Brant Maley, certified #523 and Ski Roundtop patroller (a Vail Resort), and the staff of both the resort and the Certified Program delivered in August, what is being hailed as one of the best boot camps in the program’s history! The venue was outstanding; the participants were incredible, and the weather cooperated.
Activities included a ropes course, fishing, camping, cookouts, firepit discussions, and an all-around good time. We had over 60 participants over the 2.5 day event. Industry experts participated in open, town-hall-type forums talking about lift evacuation and risk management.
We spoke about the credentialing aspect of entering the Certified Program and we trained on all the modules including:
→ OEC (assessments, team OEC problems, and bystander problems)
→ Avalanche (including beacon searches and focused-probing exercises)
→ Low Angle Rescue (from fundamentals like knot tying and their applications to actually setting up systems in real-life situations)
→ Outdoor Risk Management (roundtable discussions)
→ Lift Evacuation (honing the skills needed to support our management)
Well, since we had no skiing we practiced our skills on the Onewheel Pint X.
Sunday morning things were brought together with two significant scenarios where all the skills learned were put to use!
Thank you to all the participants.
As we prep for the upcoming season, some Certified Program key dates to keep in mind are:
Credentials due – January 1, 2026
Pre-test – Killington Resort, February 6
Patroller School – Killington Resort, February 7-8
Exam – Sugarloaf Maine, March 18-22
If you have questions on our program, each reg and other events across the division this year.
