Sierra Samaritans - National Ski Patrol

V O L U M E 2 1 N U M B E R 2
T H E O F F I C I A L P U B L I C A T I O N O F
T H E N A T I O N A L S K I P A T R O L
Winter 2005
Sierra Samaritans
June Mountain , s Prized Patrol
Saving Brace
Survey Says . . .
Wear and No Tear?
Members Weigh In
SYSTEMS INC
NATIONAL SKI PATROL
P AID
U S POSTAGE
NONPROFIT ORG
Gauze and Effect
The Fine Art of Bandaging

Ski Patrol Magazine❚ Winter 2005
8
June Mountain Patrol
A Quality Crew in the Sierras
Down the road from its Mammoth neighbor, a small hill
and the patrollers who call it home earn big kudos.
❚ By Ingrid Tistaert
16
24
Brace Yourself
Knee Injuries May Be Preventable
Take it from one who knows; experience shows. After two ACL
tears and two surgeries, one man put away the ego and put the
knee brace back on. ❚ By Michael Patmas, M.D.
Nutrition on the Slopes
Solutions for the Fast Food Blues
You’re not really gonna eat that, are you? Use our quick and
easy guide to the do’s and don’ts of on-mountain munching.
❚ By Robin Peglow
contents
features outdoor
8all together now
we can rebuild him
16
balancing act
30
30
36
40
ARTICLES
On Solid Ground: One Hour to Enhanced Balance
❚ BY LLOYD MULLER AND JILL WILLIAMSON
Autism Awareness: A Patroller’s Guide
❚ BY SCOTT CAMPBELL
Surveying the Scene: Members Offer Association Insight
❚ BY MARK DORSEY
Blue skies and powder abound
as June Mountain patrollers
Kirk Maes (left) and Chris Lizza
take some turns in the high
Sierras. Photo by Eric Diem.
COVER
44
4
54
6
60
62
74
76
DEPARTMENTS
Avalanche & Mountaineering
❚ Zoning in on New Probing Tactics
❚ Be Slide-Wise to Navigate Direct Route to Avvy Info
Commentary
❚ Upping the Quality Quotient
In Memoriam
Letters
News Briefs
Outdoor Emergency Care
❚ That’s a Wrap: Wound Bandaging Made Easy
Index
Out of Bounds

NSP VISION: NSP’s vision is to be the premier provider
of outstanding education programs and services benefiting
the global outdoor recreation community.
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
Rebecca W. Ayers, Editor
Wendy Schrupp, Associate Editor
Jim Schnebly, Assistant Editor
Deborah Marks, Assistant Editor
AD SALES/SPONSORSHIP INQUIRIES
Mark Dorsey, Marketing Director
133 S. Van Gordon St., Suite 100
Lakewood, CO 80228-1700
(303) 988-1111
Fax: (800) 222-I-SKI (4754)
E-mail: marketing@nsp.org
DESIGN & PRODUCTION
EnZed Design
SKI PATROL MAGAZINE
is an official publication of the National Ski Patrol System,
Inc., and is published four times per year.
ISSN 0890-6076
©2005 by the National Ski Patrol System, Inc. No part of
this publication may be reproduced by any mechanical,
photographic, or electronic process without the express
written permission of the National Ski Patrol System, Inc.
Opinions presented in Ski Patrol Magazine are those of the
individual authors and do not necessarily represent the
opinions or policies of the National Ski Patrol System, Inc.
CHANGE OF ADDRESS
Address changes and inquiries regarding subscriptions
should be sent to Ski Patrol Magazine, 133 S. Van Gordon
St., Suite 100, Lakewood, CO 80228-1700. Address changes
must include the NSP membership I.D. number, and it is
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copies cannot be guaranteed.
MANUSCRIPTS AND ART
Ski Patrol Magazine invites the submission of manuscripts,
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material submitted becomes the property of the National Ski
Patrol, unless accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed
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NSP MISSION: NSP provides quality focused education
and training in safety, credentialed outdoor emergency
care, and transportation services. This enables members
and other stakeholders to serve the outdoor recreation
community. NSP continually explores new opportunities
for membership and association enhancement.
NSP CORE VALUES: Excellence, service, camaraderie,
leadership, integrity, responsiveness
NATIONAL CHAIRMAN
Bill Sachs
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Stephen M. Over
NATIONAL TREASURER
Ron Plumer
NSP BOARD OF
DIRECTORS
Bill Sachs
Michael Adams
Bob Black
John Kretschmann
Nici Singletary
Pamm Ferguson
Bob McLaughlin
Ron Plumer
Julie Rust
Dick Everett
Larry Acord
Terry LaLiberte
Jessica Simpson
LEGAL COUNSEL
Bruce Ries
GOVERNANCE
COMMITTEE
Bob Black, Chair
Larry Acord
John Kretschmann
Jessica Simpson
FINANCE
COMMITTEE
Ron Plumer, chair
Michael Adams
Pamm Ferguson
Terry LaLiberte
PLANNING
COMMITTEE
Dick Everett, chair
Bob McLaughlin
Julie Rust
Nici Singletary
CPM Number 40065056
NATIONAL PROGRAM
DIRECTORS
AVALANCHE
Mike Baker
INSTRUCTOR DEVELOPMENT
Ed Riggs
OUTDOOR EMERGENCY CARE
Larry Bost
SKI AND TOBOGGAN
Cliff Chewning
MOUNTAIN TRAVEL
AND RESCUE
Monica Spicker
SKILL DEVELOPMENT
Ron Clark
NSP MEDICAL
DIRECTOR
David Johe, M.D.
NATIONAL AWARDS
COORDINATOR
Myer Avedovech
NSP HISTORIAN
Gretchen R. Besser, Ph.D.
PAST NATIONAL
CHAIRMEN
John J. Clair
(1996–2000)
Jack Mason
(1992–96)
Marlen Guell
(1986–92)
Ronald L. Ricketts
(1982–86)
Donald C. Williams
(1978–82)
Charles W. Haskins
(1976–78)
Harry G. Pollard
(1968–76)
Charles W. Schobinger
(1962–68)
William R. Judd
(1956–62)
Edward F. Taylor
(1950–56)
Charles M. Dole
(1938–50)
2 Ski Patrol Magazine | Winter 2005

commentary
BY BILL SACHS, NSP NATIONAL CHAIR
upping the
quality quotient
“Success is not the result of spontaneous
combustion. You must set yourself on fire.”
—Reggie Leach (former player for the
Philadelphia Flyers hockey team)
I
I drove an old Buick in high school, hoping
against hope that my folks would
present me with a brand-new car some
day. Eventually I realized it wasn’t going
to happen, so I got a job and started saving
for a Corvette. I never did get the convertible
of my dreams, but I did learn an
important lesson: Don’t let wishful thinking
cloud your grasp on reality. The NSP
board has demonstrated the same wisdom
by committing to quality assurance
efforts in all education programs.
Patrolling requires us to be disciplined;
to constantly learn, re-learn, and
fine-tune our patrolling skills and knowledge
so we can continue to provide value
to area management and the general public.
It is incumbent upon us to instill in
them the confidence that we can and will
meet expectations. If our programs aren’t
known for their quality, however, we cannot
assure area management, the general
public, or anyone else of our worth.
“Average” doesn’t suffice in the realm of
emergency care, and that’s why the NSP
must provide outstanding programs and
products to help its members be successful.
We are challenged to do so in our
vision statement: “. . . to be the premier
provider of outstanding programs and
services benefiting the global outdoor
recreation community.”
In accordance with that mandate, the
national board has resolved to focus its
education programs on giving members
the tools they need to be successful
patrollers. This is not a new philosophy
for the NSP. Educational excellence has
long been a standard for the organization,
and we constantly work to invigorate
our various programs with the most
up-to-date information available. NSP’s
leaders fully realize that when you are
confident in your knowledge and skills,
you can be confident in your actions,
and that makes you a tremendous asset to
the area.
Although the focus on quality is not
unprecedented, the snowsport consumer’s
expectations continue to rise. To
address those expectations (and remain
in business), resorts must constantly
work to improve the quality of their main
product—the skiing/snowboarding experience—which
obviously includes patrol
services. Resorts cannot be isolated from
the things that make their patrols successful,
and neither can the patrollers. We
have a duty to become trained so that
what we do is in accordance with standards
of care set by the resort.
So, the NSP must zero in on the practical
aspects of developing and delivering
high-quality educational services. If we do
this well, we will attract the interest of
other outdoor groups, lending further
value to NSP training and increasing the
demand for NSP-trained people.
The NSP’s role in training patrollers
is indisputable, hence the need to assure
that in all cases, our courses are of such
high quality that they consistently engage
and educate patrollers. The organization
must address any and all weaknesses in
the process, regardless of whether the
course material, the instructor, or even
the course setting is to blame. The lines of
accountability in our organization occasionally
get skewed and, unfortunately,
our programs and courses suffer as a
result. To keep things in better focus, the
NSP board has taken on the direct
accountability of the Outdoor Emergency
Care Program. In December the organization
sponsored a meeting that brought
together division directors, national program
directors, and OEC division supervisors.
The meeting—the first of its
kind—had one purpose: to unite the various
groups in meeting member needs.
Our hopes are high for the outcome of
those discussions.
We have direct responsibility for the
material and courses offered, and to instill
quality assurance in those areas, the
national level will have direct control over
the instructors too. Beginning with
OEC—and eventually with other programs—the
national organization will
directly oversee the instructors. As delegated
by the NSP board, the delivery of
NSP programs will remain the purview of
the divisions and the individual patrol
representatives, but instructor accountability
to the national level will increase the
chances of maintaining excellence in
NSP’s educational offerings.
The board of directors is charged
with making the National Ski Patrol a
premier provider of outstanding programs
and services, for each and every
member. The organization must be
accountable, flexible, and inventive in all
things, and yet individual patrollers must
also do their part to remain well-trained
and current in their knowledge and skills.
I am truly optimistic that our collective
efforts will heighten our commitment as
much as our perceptions of what we must
do. Patrollers have never been known to
shy away from hard work. The fact is, our
organization and our members are highly
valued in their respective roles, but we
know we have to earn it. ✚
4 Ski Patrol Magazine | Winter 2005

