by Craig Larson, YAP Supervisor | Jan 18, 2025 | Division News, Program News
The Eastern Division Young Adult Program Staff has been planning, prepping, and preparing for this year’s Eastern Division Young Adult Summit at Smugglers’ Notch. Young Adult Patrollers from Maine to West Virginia will gather at Smugglers’ Notch Resort in Jeffersonville, VT. from March 7 to 10 for three days of hands-on training, competition, friendship, and fun.
Smugglers’ Notch Resort has tons of terrain: long turn cruisers, steeps, trees, terrain parks, and Black Hole, the only TRIPLE BLACK DIAMOND in the east. With 2610 feet of vertical rise this is the YAP event to attend.
Those who have been to a Young Adult Patroller Summit speak highly of the training and fun they had.
“What a great event. There aren’t other Young Adult Patrollers where I ski. I never knew there were so many. I’ll be back next year.” – First-year attendee
“I look forward to showing off my patroller skills at this event each year. This event gets bigger and better each time I attend. I love walking away with free stuff.” – Third-year attendee
If you have never attended an Eastern Division Young Adult Summit, this is the year to participate. If you have attended this event before, come again! Here’s what you get by attending this event:
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- Three nights of lodging (Friday, Saturday, Sunday)
- Breakfast on Saturday and Sunday
- Dinner on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday
- Lift Tickets for Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday
- Hands-on Skills training
- Patroller Skills competition
- Mystery events
- FREE swag
ALL for $475.00!
More information regarding the YAP Seminar can be found on the Eastern Division webpage, patrollerschool.org, Facebook, and Instagram. Check our social media pages often as information is updated, swag is promoted, or goodies are given away.
by John Wolf, Liberty Mountain Ski Patrol PD | Dec 18, 2024 | National News, Program News
In case you missed the news in November, the National Ski Patrol and the National Interscholastic Cycling League (NICA) announced a Memorandum of Understanding describing a new partnership. This marks a significant milestone in expanding NSP’s impact beyond the slopes and into the rapidly growing world of youth cycling.
Founded in 2009, NICA “develops interscholastic mountain biking programs for student-athletes across the United States. NICA is about having amazing adventures with your teammates while tackling both small and epic challenges.” This partnership formally recognizes the vital role that bike patrollers can play in ensuring safety in youth mountain biking.
Even before this agreement, Liberty Mountain Ski Patrol in the Eastern Pennsylvania and Maryland Region started providing first responder services to their local NICA leagues and has already demonstrated how successful this relationship can be for both organizations.
The 2024 season showcased the potential of this collaboration when we supported both the Maryland (MICL) and the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Cycling Leagues (PICL). Our dedicated team provided patrol services for seven events, contributing over 100 patroller hours. The patrol’s comprehensive approach included pre-event virtual huddles with stakeholders and planning how to coordinate with on-site medical staff, ensuring seamless integration of emergency management protocols and site-specific logistics.
One of the most remarkable outcomes of our partnership with the local NICA leagues has been the translation of Outdoor Emergency Care (OEC) skills from snow to dirt. Our OEC training provided an exceptional foundation for handling cycling-specific injuries by using the same assessment and treatment protocols. The familiar equipment from winter patrolling – such as trauma packs, splinting materials, and bleeding control supplies – proved equally valuable during summer events, though we adapted them for a different type of mobile deployment. Patrollers reported how their experience with the mechanism of injury assessment on the slopes transferred perfectly to evaluating bicycle crashes, allowing for quick and accurate scene size-ups, and treatment decisions.
Another significant advantage that our patrollers brought to the local NICA league events was their extensive experience with radio communications and incident coordination. Years of managing on-mountain communications proved invaluable on mountain biking race day. Patrollers’ familiarity with clear, concise radio protocols, emergency response coordination, and maintaining effective communication to manage an incident across challenging cycling terrain helped establish efficient information flow between course marshals, medical support, and race operations. This professional communication standard enhanced overall event safety and response coordination, particularly in areas with limited cell service where reliable radio communication was crucial.
The impact of our partnership with the local leagues was immediately evident. The local league organizers repeatedly emphasized how the NSP presence significantly enhanced their emergency management capabilities. At one particularly challenging event, our dedicated bike patrollers demonstrated their value when they quickly responded to multiple incidents across the course, providing immediate care while at the same time coordinating with event staff to ensure optimal outcomes.
The successful integration of NSP’s expertise with NICA’s youth development mission has created a model partnership that benefits everyone – from the young riders pushing their limits while their dedicated friends, family members, and other volunteers support them to the patrollers who hone their first response skills during the summer.
This new collaboration between NSP and NICA represents more than just an operational partnership; it’s an investment in the future of both organizations. As NICA continues its impressive growth nationwide, the presence of NSP-certified bike patrollers adds an essential layer of safety and professionalism to youth cycling events.
