Happy fall almost winter fellow patrollers. As the Chair of the Eastern Division Certified Program, I am pleased to report that we remain active in developing the division’s program for the 2024/2025 ski season. Your team of certified patrollers participates in every aspect of NSP from active year-round patrolling to being on our National Board. It is hard to account for the manhours that go into running the NSP and its programs.
One might question the sanity of it all. In the end, our job is to assist our employers and ski areas to provide a safe and fun experience for all their guests and to make the work environment safe for our fellow employees. The behind-the-scenes work does not start and stop with the snow!
As of this writing, we have wrapped up both our 12th annual Certified Boot Camp and Enhanced Patroller School. This year’s Boot Camp was held August 16-18 at Holiday Mountain Ski and Fun Park in Monticello, NY. The resort was recently purchased by a fellow patroller who graciously hosted us for the weekend. Check out this up-and-coming resort in the Southern Catskills, 85 miles North of NYC.
Given that we were hosted by a ski resort, we had access to a host of real-life activities that go into the summer months of a resort. Ongoing revenue-generating activities, chairlift maintenance, snowmaking equipment upgrades, and trail clearing to name a few. This gave way to much discussion about Outdoor Risk Management and the preseason thought that needs to go into making our resorts safer before the snow flies.
Taking advantage of being at an active resort, we focused Saturday on lift evacuation planning and different scenarios that may present themselves. Of great interest to our resorts is addressing the situation of an unseated guest. There are lots of scenarios that may present themselves to the mountain with unseated guests. Things we discovered included:
- What are the conditions?
- Where does it occur along the chairlift – bottom, top, middle?
- Stop the chair or keep it running?
- Tools available to rescuers – nets, bean bags, ladders, ropes, blankets, tarps?
- Why is the person unseated?
- What is the age and physical condition of the person?
- What is mountain protocol and how is it coordinated and/or communicated between different departments?
- Overall situational awareness?
- What are best practices and how long do you have to react?
These are only the tip of the iceberg. We decided to recreate an unseated passenger scenario. We had an 8-year-old, 12-year-old, and 50-year-old hang from the chair with their hands. All wore gloves, did not have ski gear or ski equipment on (therefore holding much less weight), and were hanging on the metal edge of the chairlift, not the seat. Therefore, they could grip a 3” piece of metal tubing.
How long can they hang on detailing how much time any rescuer has to react? After three different attempts, each child could hang on for just over 3 minutes; the adult, just under 2 minutes. This was in a controlled environment. They were supported by ropes with a net, no ski gear, and an 80-degree sunny day.
The conclusion is that the resort departments need to have a communication and rescue plan in place before anything like this happens with some guidelines for lift operators, patrol, and ski school (other departments as well) on how quickly those 2-3 minutes will go and what you should do about it given a variety of scenarios.
We hope you take this information back to your resort, discuss what to do if you have an unseated passenger, and ensure that the plan is communicated to all departments!