letters
spm@nsp.org
Ski Patrol Magazine welcomes your views.
Letters to the editor should be typed and must include your full name, address, and daytime telephone
number. (Ski Patrol Magazine does not publish anonymous letters.) Submit correspondence by fax to
800-222-4754 or 303-988-3005, by e-mail to spm@nsp.org, or by conventional mail to Ski Patrol
Magazine, 133 South Van Gordon Street, Suite 100, Lakewood, CO 80228-1700. Letters will be published
as space permits and may be edited for clarity, style, and length.
AVERTING DISASTER
Iread with great interest your article on adaptive
skiers and the challenge of evacuating
adaptive equipment from a stalled chairlift (“Lift
Evacuation: Adapting to the Adaptive Skier,” fall
2004). Some years ago we gave this very issue
considerable thought during our annual chairlift
evacuation training and came to one major conclusion
that was not cited in the SPM article.
We do not yet have a substantial number of
adaptive skiers at the four resorts we serve on
Mount Hood, and most of those who do visit us do
not own their equipment. Loaner programs at
local hospitals allow adaptive athletes to try various
sports using borrowed equipment. This means
that an adaptive device may not be a perfect fit
for the individual.
This fact caused us to think seriously about
lowering adaptive guests some 20 to 50 feet from
a chairlift. Our conclusion was to always make sure
that both the guest and the adaptive device are
securely attached to our rescue rope. The last
thing we would want is for an adaptive athlete to
lose his or her grip on or balance in the adaptive
device and fall out of it during descent. In theory
the harness provided with the adaptive equipment
should keep the athlete right-side-up, but if
weight shifts or our guest panics, we want to be
sure to have a secure tether to the person as well
as the adaptive device, so neither one falls.
Thankfully, the lifts on Mount Hood rarely
experience serious malfunctions and chairlift evacuation
is seldom necessary, but as patrollers we
need to be prepared to assist all of our guests,
including those adapting to a sport that’s long been
exclusive to able-bodied athletes.
Thank you for the informative and often brilliant
articles you bring to the patrolling community.
MAC SHELDON
MOUNT HOOD SKI PATROL, OR
CORRECTION
Due to an editing error, Lee T. Wittman’s article
“Lift Evacuation: Adapting to the
Adaptive Skier” (fall 2004) implied that the
National Ski Patrol recruited members of the Tenth
Mountain Division upon their return from World War
II.
Some, but not all, of the original members of
the Tenth were early patrollers. Many of the
returning soldiers-on-skis did in fact swell the
ranks of the National Ski Patrol after they were
demobilized. However, there was no active
recruitment on the part of the NSP. Ski Patrol
NSP National Office
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Lakewood, CO 80228
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How to find us Next time you’re in the area, stop by and visit the national office.
93
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DIA
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IDAHO
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EVERGREEN
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To snowsports
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DENVER
TECH CENTER
Peña Blvd
E470
US-85
County Line Rd
To Colorado Springs
C470
C470
6 Ski Patrol Magazine | Winter 2005

June Mountain
Patrol A Quality Crew
By Ingrid Tistaert
in the Sierras
There’s nothing unusual about the gravitational pull at
June Mountain, a 550-acre snowsports area that sits high
in California’s Eastern Sierra Nevada. And the gold that
once drew prospectors to these hills is largely tapped out. So
there must be some other explanation for why many of June’s
patrollers gladly commute upwards of seven hours—one-way—
from the Los Angeles Basin to ply their skills here each weekend.
Well, it could be the snow (more than 20 feet per year) or the
diversity of terrain (chutes, steeps, and what is considered one of
the biggest and best terrain parks in the region). But ask any of
the area’s 34 patrollers, and they’ll tell you a major draw is the
caliber of their colleagues.
Garry Larson, a 20-year patrolling veteran from Southern
California, joined the June Mountain gang five years ago, and
he’s happy he made that choice. Larson commits to a 320-mile
drive from San Dimas because he appreciates “the professional
environment in the June patrol room.” Of course, he can’t help
but add, “The benefits of working at a challenging mountain
with lots of snow far outweigh the long drives.”
“June is one of those patrols where you don’t want to let anybody
down, so everybody just works harder and harder,” explains
June Mountain patroller (and NSP board member) Larry Acord.
“This is an unusual group of people; I’ve only seen one or two
other groups with such amazing synergy.”
You’ll get no argument on that point from Patrol
Representative Steve Francisco. “This tight-knit group works
together as a team with seamless integration between the paid
and volunteer patrollers,” he says proudly. “The volunteers willingly
travel over 600 miles on weekends, and the paid patrollers
have all become active NSP members in the past two years,
demonstrating a high level of dedication.”
With this kind of camaraderie and devotion to purpose, it
should come as no surprise that the June Mountain Patrol won the
NSP’s National Outstanding Small Alpine Patrol Award for the
2003–04 season. What is somewhat unusual is the speed with
which the patrol put together such a remarkable crew. Up until
four years ago, the June Mountain Patrol was a much smaller paid
team that filled all of its shifts by rotating patrollers from June’s sister
area, Mammoth Mountain. Then in 2001, Patrol Director Eric
Diem and Carl Williams—who’d recently come on board as
mountain manager—reached the conclusion that it might be a
good idea to have a consistent cadre of patrollers every weekend.
Enter Stan Kelley.
Kelley, a longtime NSP member from Southern California,
was on his way to Tahoe a few years back when he decided to stop
for the day and ski at June Mountain. While he was on the hill,
he struck up a conversation with Diem, who mentioned that
June was interested in taking on some volunteer patrollers to
share on-hill duties on the weekends. Kelley called up long-time
friend (and Southern California Region Director) Mark Giebel.
To make a long story short, the three men met with mountain
manager Williams, and in 2001 June Mountain welcomed NSP
patrollers, one of whom was Kelley—destined to become the
area’s first patrol representative. (He’s still one of the patrol’s goto
guys, handling everything from collecting patrol dues to lining
up lodging for those commuting patrollers.)
Thus began a beautiful relationship between the volunteers
and paid staff at June. The numbers now stand at 23 volunteer
and 11 paid patrollers. And, as Francisco points out, every one
of them is now a member of the NSP, making June Mountain
the only patrol in the region in which all of the paid and volunteer
patrollers are affiliated with the NSP.
Says June Mountain patroller Cirina Catania,“It’s a continuing
source of pride for all of us to see the NSP logo on each and every
patrol jacket and proudly visible on the signage at the resort.”
The success of the June patrol is bolstered by its healthy relationship
with the mountain manager. Francisco and Williams
CONTINUED
8 Ski Patrol Magazine | Winter 2005

ERIC DIEM
CALIFORNIA
Sacramento
San Francisco
June
Mountain
Pacific Ocean
Santa Barbara
Los Angeles
ERIC DIEM
VITAL STATISTICS
Above right: During a Senior toboggan training run, Ian Doleman
(front operator) and Reeve Colfesh (tail rope operator) transport
visiting patroller Keith Tatsukawa down a steep, powdery bump
field. Above: Members of the June patrol practice a probe line
during a spring avalanche training course.
■
■
■
■
■
June Mountain’s average
snowfall is 250 inches.
The average percentage
of sunny days per season
is 70 percent.
The area’s vertical drop is
2,590 feet, with a 10,090-foot
summit and a 7,545-foot
base.
Located 20 miles north
of Mammoth, California,
June Mountain has 35
trails serviced by seven
quads, four doubles, and
one rope tow. The terrain
is 20 percent advanced,
45 percent intermediate,
and 35 percent beginner.
The area’s terrain park,
affectionately known as
JM2, has been open for
three seasons and boasts
a superpipe and three
terrain-enhanced areas
with features for athletes
of all abilities.
The mountain officially
opened on February 12, 1961
(Lincoln’s birthday).
W inte r 2005 | Ski Patrol Magazine 9