For the Eastern Division, this partnership opens new avenues for member engagement and demonstrates our organization’s versatility and commitment to outdoor safety across all seasons in an area where NICA participation is growing rapidly. The enthusiasm and appreciation shown by NICA’s national organization, local leagues, coaches, and participants confirm that this partnership will be a cornerstone of both organizations’ futures.
by Trail Sweep Staff | Jun 27, 2024 | Division News, Program News, Spotlight Articles
CERTIFIED BOOT CAMP
HOLIDAY MOUNTAIN, NY – Friday, August 16 – Sunday, August 18
For full information: https://www.patrollerschool.org/events/events/certified-boot-camp-2023-mt-bethel-pa-2/
Join us at Holiday Mountain Ski & Fun Park in Monticello, NY, for a gathering of like-minded Ski Patrollers in a rustic camping environment, all looking to learn about the Certified program and enhance or broaden their patroller skill set. The goal this season is “deep dive into lift evac.” The certified program modules that will be covered at this event will be:
- Lift Evacuation
- Outdoor Risk Management
- Avalanche
- Low Angle Rescue
- OEC Assessment, Skill & MCI Scenarios
OVERALL AGENDA
Boot Camp provides:
- Friday — 4:00-6:00 pm – Arrival & Camp Set-up
- Friday — 7:00 pm Meeting
- Breakfast and Lunch on Saturday and Sunday
- Saturday is BOOT CAMP training Day
- Dinner Saturday Night
- Bonfire — FUN
ENHANCED PATROLLER SCHOOL
SWAIN MOUNTAIN, NY – Friday, September 13 – Sunday, September 15
For full information: https://www.patrollerschool.org/events/divi-home/certified-program/
This event is low pressure — you can learn, have fun, and network with other patrollers from all around the division. It is open to any currently registered member of NSP, candidate through Certified. It is a hands-on, get dirty, get bloody, play with different gear event. Typical included modules include:
- Lift evacuation
- Low angle rope rescue,
- OEC assessment and skill building,
- ORM discussions,
- An MCI drill with outside EMS agencies.
Patroller School provides:
- Great food all three days,
- An easy-going, no pressure learning environment,
- Looking at many different ways to meet an objective.
What you need to bring:
- An open mind,
- Gear that you would like to show off or work with,
- Your first aid pack with gloves and supplies.
Rough agenda:
- Friday — 1:00 pm – Arrival, registration, and camp set up
- Friday — 3:00-6:00 pm – Knot tying and open topics
- Friday evening — Fire pit discussion
- Saturday — Module station rotations
- Saturday evening — MCI discussions and planning and ifre pit discussions
- Sunday — MCI drill and feedbac from multiple points of view
by Paula Knight | Feb 16, 2024 | Program News, Spotlight Articles
The Outdoor Emergency Care Module of the Senior Program (OECMSP) has been updated and reinvented to reflect more of a training program that provides growth in the area of Leadership, Decision Making, and Problem Management (LDP). Once you have demonstrated mastery in your OEC skills, the patroller moves on to clinics that will focus on the objectives of LDP. The scenarios you will work with are designed to help focus your growth, and more concise problem-solving leading to quicker decision-making and better leadership. Each clinic should leave you with a feeling of accomplishment and something to focus your growth on. In addition to mastery of the OEC skills, there are requirements for breaking down written scenarios to identify problems and potential solutions as well as writing a scenario with LDP as the challenge as well as OEC.
During your training clinic sessions, you will need to pass four on-snow scenarios as a prerequisite to attend your evaluation day. These scenarios should prepare you well for the final evaluation and come from a set of scenarios that are challenging and score the same as the scenarios you will see during the final evaluation.
Trainer Evaluators are also adding additional training so they focus more on the LDP aspect of the OECMSP and how to better train candidates on what to expect and then evaluate them with a focus on LDP.
Evaluation day may look different as well. All candidates participating in the final evaluation will decide on whether to have a non-scoring warm-up scenario, or some other warm-up activity, or move directly into the final evaluations. During the final evaluation process, you will only have two scenarios to complete successfully. Since the new OECMSP program is more focused on training, if you are not successful on one scenario you will have the opportunity to train or review what didn’t work well in the failed scenario and the opportunity to redo on that day or a date in the future that is agreeable to all.
The big difference here is that prior to continuing, the program is designed to provide you with the opportunity to train and reach a level of comfort before you go into your next evaluation. Not being successful in one scenario allows you to complete your redo in the same season. Not being successful in two scenarios means you go back into the training program with practice scenarios and go through that process again until you are comfortable. In most cases that takes more than one season. For Patrollers, Alpine Patrollers, and Nordic Patrollers this evaluation continues to be under the conditions which you patrol which requires an on-snow final evaluation experience.
Other updates to the program provide the logistics to run this program to be trimmed down and need a smaller number of personnel to run an event.
Bottom line is the principle and practice that the OECMSP has moved to become a more flexible training program that enhances the patroller’s personal growth in the areas of Leadership, Decision Making, and Problem Management. The program will support ski areas with better scenario and OEC management from trained patrollers as well as help these same patrollers become leaders within NSP in the future.
If you have any questions or would like a deeper look please feel free to reach out to the Eastern Division OEC Supervisor, any of the Asst. OEC Supervisors or paulaknightnsp@gmail.com .