. I enjoyed a tasty Canadian-style lager from Oakshire Brewing, which hit the spot.

After plans were firmed up for the following day, I headed down the hill to Oakridge with Shaun to stay at Brian and Shannon’s. They whipped up a tasty dinner of lasagna, and we enjoyed some good company and discussion on possible ski touring opportunities for the coming spring before hitting the sack and getting ready for Sunday. Sunday morning dawned early, and after a quick cup of coffee we hit the road and found ourselves in the lodge again readying the class for the day. The morning consisted of a multiple beacon proficiency test. Brian and I buried the beacons, and then the students participated in a timed drill individually in the Tree Farm where we had the beacons buried.

 While the students tested individually, the rest of the crew worked on strategic shoveling, snowpit analysis and organized probing. The final scenario for the afternoon, which was setup by Hutch and Hannah, consisted of multiple victims in an avalanche in the usual place on SDN. One difference from the level 1 class was that the incident wasn’t controlled for the students and they weren’t fully aware of what it entailed. When the call came in over the radio after lunch for the avalanche, they had to respond accordingly.

The group designated Toby as the incident commander and he orchestrated a swift response to the scenario. He had Shannon lead a responding team that entered the incident to look for victims with beacons, and subsequent teams of two responded by spot probing around various clues and uphill of likely catchment areas.

It was fun to watch the students work the scenario, and they did remarkably well. Victims with beacons were all found within short order of them entering the scene, and soon others were found by probing clues.

After finding all the victims associated with beacons and/or clues, the final step was to setup an organized probe line and find the remaining victim. The group assimilated into a probe line quickly and made short work probing the toe, successfully finding the target in short order.

After the incident, everyone hauled gear and equipment back to the top of Peak 2, and we headed down for a debrief. Brian and I took SDN back to the base, and met up with the others in the patrol room. It felt good to have successfully led another avalanche class at the Pass, as well as prepare several more folks for leadership roles within the patrol. The students still had one in-town lecture remaining, but generally our work was done. Soon, the rest of the patrol came in after sweeping the hill, and after the evening meeting, it was time to hit the road after another great weekend at the Pass! Here’s a parting shot from the weekend…

The first weekend in February rolled in with high pressure and sunshine, which meant groomers in the morning along with some possible soft snow on the south faces in the afternoon at the Pass. As usual, I headed up early with Shaun, and after a quick stop at Dan’s, we made our way to the Pass. Both he and I were up to help out with the OEC final, and Shaun was on SPY duty for the day. After a quick morning meeting, we headed out to help open the mountain.

The sun made for a great opportunity to fire off some pictures at the top of EPA, so I wasted little time getting the camera out and snapped several shots of the various patrollers staging at the top of EPA where the OEC final would be taking place.

The plan was for a pretty big day, and we started off with a couple of practice scenarios with the candidates where they worked on assessment and basic injuries with one of the instructors to get the blood flowing.

I worked with Amber while she provided treatment to Dan who had an upper extremity injury. Near the end of the process, I snapped a few photos of her rendering aid to Dan as well as Emily who was treating Andy.

After a couple of practice rounds it was time to do it for real. The instructors discussed over the scenarios and then called the candidates in one by one to provide treatment while they were observed and evaluated. I was tasked with evaluating, so it was time to put the camera away and get serious.

Each candidate had to pass two separate and distinct scenarios, so there would be several scenarios to perform for the next few hours, since they each needed to lead two scenarios but also to assist on others. Everyone did a great job, and we wrapped up our work around 1:30. By then everyone was pretty hungry, so we headed down to the patrol room to grab a quick bite to eat and then I headed back out to check-in on the sled check-offs that Joe was helping with.

I was keen to get a few pictures because Shaun was taking his first runs in the sled as ballast and I wanted to get a few shots of him in the toboggan. As usual, he had his serious face on when I pulled out the camera. Toby and Kerstin did awesome in the handles and tail rope, and made short work of taking the sled down Charlie.

I fired off a few more pictures as they worked their way down the run, and then it was time to ski it out and take the sled back to base so we could get ready for Peak 2 sweep. Shaun and I caught up with Dan in time to head over to Peak 2, and we headed down to catch the chair back up just in time for sweep.

Peak 2 sweep went off smoothly and after sweeping the runs and heading back up the chairlift to the top, everyone hiked over to the top of EPA for upper mountain sweep. The evening light was looking really nice, so I was able to coax several of our new Patrollers and a few of our Alpiners to post for a picture. After snapping a few shots, James took a picture of me and Shaun at the top as well.

Right at closing, we got a call regarding a possible injury at the big corner, so I headed down while Dan waited up top to bring the sled down in case it was needed. After making my way to the corner, I told Dan to bring the sled down, but that we probably wouldn’t need it as the person I was working with had fallen but was more scared than anything given her friends had already went down and she was on the run all by herself. She was shaking and trembling, but it was quickly apparent it was from nerves, and after some encouragement and coaxing she was doing the falling leaf all the way down KP. We made it to the bottom without incident, and she was stoked to see her friends waiting for her near the patrol room.