❚ CONTINUED FROM PAGE 8
speak on a regular basis and, according to Francisco, both
the patrol and area management share NSP’s vision of safety
and service.
June Mountain is no behemoth like the aptly named
Mammoth Mountain just down the road, but patrollers still have
plenty of gnarly terrain to master and lots of patients to transport
down the mountain. With a vertical drop of 2,590 feet and
a terrain distribution of 20 percent advanced, 45 percent intermediate,
and 35 percent beginner, June Mountain is no
pushover. Neither are its patrollers.
When asked to name patrollers who were particularly noteworthy
at June Mountain, Francisco hems and haws. It’s not
because he has a hard time finding extraordinary patrollers, it’s
because everyone puts extraordinary effort into making this
patrol what it is, says Francisco. “It’s very difficult to choose,
because everyone on this patrol contributes so much,” he
explains. Obviously, Francisco, as a good leader, places importance
on every member of his patrol, not just the best skier or the
most experienced OEC provider. He’s a leader who treats patrol
members with fairness and shows his appreciation for the duties
they perform.
A Senior patroller and winner of the NSP’s National
Outstanding Administrator Award in 2003, Francisco has
upwards of 30 years of patrol experience, having spent time at
eight different areas on both the East and the West Coasts—and
he says he feels that the June Mountain patrol is one of the
strongest groups with which he’s worked. He is quick to bestow
credit upon Patrol Director Diem, who has accumulated 22 years
of experience, 17 of which have been as June Mountain’s patrol
director. “Eric is the spark that lights the fire and gets everyone
pumped up,” Francisco says. “He is the inspiration of the patrol.
He leads by example and expects excellence.”
Diem takes ski runs with everyone, and, according to
Francisco, “watching him just inspires you to work hard and
improve. He makes you want to be the best patroller you can be.”
Fellow patroller Acord clearly agrees. “Eric’s number one mission
is to get the patrol fired up,” he says. “You can’t wait to go
out there and work hard for the guy. The best analogy I can think
of is ‘Top Gun School.’”
Diem—an NSP Certified patroller—concedes that he’s a
“high energy person by nature” and that he consciously “sends a
positive message to the other patrollers.” He feels that this gives
them the confidence necessary to perform in critical situations.
(In addition to being a driving force behind the patrol’s success
and subsequent national award, Diem picked up a little hardware
of his own in 2004 when he was named National
Outstanding Paid Patroller.)
Together, Francisco and Diem make an excellent team, which
is probably why patrol members sometimes refer to the representative
and director collaboratively as “The Steve and Eric
Show.” In addition to their administrative duties, they spend a
fair amount of time leading classes and clinics. Francisco is an
instructor and instructor trainer in the OEC, Alpine Toboggan,
and Instructor Development disciplines, and Diem teaches OEC,
Avalanche, and Alpine Toboggan classes. The men are in good
company as June Mountain’s patrol also boasts nine Senior evaluators,
five Certified evaluators, three OEC instructor trainers,
thirteen OEC instructors, and four Ski and Toboggan instructors
(one of whom is a Ski and Toboggan instructor trainer).
Approximately 20 percent of the patrol has attained NSP’s
Certified classification with another 20 percent registered as
Seniors. Oh, and seven of the 34 patrol members (more than
20 percent) have National Appointments.
When it comes to training, Diem pursues a creative and
active curriculum from which June Mountain patrollers greatly
benefit. Every Saturday and Sunday morning he conducts training
sessions to enhance the skills of the patrollers. These hourlong
sessions cover everything from OEC proficiency to
avalanche awareness, lift evacuation, and toboggan handling. He
also holds regular enhancement clinics in the evenings to help
the crew brush up on their overall patrolling knowledge. Diem
frequently brings in guest lecturers too. For instance, local EMS
doctors have led training clinics about head injuries and bone
fractures, hydrologists have taught snow science, and meteorologists
have lectured on the various nuances of weather in the
mountain environment.
With this attention to training, June Mountain patrollers are
clearly mindful of the need to be skillful, prepared, and versatile.
And they seem to thrive on their roles as caregivers, from the
longest-tenured veteran to the new recruits.
Among those with considerable time invested in patrolling are
Steve Reneker, a volunteer, and Chris Lizza, a paid patroller. Having
patrolled at four different areas over the past 27 years, Reneker says
he feels a certain obligation to share knowledge he’s gained from
others. He serves as an inspiration for fellow patrollers—and with
good reason, for he tends to be successful at whatever he sets his
mind to. There was, for example, that climb up Mount Everest in
1995. After spending two years in strict training for the endeavor,
Reneker then bid his family a bittersweet adieu and spent three
months in the Himalayas, hauling some six tons of gear up and
down between six camps on the north side of Everest.
Reneker compares mountain climbing to patrolling and
emphasizes the importance of having a strong team in either
endeavor. “You are only as good as those who surround you,” he
says, noting that in the case of Mount Everest, he was successful
only because of his fellow team members, good health, and
agreeable weather.“Although I’ve been patrolling for a long time,
I still get an adrenaline rush from helping skiers and ’boarders
and learning new techniques to better myself and others around
me,” he adds.
CONTINUED ON PAGE 14
10 Ski Patrol Magazine | Winter 2005

ERIC DIEM
ERIC DIEM
Above: Proud patrollers at June
pose atop their beloved Sierra
Ski Hill with a trophy awarded by
the southern california Region.
Left: Evening lift evac training
at June is a regular occurrence.
Patrol director Eric Diem and
patrol Representative Steve
Francisco insist their team stay
up-to-date and fresh on all rescue
procedures. Below: patrol director
Eric diem (right) and June’s unsung
hero chris Lizza exchange ideas
at a summer OEC refresher course.
STEVE FRANCISCO
W inte r 2005 | Ski Patrol Magazine 11

❚ CONTINUED FROM PAGE 10
He also says his experience as a mountaineer assists him in
his patrolling, because it provides a level of confidence in his
skills and allows him to understand his limitations. “Ski
patrolling has also taught me how to travel safely in a winter
environment and to be able to survive the coldest of nights with
minimal gear,” he points out.
When asked to share what inspires him about his fellow
patrollers, Reneker explains that patrolling with volunteers with
different backgrounds is very rewarding. “Seeing people give up
their weekends to help ensure a safe and fun experience for the
public has given me an appreciation for everyone in NSP,” he
says. “My best friends are those I have gained in the ski patrol,
and I consider them to be part of my extended family.”
If there’s an unsung hero on the patrol, it is probably Lizza,
who’s called patrolling a profession for more than 20 years (five
at June, 15 at Mammoth, and a few years tossed in at Crystal
Mountain in Washington and Las Leñas in Argentina). Diem
speaks highly of him, saying Lizza has the ability to look at the
big picture instead of what’s in front of him, which gives him a
great eye for risk management—a key characteristic of a good
patroller. Lizza grew up in the Central Sierras and was a junior
racer at Mammoth Mountain. He nonchalantly points out that
he “knows June Mountain pretty well and can get anywhere
pretty quick.” Translation: This guy is a great skier. But the
impressive qualities don’t stop there. If you happen to have a
copy of his book, The South American Ski Guide, you might
know that this patroller with a penchant for ski history is also a
skillful writer.
Some might say that the majority of ski and snowboard
patrollers are determined—after all, these people have a great
deal of responsibility on the hill and in the aid room. But every
so often a patroller demonstrates such “stick to it-ness” that he
or she accomplishes remarkable feats in the face of insurmountable
odds. Meet Patty Giebel, a 25-year patrolling veteran and
prime example of a patroller who goes above and beyond the
usual levels of determination.
Take, for instance, the time she was attending Certified-level
evaluations at Mammoth Mountain. During one of the clinics
Giebel developed appendicitis and was whisked immediately
down the hill to the hospital. Doctors removed her appendix that
day, but instead of begging off on the clinic—as most people
would do after surviving this experience—she returned to the hill
the next day and passed her avalanche exam with flying colors.
As if this scenario doesn’t prove the point, there are others
that are perhaps even more impressive. In early 2004 Giebel was
in a serious bike accident in which she sustained a broken nose
and neck and stopped breathing. Fortunately her husband,
Mark, happened to be with her, and was able to maintain her
spinal alignment and keep her airway clear until more help could
arrive. After the accident Giebel was placed in a halo to support
her neck. Two weeks later, instead of calmly recuperating at
home, she went to Squaw Valley, California, to attend yet another
Certified clinic.
One of Giebel’s passions outside of patrolling is endurance
running, and nothing seems to get in the way of that rigorous
pursuit. Despite her condition she decided to train for a big race
from Agoura, California, to San Diego, California, a 60-mile,
12-hour run. While still in her halo, Giebel worked out as she
normally would—running, trail running, and doing strength
training. Doctors eventually let her graduate from the halo to a
hard C-collar. Two weeks later she entered the race and not only
completed the run but won first place in the woman’s field and
second place overall in both the mens’ and women’s divisions, a
rare feat for a woman in prime condition (let alone one with a
broken neck).
With folks like Francisco, Diem, Reneker, Lizza, and Giebel
around, it’s not difficult to imagine that new patrollers at June
Mountain have good mentors. Then again, some just take to
patrolling naturally. One such newbie is Tony Golden. The
2003–04 season was his first as a patroller, but you wouldn’t
guess it from accolades he receives from Francisco: “Tony is a
self-starter who tackles projects with enthusiasm and completes
them competently, requiring little or no direction.” Golden
shrugs off his hard work, saying “I’m just into it.”
That much is clear. Golden completed his candidate training
within his first month of patrolling at June, spending 12 days on
the mountain in the first 20 days the area was open. Overall, during
the 2003–04 season, he devoted more than 400 hours to the
June Mountain Patrol in on-hill and off-hill duty time.
Golden asserts that his experience at June Mountain has
taught him a lot in just a short time.“From the beginning I’ve been
placed in the ‘deep end,’ working scenes right from the get-go.”
Originally from the East Coast, where he grew up skiing in
the ’60s at a small resort with a strong family atmosphere,
Golden says he is looking to recreate this feeling with his family,
and June Mountain is just the place to do it. Hence, he had a
hand in recruiting his wife, Lynn, to also help out at the area. Full
of positive energy and a real go-getter in her own right, Lynn
helped initiate June’s mountain host program and served as one
of the area’s four original mountain hosts during the 2003–04
season.“June is special because they care about every person who
comes to the mountain,” she says.
Clearly, they’re doing something right at June Mountain.
Between the camaraderie, training, and downright dedication to
making a safer go of the slopes they love, area management and
this small group of patrollers work magic in the shadows of
Mammoth. And while big sister might be more well-known,
little sister June is no wallflower. ✚
Ingrid Tistaert, former assistant editor for Ski Patrol Magazine, now works as a
freelance writer and editor. She lives in Tahoe City, California.
14 Ski Patrol Magazine | Winter 2005

Right: Patrick Wood
(left), and Steve
Francisco (right) carry
fellow patroller Dave
Green on a spineboard
during a training clinic.
Below left: The June
Mountain Patrol will
now need to make room
alongside its region
trophy for the National
Outstanding Small
Patrol Award. Below
right: Long-time
patroller and mountaineer
steve reneker
on the summit of
Mt. Everest in 1995.
ERIC DIEM
PHOTO CREDIT
Above: need caption need caption
need caption need caption need
caption need caption. Right: need
caption need caption need caption
need caption need caption
need caption need caption need
caption need caption. Below:
Patrol director Eric Diem caption.
ERIC DIEM
COURTESY OF STEVE RENEKER
W inte r 2005 | Ski Patrol Magazine 15

B R A C
Skis? CHECK!
Boots? CHECK!
Poles? CHECK!
Tension strain-reduction
knee brace? CHECK!
F
Knee Injuri
or millions of skiers and other sports enthusiasts,
the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) is
as vulnerable as Achilles’ heel. As a patroller, you’ve
probably seen a fair number of knee injuries in your
time.You may have even been the victim of knee problems
yourself, collapsing to the snow and writhing
in pain after the telltale “pop” heard ’round the mountain
tells you, unmistakably, that you’ve joined the
ranks of the nearly
176,000 people in
the United States
who suffer ACL ruptures
each year. And
if you aren’t one of
those people, is it
just a matter of time
before you are?
By Michael Patmas, MD
What The Experts Say
hese days, roughly 50,000 ACL
T
reconstructions are performed each
year. With good rehabilitation, 85 to 92
percent of people who undergo surgery
will recover fully and eventually return to
full sports participation, according to the
American Association of Orthopedic
Surgeons. Few would disagree that bracing
the knee after injury and surgery can
aid the recovery process by offering structural
support, at least until the ligament
heals and surrounding leg muscles are
strengthened through rehabilitation.
But, is there a way to prevent a recurrence
of the injury—or even keep it from
happening the first time? By adding a knee
brace to our regular arsenal of equipment
and mountain gear, such as custom-fit
boots and top-of-the-line bindings, can we
16 Ski Patrol Magazine | Winter 2005

E YOURSELF
s May Be Preventable
lower our risks of ACL injury? Most doctors
and athletic coaches say no, that wearing
a brace after rehab only encourages the
muscles to slack off and become dependent
on the brace. After two ACL tears and
subsequent surgeries, however, I began to
wonder if maybe conventional wisdom
was missing something that poor luck and
experience understood all too well.
A Few Days In The Life
fter my first ACL injury and subsequent
reconstructive surgery in the
A
spring of 1999, I wore a DonJoy
“Defiance” knee brace while skiing for
two seasons. The brace is designed to prevent
the femur from moving excessively
in a fore/aft plane on top of the tibia. That
type of movement puts strain on the ACL
and, during a fall, collision, or simple
twisting movement, can be the cause of a
ligament rupture. In effect, the brace does
what the leg muscles are supposed to do,
which is reduce strain on the ligament.
Eventually, after I regained leg strength
and completed rehabilitation, my ski buddies
told me to stop wearing the brace
lest I grow too dependent on it. They said
that wearing the brace too long would
keep my muscles from getting strong
enough to support the knee on their own.
So, I retired the brace to the back of my
cluttered equipment closet and skied well
and mostly pain-free for another year and
a half. I figured my leg muscles were doing
their job to reduce any harmful strain on
the ACL. As a ski instructor, I have a passion
for being on the snow, and didn’t
want to stay off it any longer than I had to.
Then one day, doing an otherwise
ordinary turn, I glanced back over my
shoulder to be sure my class was behind
me and got just a little off balance.
Suddenly I felt a definite, uncomfortable
tearing sensation. It was certainly not the
loud pop with explosive pain that I experienced
the first time I injured my ACL,
and I was able to continue skiing. I
assumed I hadn’t completely torn the ligament
again, though I knew I had done
something. My knee didn’t hurt; it just
felt slightly wobbly.
The following day I saw Dr. Stephan
Tarlow, a Portland knee surgeon, who
ordered an MRI. Both Dr. Tarlow and the
radiologist indicated that I had torn the
ACL graft, and they recommended taking
some time off. They obviously did not
know me and didn’t realize that the words
“time off” aren’t in my vocabulary. I
should have listened, but I’m admittedly
stubborn and slow to learn. I actually
convinced myself that my doctor was
wrong, that it wasn’t as bad as he said it
was. This deep sense of denial was probably
rooted in the fact that, at that time, I
was already registered for the PSIA Alpine
Level III exam and did not want to cancel.
Still convinced I had only sustained a
bad knee “sprain,” I put the brace back on,
looking for a little extra support, and went
about my season. Even with the brace, I
had some pain and felt limited, not by the
brace itself but by my insecurities. Ironically,
I found myself skiing more accurately
because I was more aware of my fore/aft
stance and balance. I was skiing better and
cleaner, though less aggressively. I even
passed the Level III exam a few months
later, although my knee did hurt after a full
day of skiing.“Who needs an ACL anyway,”
I chuckled to myself. “It’s a highly overrated
ligament.” My success only further
convinced me that I had been right and my
doctors wrong. Perhaps I had torn the
graft, but there must have at least been a
few fibers left holding everything together.
The following autumn I fulfilled a
dream by participating in a fantasy baseball
camp with retired World Series slugger
Dave Henderson. That was huge fun!
But while playing second base I fielded a
CONTINUED
W inte r 2005 | Ski Patrol Magazine 17