We held our evening meeting, and after debriefing the day’s events, it was time to enjoy a cold beer and get a few pictures of our new patrollers. My beer of choice for the evening was a Hayseed Hazy IPA from Chief’s Brew House, which is brewed literally just down the street from my house. It definitely hit the spot after a long day!

After cracking open my beer and getting a couple bites of chips and dip, we quickly determined we needed to get a few shots of our new Patrollers. Our 5 new patrollers, all women, totally rocked the OEC final and I can’t think of a greater group of folks to have added to our ranks. Below are a couple of shots of Althea, Amber, Hailey, Emily and Megan. Congratulations ladies!

We spent the next half hour or so enjoying the company of patrol, enjoying our cold beer and eating some good food, before it was time to clean up the patrol room and get ready to hit the road. All in all, it was another fun day on the mountain with great people. Here’s a few parting shots from the day…

As hard as it was to believe, the end of January had already arrived the mountain had only been open for a couple of weeks. Needless to say, I was looking forward to getting out for a patrol day with the P2 crew, and was excited for this day because Carson was tagging along to shadow us for a school project. We hit the road early, and after a brief stop at LCC to pickup another SPY, we headed up highway 58 and made our way to the hill. After our morning meeting, we headed out early to open the mountain under partly sunny skies.

The plan was to have Carson shadow Brian for the day, which would give him about 10 hours of his needed 20 hours for his school project, which was to find a mentor and spend 20 hours with them to learn about all the different elements of their job. Brian found a training bib for Carson and the two of them headed up to Twilight help open, while others in our crew headed up EPA to open the upper mountain.

After a lap, I caught up with Shaun at the top of EPA and we headed over to Peak 2 to make our first runs of the season back there. The groomers were in great shape and the turns were fast. After riding the chair back up, we were ready to pull the saddle closure and get the backside open. A bit later, I caught up with Brian and Carson at the top of Waldo, and made a run with them. Brian was giving Carson some skiing tips and Carson’s skiing was improving quickly.

After a few runs on the backside, I headed down to check in on a few incidents that had occurred and make sure everything was good in the aid room. I found Brian and Carson checking things out near the ambulance bay and snapped a few photos of them on my way out, including the ones below.

On my way back out to the hill, I made a quick pit stop to chat with Quin and Matt in the parking lot, then snapped a few wide-angle photos of the ski area sign before heading back to EPA and making my way to the top.

At the top of EPA, Hannah, Andy and Matthew were working with the OEC candidates on scenarios in preparation of the upcoming final the following week, so I stopped to observe and hang out for awhile.

After watching for a bit it was apparent they were working on a c-spine injury with the patient (Althea) wrapped around a tree which made for a difficult extrication. The crew did a great job working to get Althea into a supine position and then onto the backboard, and then applied a C-collar and moved her into the sled.

It was nice to see how far the candidates had come since their early training days in town during the fall, and it was clear they were all ready to tackle the upcoming final.

After watching the OEC crew do their thing, I headed up to the top of EPA, affixed my telephoto lens to the camera, and snapped a few pictures of the peaks in the distance, including both Lakeview Peak and Mt Yoran.

Satisfied with my quick photo sesh, I headed down for lunch in the patrol room and then got back out on the hill shortly thereafter. I found Shaun getting a couple of laps in with his good friend Tanner, and managed to get them to pose for a picture before they skied off.

After making another run down to the base, I decided to take my first spin on the Midway chair in over a decade. It was fun to ride the chair and think about all the past laps I’d put in on it, and it definitely was cool that the mountain put the effort in to bring it back into action this season.

The final chapter of my afternoon prior to sweep included catching up with Carson and Brian. They’d been spending the whole day together looking at all the various aspects of what ski patrollers do, and when Brian asked if Carson wanted to take a ride in a sled (we had one that needed to go back over to Peak 2), Carson was definitely game. With Carson in the sled, Brian in the handles and Shannon on the tail rope, they took off down Kris Kross headed for the base of Peak 2.

I tagged along and snapped photos along the way, and I could tell Carson was enjoying the ride because he was videoing his journey with his phone.

After a smooth ride, we arrived at the base of Peak 2 and set about repackaging the sled and loading it on the chair. Once the sled was stowed and ready to go, it was time for Peak 2 sweep, which went smoothly.

Once Peak 2 sweep was complete, we all made the hike back up to the top of EPA. James snapped a couple photos of Carson and I prior to upper mountain sweep beginning, and once I got the camera back I got a quick photo of the Patrol 2 closing crew as well.