A bracing thought: Would the author have
avoided a second ACL tear if he hadn’t retired
his brace to the back of the closet after rehab
got him back on skis?
PHOTOS COURTESY OF MICHAEL PATMAS, MD
❚ CONTINUED FROM PAGE 17
ground ball and pivoted on my left leg to
throw out a runner at home. My knee
buckled like a sapling in gale force winds.
I wasn’t wearing my brace at the time, and
I knew at that moment that a second ACL
reconstruction was inescapable. Whatever
fibers might have been left after the tear
the previous winter were certainly gone
now. But by then I had lost my window of
opportunity to have surgery before the
ensuing ski season.
As if possessed by the voice of folly, I
actually opted to ignore the injury yet
again. I knew that during the previous
season the brace served as a great “external
ACL” to make up for my damaged internal
one. So, after going back to the closet to
retrieve the brace, I completed the entire
season without the ligament. My skiing
did suffer, though. I found myself up
against a psychological barrier: I couldn’t
“let it rip,” so to speak.
The doctors admitted that I could,
conceivably, ski on my bad knee longer
without having surgery, but I would eventually
develop accelerated degenerative
arthritis, which might limit me even more
than the injury itself. So, I made the decision
to have surgery one more time at the
end of the season. I’m only 52 . . . a kid;
I’m not ready to stop playing.
My second surgery was a breeze. The
doctor told me that, amazingly, all that
was left of the first graft were a few hairlike
fronds. The graft hadn’t torn, it had
completely dissolved. What was even
more amazing was that my meniscus was
totally intact and unharmed. For the past
season and a half, I had truly been skiing
without an ACL. Typically, in such a situation
the other knee structures will suffer
additional damage, but I had none, most
likely because the brace prevented the
bones and other ligaments from rubbing
against one another.
Using a piece of my own hamstring,
the doctors created and attached an ACL
graft. Hopeful that the new graft would
survive, they gave me a good prognosis
after the second surgery. I was walking
without crutches within a week, and after
two weeks I was back in the gym and have
been working out everyday since. I took
classes—step, powerflex, running, spinning,
weight training—effectively conducting
my own physical therapy.
The specter of another ACL reconstruction
got me thinking about what I
could do to avoid having to go through
this a third time. My brace had served me
well during two seasons without an ACL.
Maybe I should never have taken it off,
despite what the “experts” said. If I had
been wearing it that day on the mountain
and later at the baseball camp, maybe this
wouldn’t have happened again. I found
myself wondering, Is there any evidence
that bracing can prevent re-rupturing
the ACL? If so, why did all the experts
and literature advise against it? I stopped
wearing the brace after the first injury
because conventional wisdom said I
would become dependent on it. As it turns
out, dependency might have been a better
alternative. Had I done some more research
back then, I might have continued wearing
the brace.
What The Researchers Say
y quest for more information didn’t
M take long at all, and what I found
was quite interesting. This is a very controversial
area with deeply held opinions
and conflicting studies. What follows is an
overview of the current evidence on the
role of functional bracing in protecting
the ACL-reconstructed knee, with particular
emphasis on the skier.
Despite more than 20 years of
research, the role of knee bracing remains
the subject of intense debate. Some doctors
believe the brace should be worn while skiing
for about one year after ACL reconstructive
surgery to allow the ligament
CONTINUED ON PAGE 20
18 Ski Patrol Magazine | Winter 2005

The researchers fou
❚ CONTINUED FROM PAGE 18
graft to “mature.” The brace prevents
excessive strain and allows the injured person
to continue participating in sports.
Others feel that the sooner a patient retires
the brace the better, so the leg muscles surrounding
the knee don’t weaken further
from nonuse and then become dependent
on the brace for strength.
Eric Schlopy, a top American ski racer
now back on the race scene after ACL
reconstruction, put it this way when I
asked his opinion. “I’m looking at the top
30 skiers out there . . . nearly all have had
an ACL injury, and there’s not a brace
among them. My leg muscles are my
brace,” he says.
Schlopy’s is the dominant view, and if
you’ve ever seen a racer’s thighs, you’d
understand where that confidence comes
from. Competitive skiers strive to rehabilitate
their injuries to full working order so
they can count on their bodies to win
races for them rather than depend on
equipment that might jeopardize their
form and technique. By bringing their leg
muscles back to pre-injury strength, they
hope to ensure their ACLs are protected
without relying on support from braces,
which can be restricting and cumbersome.
However, regardless of whether or
not a skier is a professional athlete, if he or
she ruptured an ACL the first time while
in good shape, he or she is certainly at the
same or better risk of doing it again, even
after rehabilitating completely.
So what about the rest of us mere
mortals who lack the benefit of worldclass
racer training and giant sequoia-like
thighs? Does bracing offer us any protection
against first or subsequent injuries?
Interestingly, I discovered that many college
football players are wearing ACL
braces prophylactically. More than 80
percent of linemen and 50 percent of
linebackers in the Big Ten athletic conference
wear braces during games and practice.
Bracing reduced knee injuries from
3.4 to 1.4 per thousand athletic encounters
(i.e., games, practices, scrimmages)
among college football players, according
to one large study. The popularity of prophylactic
bracing in college football is
rapidly growing as more players and
coaches become convinced by declining
rates of injury.
But in the snowsports realm, skiers
may be a few turns behind. In 1997, Dr.
Peter Nemeth and colleagues from the
University of Ottawa published a study
involving six expert ski racers with ACL
injuries for whom they measured leg
muscle contraction patterns while the
athletes were braced and unbraced. The
researchers found a clear difference indicating
that bracing increased knee stability
both subjectively (how it felt to the
athlete wearing the brace) and objectively
(the measurable strain/pressure on the
joint) as suggested by the pattern and
timing of muscle contraction during skiing.
The study shows that bracing
increases knee stability, regardless of the
state of the ACL.
Perhaps the most interesting data
comes from the work of Dr. Bruce
ACL ACL strain (%) (%)
10
10
standing at 30° unbraced
standing at 30° unbraced
5
standing at 30° braced
standing at 30° braced
0
seated at 30° unbraced
-5
seated at 30° unbraced
-5
seated at 30° braced
-10
seated at 30° braced
-10
20 40 60 80 100 120 140
0
Anterior
20
load
40
applied
60 80
to tibia
100
(in
120
newtons)
140
Anterior load applied to tibia (in newtons)
Beynnon, at the University of Vermont,
who placed a strain measurement transducer
directly into an ACL at surgery and
tested the effect of the brace on the graft
(fig.1). As was clearly shown, bracing substantially
reduces strain on the ACL when
loads are applied anteriorly (forward).
This is the same type of strain that might
cause a skier to rupture the ACL. While a
brace won’t prevent a skier from falling or
tweaking the knee, the research does suggest
that it could share the knee’s burden
and make those anteriorly directed loads
less threatening.
This is considered important during
the rehabilitation phase after ACL reconstruction.
When the new graft is placed in
the knee the body reacts by breaking it
down, making it vulnerable to re-injury
and stretching. The graft actually weakens
during the first six weeks after surgery
and then begins to slowly strengthen. At
the six-month mark, the graft returns to
about 50 percent of its original strength. It
continues to strengthen for one to two
years, while it is “vascularized” and incorporated
by the knee (fig. 2).
If a brace can reduce strain on the
reconstructed ACL, is it possible that it
Figure 1 ACL Strain Produced by Anterior Tibial Loading (After Beynnon et al. 1995)
Figure 2 ACL Graft After Surgery (After Blickenstaff et al. 1977)
100
100
80
80
60
60
40
40
20
20
0
12 15 18 21 24 27 30 33 36
0
Weeks
3
after
6
surgery
9 12 15 18 21 24 27 30 33 36
Weeks after surgery
Graft strength (%) (%)
20 Ski Patrol Magazine | Winter 2005

d a clear difference indicating that bracing increased knee stability.
may also protect the native ACL?
Unfortunately, that question has not been
directly studied among skiers as it has
been among college football players.
While there really isn’t enough data to say
for sure, my own experience would suggest
that it’s likely.
So we are left with many more questions
than answers. What we do know is
that 1) ACL tears are extremely common
among many professional athletes and
weekend warriors, especially skiers; 2)
ACL reconstruction is a highly effective
but painful intervention with a 16-week
or longer rehabilitation period; 3) temporary
ACL bracing is generally recommended
after surgery to protect the graft
during its most vulnerable phase; 4)
reconstructed ACLs can be re-ruptured;
and 5) there is solid experimental evidence
that bracing reduces strain on the
ACL graft during the healing process.
What we don’t know for sure is
whether bracing will reduce the risk of rerupturing
the ACL or even prevent ACL
tears in the first place or well after rehab.
One brace manufacturer, DonJoy, is so
confident that its top-of-the-line brace
can prevent re-rupture of the ACL that
the company says it will actually pay a
portion of the bill if you re-rupture the
ACL graft while wearing the brace.
Clearly we need more data to answer
this central question. In the interim, as I
continue to recover from what my wife
insists had better be my last ACL reconstruction,
I’m left to ponder the fate of my
brace. Certainly, being able to pass the
PSIA Level III exam without an ACL and
while braced has endeared the device to
me. I feel a subjective sense of support
and security when I wear it, and studies
would indicate that I also experience an
objective increase in support. What little I
lose in range of motion because of the
brace I more than make up for knowing
that the strain on the knee is relieved
while wearing it. Without the brace, I
would not have been able to ski at all.
For Eric Schlopy, even the slight
weight, drag, and movement restriction
of a brace can mean the difference
between winning and losing. But I’m not
Eric Schlopy. I want to ski and ski well,
but I hardly notice drawbacks from the
brace. What I do notice is my increased
sense of stability and confidence. I might
be weak-kneed, but I’m no wimp, and I’m
not ready to succumb just yet. ✚
References
Boughton, B. “Prophylactic: Football Linemen
Experience the Greatest Benefit.” The
Magazine of Body Movement and Medicine
June 2000: 21–25.
Nemeth, G. et al. “Electromyographic Activity in
Expert Downhill Skiers Using Functional
Knee Braces After Anterior Cruciate Ligament
Injuries.” The American Journal of Sports
Medicine 25, no. 5 (1997): 635–641.
Beynnon, B.D. et al. “The Effect of Functional Knee
Bracing on the Anterior Cruciate Ligament in
the Weightbearing and Non-weightbearing
Knee.” The American Journal of Sports
Medicine 25, no. 3 (1997): 353–359.
Beynnon, B.D. et al. “An In-vivo Investigation of
Anterior Cruciate Ligament Strain: The Effect
of Functional Knee Bracing and Attachment
Strap Tension.” Paper presented at the annual
meeting of the Orthopedic Research Society,
Orlando, FL.
Blickenstaff, K.R. et al. “Analysis of a Semitendinosus
Autograph in a Rabbit Model.”
American Journal of Sports Medicine 25, no. 4
(1997): 554–559.
Dr. Michael Patmas is the medical director of
the Providence Ambulatory Care and Education
Center in Portland, Oregon. He is a PSIA-certified
Level III alpine ski instructor at Mount Hood
Meadows, Oregon.
W inte r 2005 | Ski Patrol Magazine 21

NUTRITION
on the Slopes
solutions for the fast food blues
BY ROBIN PEGLOW
Have you ever found yourself choking down an $8 burger, gnawing through a slightly
frozen, less-than-tasty protein bar, or skipping meals altogether only to collapse into a
useless, exhausted pile at the end of your shift? Amid the pressures and quick pace of
patrolling the slopes and tending to skiers and snowboarders, proper nutrition is often the first
thing that falls by the wayside.
But the trade-off might be worse than you imagine. A lack of sustenance can definitely spoil
more than your day; it can adversely affect your response time, your decision making, and even
your ability to empathize with your patients.
As a holistic health counselor, I spend my days talking to
people about how nutrition can either enhance your
daily experience or detract from it. Getting the nutrients
you need doesn’t have to be a challenge, and this article
explains how even the busiest among us can sustain the energy
required to get through the day without fading and fizzling
before noon or a couple hours after lunch.
The key to good eating, as you might have guessed, is moderation.
If you really love fries, go ahead and eat them on occasion.
Have a burger now and then. But whatever you do, don’t
rely on these things for nutrition.
What then, you ask, should I eat? It doesn’t have to be complicated,
and it is essentially a matter of getting back to the
basics. “The basics” is shorthand for whole grains, fruits, vegetables,
legumes (i.e., beans, lentils, and nuts), and healthy proteins
such as tofu, salmon or tuna, and antibiotic- and hormone-free
meats. Due to the nature of my training in nutrition I recommend
choosing organic vegetables and “clean” meats or proteins.
While scientists may argue over the benefits of organic and
unmodified foods, I suggest them because I believe natural fuel
burns cleaner than fuel that contains “additives.”
I also tell people to try to stay away from obviously sugary or
processed foods on the hill mainly because they tend to sap your
energy rather than add to it. Eating healthy should give you the
power you need when duty calls.
MOM KNEW BEST
Aside from the substantial financial toll that on-mountain
“convenience food” can have on your wallet, you’d be wise
to consider pizza or a burger and fries as a bad nutritional
transaction as well. Such items provide little benefit for
your body in terms of quality energy. You may crave fat to satisfy
a raging hunger, but consuming greasy foods like these will leave
you devoid of valuable nutrients. And, no, just taking a vitamin
tablet or eating half a dozen protein bars isn’t the answer either.
Your body functions best when it gets its nutrients from fresh
sources. That’s right, your mom wasn’t just perpetuating some
myth by telling you that eating fruits and vegetables would make
you grow healthy and strong.
Eating right is about far more than simply putting calories
down the hatch, and the purpose of consuming nutrient-rich
foods is that they provide energy for the vital functions that
occur within your body on an ongoing basis. For example, the B
vitamins found in foods such as black beans, meat, eggs, nuts,
and dairy products support energy production, nervous system
function, stress responses, and muscle tone. The folic acid you
24 Ski Patrol Magazine | Winter 2005