Upper mountain sweep went smoothly, and then I headed in to the patrol room to heat up some freshly made queso, as well as sign duty cards and review the incident report forms while the rest of the crew worked on closing the lower mountain. I also had just enough time to snap a quick photo of a tasty beer from Little Beast Brewing before patrollers arrived at the patrol room.

After clearing the area, we held our evening meeting and debriefed the day’s incidents. Shortly thereafter, everyone was enjoying some cold beverages and queso dip, and another patrol day was in the books. It wasn’t an all-time day by any means from the snow’s perspective, but being able to share it with both Shaun and Carson on the hill made it a great day for me and one I won’t soon forget.

After waiting for what seemed like forever, it was finally time for the Patrol 2 opener, and the stoke factor was high as Shaun, Carson, Dan and I headed up to the Pass. The week before had delivered some big snows at the Pass, and a huge ice event in Springfield that had me putting in extra hours while helping our community navigate through what turned out to be a pretty large natural disaster. Needless to say, I was looking forward to getting some patrol time in at the Pass.

We pulled into the Pass early, and geared up quickly before having our morning meeting. Patrol 4 and the area had done some great work a few days earlier and had EPA setup and running, so working on Peak 2 was going to be one of our priorities for the day. After our meeting, everyone set to work. Opening the mountain was our first priority, and then it was time to get the Peak 2 gear ready to deploy. The SPY made up sled packs and loaded sleds, patrollers drug gear and sleds out to EPA, and we took them up and staged them at the top of EPA.

Hannah, Matthew and Andy were up with a crew of OEC candidates, and they set up at the top of EPA to do their training and also be a resource if needed. I snapped a few pictures of them as well as Dan, Chris, Gretchen and Craig loading a sled with gear to take over to Peak 2 a little bit later.

I was on the radio with dispatch and lift ops checking in about when Peak 2 would turn, and we got word it would be ready around 11:00 am or so, so Craig, Anna, Dan, Chris and I staged the Peak 2 gear at the bump shack and waited inside for 20 minutes or so to stay out of the cold.

A bit later, after heading back down to the base to replace a lost binding strap on my board, I booted up and joined the crew at the top of Peak 2 for some shovel work on the ramp before we started out to run the avy route for the first time all year.

Craig and Chris worked on getting gear stashed at the top of Peak 2 while Anna, Dan and I headed out on Waldo to run the route. The amount of snow at the top of Waldo was pretty impressive, especially given that there wasn’t hardly any only a week or so prior.

We worked our way out the ridge line beyond June’s Run and cut a few cornices above the cliff’s. The snow surface was crusted up pretty good from the warm up/rain event a few days prior, and we weren’t able to get anything to slide. My main concern was the buried deeper layers several feet down, but it proved difficult to do anything to trigger them.

We made our way out to the nose and then setup the anchor, and Anna donned the harness and clipped into the rope. Dan provided the belay, and I snapped a few pictures while surveying the action.

After working the area below the nose and knocking some sluff/cornices down, Anna came back up and headed out the main ridge line to start the next portion of the route.

Anna worked the slope over well, doing several ski cuts and stomping on the slope to try and elicit a response, but the snow layers were bonded well and nothing moved. Even so, it was a lot of work, good practice and nice to clear the area so that Peak 2 could open tomorrow to the public.

After Dan came down and he and Anna setup the second belay, I headed down to leave them to their work and enjoyed a nice groomer down Waldo. It was my first lift-served turns on Peak 2 for the season, and it was nice to get to the bottom and catch the lift back to the top.

I rode the chair up, did a quick check-in with Brett to inform him of our progress, and then headed down to get Carson who’d been waiting patiently in the patrol room while we worked on getting Peak 2 ready to go. We had enough time before sweep to enjoy a few runs on the front side, and I captured a few shots of him skiing, including the one below on Upper Rosary.

Before long it was time for sweep, and I caught up with Shaun and Dan at the base of EPA. We rode the lift together and met up with a gaggle of patrollers at the top for upper mountain sweep. Before we kicked it off, I snapped a picture of our group at the top, for the first EPA closing shot of Peak 2 of the season.

Upper mountain sweep went off without a hitch, and I headed down after the upper mountain was clear to put the bean dip in the microwave, sign duty cards, review incident forms and get ready for our evening meeting while the rest of the crew swept the lower mountain. I had just enough time to snap a picture of a 6-pack of a super tasty Hopw0rks Abominable Winter Ale that I was looking forward to enjoying after our evening meeting.

A few minutes later, the rest of the patrol started trickling in from sweep, and once everyone was in we cleared the hill with dispatch and debriefed the day, including several incidents and lessons learned. A bit later, after patroller of the day nominations, we cracked open some beers, the SPY enjoyed sodas, and everyone devoured the bean dip. All in all, it was a great first day of patrol and a great, albeit late, start to the season. Here’s a couple of parting shots from the day.