get from barley, brown rice, dates, and salmon helps with energy
production and protects you against sunburn and skin cancer.
The vitamin A you assimilate by eating asparagus, sweet potatoes,
cantaloupe, and beet greens supports vision and prevents
fatigue. The vitamin C you get from an orange or a helping of
broccoli will aid tissue repair, improve adrenal gland function,
and enhance your immune system. And these are just a few of
the nutrients your body needs to function properly! Only a small
amount of your daily requirements of each of these nutrients are
provided by fries, soda, or even protein shakes and energy bars.
Basic nutritive needs aside, the combination of intense exercise,
long work hours, and stress that is part and parcel of
patrolling means that you probably need to take in more than the
recommended daily allowance of vitamins and minerals. In her
book, Your Body Knows Best, nutritionist Ann Louise Gittleman
points out that stress alone can act as a nutrient-vampire that
leaches precious magnesium, calcium, zinc, potassium, sodium,
and copper from the body’s tissues.
Living off junk food just won’t cut it. Nutrients are essential
if you want to be your best.
THE MOST IMPORTANT
MEAL
Your mom was right about something
else: You need a good breakfast
every day. Skipping your morning
meal is a giant mistake. Not only does your
metabolism function 25 percent better
when you eat within 1 hour of waking,
your body simply needs the fuel.
For example, let’s say you go home at
night, have dinner at 7 p.m., and then don’t
eat until lunch at noon the next day. You’ve
been without food, essentially “fasting,” for
17 hours! That’s a surefire recipe for disrupting your metabolism
and blood glucose levels. Your body uses glucose, a simple
sugar, throughout the day to provide you with energy, but a
blood-sugar imbalance can turn your thinking “foggy” and
leave you feeling sleepy, weak, or irritable. These are all signs
that you’re running on empty.
Therefore, when you roll out of bed, give your body fiber,
protein, and nutrients pronto. If you’re one of those people who
wake up and say, “I’m just not hungry,” you have to train your
brain and body to think differently in the morning. The best way
to get into the habit of having breakfast is to start small in terms
of adding a new dietary ritual.
Chances are that the first item I’m going to recommend for
your morning menu is something you used to have as a kid: Hot
cereal was good for you then and it’s great for you now.
Oatmeal, the old standby, is still popular with many athletes,
and I’d recommend steel-cut or regular oats even though they
Skipping your morning meal
is a giant mistake. Not only
does your metabolism function
25 percent better when you
eat within 1 hour of
waking, your body simply
needs the fuel.
take longer to prepare than the “instant” kind. (Instant packaged
oatmeal is stripped of nutrients to speed up the cooking time.)
Another excellent choice is a seven- or eight-grain cooked
cereal, and there are a number of these whole-grain combinations
for sale in the natural food aisles of most grocery stores
nowadays. Whole-grain hot cereals are filling, hearty, and will
provide you with fuel well into late morning.
If you’re concerned about the extra time it takes to cook hot
cereal, you can prepare it the night before and briefly reheat it
before you run out the door or eat it cold on the road. Filled with
fiber, protein, essential fatty acids (the “good fats”), and B vitamins,
oatmeal and whole-grain cereals can provide a great beginning
to your day. Throw in a sliced banana for potassium and
some almonds for protein, and you’ve got one winner of a complete
morning meal.
If you’re a devotee of eggs and toast in the morning, that’s okay
too. Just make sure that you use whole-grain bread for the toast,
and when it comes to cooking the eggs be sure to cook them with
little or no oil in a nonstick skillet. Really, folks, the yolks are not the
fat culprit for clogged arteries; instead, it’s
the hydrogenated fat in your Danish or the
margarine you’re using on your toast that’s
the problem. (For more on hydrogenation,
check out the entry titled “Overconsumption
of Processed Foods” in the “Top
Ten Nutrition Mistakes” sidebar on page
26.) Of course, moderation is also important
in terms of the fats you consume with
poultry, dairy, or meat. Although people
have short-term success with high
protein/low carb diets, these regimens aren’t
necessarily well-balanced and eventually can
lead to problems in the long run. A good
rule of thumb is to have several meals each
week that incorporate protein from vegetable sources (e.g., from
soy or nuts) or fish rather than three daily doses of animal protein.
When it comes to the nutritional value of toast, whole-grain
bread is the gold standard. Whole-grain breads (and whole
wheat tortillas) contain vitamins, fiber, and essential fatty acids.
It’s important to realize that just because the bread at the store is
brown doesn’t necessarily mean it’s whole grain. To attract
health-conscious consumers, some companies use caramel coloring
to make white bread look like wheat bread. The artificial
colorization is necessary because the process of making white
flour removes the original wheat grain’s outer layers, which contain
nutrients and fiber that give flour color.
If you’re tired of the old standbys for breakfast, try something
out of the ordinary. I’d recommend salmon with vegetables and/or
brown rice. I know what you’re thinking: “That’s dinner food.”
Many years ago Americans engineered the dessert-as-breakfast
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❚ CONTINUED FROM PAGE 25
concept with sweet rolls and donuts, and it’s difficult for some to
get their minds around eating anything else in the morning. In the
end, though, your body functions best with great food. So, if you
want to really optimize your performance, try a clean and lean
protein combined with veggies and/or whole grains. You might be
amazed at how good it tastes and what great energy it provides.
The fiber and healthy fats found in salmon, many nuts, and certain
oils (e.g., olive, hazelnut, and flaxseed) will give you a feeling
of fullness that is exponentially more sustaining than, say, a glass
of orange juice and a bowl of Fruity Pebbles®. Be willing to expand
your thinking and options.
In terms of breakfast options, smoothies are a good choice
too. While they’re not ideal for cold weather because they are
cooling, they do provide an excellent portable meal when you’re
truly on the run. Ingredient options for smoothies include milk
(or a milk substitute such as those made from
almonds, rice, or soy); frozen or fresh fruit such as bananas, blueberries,
blackberries, raspberries, papayas, mangoes; and protein
powder. For an added healthy boost, I recommend including 1
tablespoon of flaxseed oil or a blend of essential fatty acids and
Omega 3 oils, such as Udo’s Oil®.
You can, of course, purchase a ready-made smoothie at any
number of franchised juice establishments, but you’ll likely miss
out on the healthy fats you’d get by adding the aforementioned
oils. If you’re putting in an order at a juice bar, it’s best to ask
them to leave out the sorbet or frozen yogurt in an effort to
reduce the exorbitant sugar content. (If you don’t believe me, just
ask the folks behind the counter if they have a nutritional book
you can look at to check the sugar quotient in their products.)
If you have a hankering for whole fresh fruit, you’ll be glad to
know that apples, grapes, papayas, blueberries, blackberries, and
raspberries all contain moderate to low amounts of sugar as far
as fruits go, and the fiber from the skins of those fruits will also
T OP TEN NUTRITION MISTAKES
1Too much sugar. Aim for less than 40 grams of sugar in a day.
(Some nutritionists recommend 20 grams.) A single regular-sized candy
bar can put you over that number! Note: Going too long without food will
sometimes leave you craving sugar, but a big dose of sweets can temporarily
depress your immune system and leave you more susceptible to illness.
2Not enough bright and colorful “live foods.” Typically, the
brighter the vegetable, the more nutritious. High levels of vitamins such
as A, C, and beta-carotene actually give vegetables their colors. Yams, carrots,
oranges, and red, green, and yellow bell peppers fall into this category.
(Sorry, cheese curls don’t count.)
3Overconsumption of highly processed foods. Processed
foods such as cheese spreads, packaged snack foods (chips and pretzels),
pre-packaged baked goods, or canned foods typically don’t offer much
in the way of fiber, vitamins, or any redeeming qualities aside from crunchiness
or a temporary burst of flavor. Some of these foods also contain hydrogenated
fats that can contribute to heart disease. Hydrogenation essentially
makes oils solid at room temperature, and the process was developed as a
way to increase the shelf life of food when packaged foods were first gaining
popularity many years ago. Examples of products with hydrogenated or
partially hydrogenated fats—also known as “trans fats”—include margarine,
cereal, baked goods, ice cream, and even soups.
4Excess saturated fats. Existing primarily in animal products such
as beef, chicken, and dairy products, excess saturated fats require a
significant amount of energy to digest when eaten in excess. (Remember all
that post-holiday party fatigue from overeating fatty foods?) Saturated fats
lurk in foods deep fried in oil, heavily processed deli meats, processed
cheeses, and foods cooked with lard. Excess saturated fats can detract from
physical performance and lead to obesity and high cholesterol.
5Not enough water. You need to consume about half your body
weight in ounces for a moderate-activity day, and you need even more
than that when you’re exercising. In other words, if you weigh 150 pounds,
you should drink 75 ounces of water a day. If you’re in a place like Colorado
where it’s dry, it’s not a bad idea to wear a hydration system such as
CamelBak® (if you’re not already wearing a patrol pack, that is) and simply
keep sipping all day—up to a gallon or more. The importance of hydration
can’t be stressed enough. A few initial signs of dehydration are fatigue,
irritability, and muscle tension. Who needs that on the mountain? If you’re
human, you need water.
6Excess caffeine. Too much caffeine can adversely affect your
hydration. Although athletes sometimes use caffeine to boost performance,
it doesn’t take much to be effective. Be sure to consume an additional
glass of water for every cup of caffeinated snack or beverage you consume.
(Caffeinated snacks? Yep, Clif Bar® and other companies sell protein bars
and energy gels that contain caffeine.)
7Skipping meals, snacks. Seriously people, take a break to eat.
No fuel means low energy, inhibited function of the metabolism, hormones,
glands, and nervous system. It really does matter. You can only push
your body so far before it pushes back.
8Unpreparedness. Would you take the lift to the top with no snowboard
or skis? Didn’t think so. Then set yourself up for success by
carrying a few healthy snacks for yourself. Don’t wait until you’re starving
and cranky to eat; by that time it’s too late.
9Not eating enough protein. Proteins are the building blocks of
muscles, and, to an extent, energy. Eating nothing but potato chips and
other “empty calorie” snacks rather than having mini-meals with protein
can leave you wiped out.
Skipping breakfast. Breakfast is the foundation of your day.
10 Whatever you do, don’t skip it. Kick off your morning in a strong way
with a high-powered, sustaining first meal. If you don’t usually eat breakfast,
just try doing it once or twice and you might wonder why you ever did
otherwise. (See the section titled “The Most Important Meal” on page 25 for
breakfast suggestions.) —Robin Peglow
26 Ski Patrol Magazine | Winter 2005

offset some of the sugars they contain. To provide sustained
energy for your morning, it’s important to eat the fruit and then
give yourself a half hour or more of digestion before you include
the protein portion of your breakfast. Alternately, you could start
with protein but then should give yourself a couple hours before
you eat fruit. The reason for such timing is because fruit digests
quickly, within about 30 minutes, while proteins can take a couple
hours to digest. If you combine fruit with protein, though,
you could experience fermentation in your belly while two distinctly
different rates of digestion overlap. Exceptions to this
fruit-protein rule would be to have fruit with yogurt or use it in
a protein-enhanced smoothie since such combinations won’t
cause the same kind of digestive problems.
LUNCH ON THE RUN
Believe it or not, it’s possible to meet your nutritional needs
with only nominal planning. Remember that old saying
“You can’t take it with you”? Well, it only pertains to the
afterlife, not the food you’ll want to eat to
stay healthy in the here and now.
The key to successful portable meals
and snacks is cold storage, since food—
especially protein—starts to break down
if kept at or above room temperature.
To prevent food-borne bacteria from
descending upon your lunch before you
do, never leave meats or other proteins at
room temperature for more than an hour,
cheese for more than two hours, and vegetables
for more than three or four hours.
If you don’t have access to a refrigerator,
put the food, along with a food-safe ice
pack, into a small cooler or insulated bag. Once you’re armed
with such a cooling unit, there are some very simple packable
options available to you and your appetite.
Wraps
Until recently “wraps” existed without much fanfare in Mexican
or Greek restaurants, limited to items such as the common burrito
or a gyro. The idea of wrapping food has reached phenomenon
status and now everything from Thai chicken to vegetable
medleys gets tucked into its own blanket. Wraps are fairly mangle-resistant
and can make an otherwise unwieldy collection of
food items portable.
You can take a whole wheat tortilla (remember, whole grains:
good; white processed flour: bad), cover the center of it with
your favorite sandwich fixings, simply roll it up like a burrito
and—voila!—it’s a wrap. Some of the ingredients I recommend
are hummus, smoked turkey, beef, spinach, green leaf lettuce,
and shredded carrots. The nice thing about a wrap is that you
can usually fit it in the pocket of your jacket.
Remember that old saying
“You can’t take it with you”?
Well, it only pertains to the
afterlife, not the food you’ll want
to eat to stay healthy in the
here and now.
Stir Fry
Easy to make and easy to reheat, stir fry is another tasty lunch
option. Simply combine your choice of protein (chicken, fish,
tofu, beef) with brown rice, cashews or almonds, and your
favorite brightly colored vegetables. Brightly colored vegetables
usually contain high levels of vitamins A, C, or beta-carotene,
and they can also create visual appeal in an otherwise monochromatic
meal. Sprinkle on a handful of sesame seeds for their
great taste and the added benefit of calcium. Though there are
different schools of thought on the best oils to cook with, two
good options are olive oil and coconut oil.
Burritos
Individually wrapped food items such as burritos are handy
because they’re sturdy, portable, and easy to reheat. Ingredients
usually consist of rice, beans (adzuki, kidney, or black), chopped
and sautéed vegetables (bell peppers, garlic, onion), cheese, and
whatever else you want to toss in, such as ground turkey or a vegetarian
meat substitute with Mexican
spices. Burritos are especially tasty if you
add some tomatoes and vegetable salsa.
To save time, make a batch of burritos,
wrap them, freeze them, and take one out
to thaw the night before you’ll need it.
Soups and chili
When working in a cold environment,
there’s nothing like a hot lunch, and soup
is about as hot as it gets. If soup is an
option for you, it’s best if you can make it
from scratch so you know what’s in it.
Since you’re the chef it’s also possible to
load it up with vegetables. The starches in a carb-heavy vegetable
such as a potato will turn to sugar, but eating potatoes in moderation
and with the skins on will provide trace amounts of vitamins
C and B-complex. A better choice however, is to have a sweet
potato, which contains less sugar and is rich in carotene, which
converts to vitamin A during digestion. If you’re not cooking from
scratch, combine a can of pre-made soup with frozen corn or peas.
For protein, I suggest adding legumes such as navy beans, chickpeas,
kidney beans, or black beans to the soup. On their own,
beans are a fat-free protein source. You can also mix in some
edamame (a.k.a., boiled, shelled soy beans), which has a neutral
flavor and can be a good match for most soups. Experiment.
Rice and Beans
As any protein buff will tell you, combining the amino acids in
brown rice and beans (along with most other legumes) creates a
complete protein, which is great for building a strong body. But
the white rice used in the popular Cajun dish of red beans and
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❚ CONTINUED FROM PAGE 27
rice doesn’t make the grade in this combination. The outer
layers of brown rice contain fiber, trace minerals, and essential
fatty acids, but—as with flour—the whitening process strips
away those healthy layers.
RAISING THE BAR
Protein or energy bars make great supplements between
meals, but they should not be used as a stand-in for the
meal itself. Also, I don’t recommend consuming more than
three or four bars in a day (try to keep it to one or two), unless
countered with a significant increase in your water and oils.
That’s because the density and dryness of most bars can slow
your body’s elimination system.
When purchasing energy bars, I recommend reading the
label and avoiding anything with hydrogenated fats or trans fats,
artificial ingredients, or preservatives. (When it comes to the
ingredients of any kind of food, my rule of thumb is that if you
can’t pronounce it, you shouldn’t be eating it. Artificial “stuff”
only benefits the manufacturer.)
Some “natural” brands include Clif Bar®, Luna Bar®,
Balance Bar®, or PowerBar®. They have protein and nutrients,
fill you up, provide calories to burn, and get you through to the
next meal. There are also bars, however, that are made with real
food, i.e., natural nutrients are built in, not added. I’m not talking
about ingredients such as raw meat or big chunks of carrots,
though. A LäraBar®, for example, contains only a handful of raw
items such as dried fruits and nuts. That’s it: no sweeteners,
fillers, or chemicals. The philosophy behind the LäraBar is that
when you cook or process ingredients, you lose essential
enzymes that exist only, um, in the raw.
There’s also the Organic Food Bar®, which contains whole
grains like quinoa as well as spirulina and barley grass, both excellent
sources of essential fatty acids and energy-promoting minerals.
These bars emphasize nutrition and energy over protein and,
CONTINUED ON PAGE 70
HEALTHY POCKET SNACKS
You might be too busy to stop for a meal, but there are a number of
nutritious things you can put in your pocket to carry you through until
you have time to eat. The following is a list of things I like to call “healthy
pocket snacks.”
Juice
A few companies have gained popularity in recent years with fresh juice
products (Odwalla® or Naked Juice® are two of the most widely distributed).
These juices are packed with vitamins and minerals, and for maximum
energy I’d suggest the drinks that contain sea veggies such as spirulina,
chlorella, blue-green algae; greens such as wheat grass and barley grass;
blueberries for vitamin C; raspberries for their high levels of antioxidants
for fending off disease; and B vitamins. A bottle of one of these juices will
still be good an hour or two after you’ve taken it out of the cooler or fridge.
Jerky
Made from salmon, turkey, or beef, jerky is a great addition to your protein
options. (Try to make sure that it’s antibiotic- and hormone- free, if possible.)
Fruit leather
Go for an all-natural version of dried, rolled fruit without artificial ingredients
and sweetened with juice rather than refined sugar. This will provide a
temporary lift in your blood sugar, which is especially great if you’re on the
homestretch before a meal. You can also eat a little protein with it so that
you won’t have an energy “crash” later.
Energy bars
These are among the most prevalently used pocket foods around today. See
“Raising the Bar” at the top of this page.
Whole-grain crackers
There are lots of options, but a popular and healthy cracker selection is
offered by the Kashi® brand. Kashi® makes a delicious seven-grain cracker
along with other flavored crackers. Keep them in a pocket that won’t get
crushed and you’re in for a great snack.
Cheese
While it’s always best to keep cheese cold, most hard cheeses (e.g., cheddar),
can survive a couple of hours in a pocket and be a great snack when you need
a little warmth or energy boost.
Fruit
Many fruits are a perfect size for your pocket. If you don’t have fresh fruit
handy, try dried fruit. But with dried fruit, be careful about your sugar
intake. While there’s not an easy method for calculating fruit sugars,
remember that the riper the fruit the more sugar it has (i.e., brown, spotted
bananas are sweeter than yellow ones, and dried fruits can have a great deal
of sugar too). Consuming fiber with the fruit (e.g., eating the skin of an
apple or pear) can help balance the amount of sugar you get from the fruit
itself. However, because fruit juice doesn’t have any fiber it can cause your
blood glucose levels to spike.
Trail mix
You can buy trail mix or make your own combination of tasty nuts, seeds,
and fruit. If you like sweets, you can add a few chocolate morsels or M&Ms.
Add pumpkin seeds and some peanuts, and you’ve got a complete protein.
—Robin Peglow
28 Ski Patrol Magazine | Winter 2005

BY LLOYD MULLER AND
JILL WILLIAMSON
On Solid Ground
One Hour to
Enhanced Balance
SURE, YOU CAN WALK DOWN THE STREET,
up the stairs, or even through a winding
maze of supermarket aisles without falling
over, but that doesn’t mean you have perfect
balance. Years of making those repetitive
movements have trained your body
(as well as your muscles, your vision, and
your inner ear) to remain in equilibrium
even as you move over uneven ground or
stand on one foot. But strap a board or
two to your feet and amp up your velocity
while careening down a steep, snowy pitch
to an incident scene, and your stability
might falter. It happens to the best of us.
Skiing and riding present challenges
that require more precise dynamic balance
than everyday activities do. Our
muscles have to respond faster and absorb
more energy as we move downhill. The
body’s core muscles, namely the abdominals
and those in the lower back, are certainly
key factors in keeping our bodies
stable, but the glutes, hip muscles, hamstrings
and quads give skiers strength,
speed, and power, without which active
balance is impossible.
A year-round workout regimen that
improves basic endurance as well as
strength, flexibility, and balance will greatly
improve your chances of staying upright
on the hill. Here’s a balanced diet of great
exercises you can do in about an hour to
build stamina and stability. (As with any
workout regimen, consult your doctor or
an exercise professional before starting,
and don’t overdo things.)
These exercises will certainly increase
muscle strength, but more importantly
they’ll enhance overall fitness that helps a
body move in balance.
First, it’s important to increase your
endurance by doing some form of sustained
aerobic activity. This will increase
your lung capacity and your heart health
while also working your leg, abdominal,
and lower back muscles.
At the gym, machines such as the
elliptical runner or the stationary bicycle
are great options. They permit lowimpact
activities that spare your joints
from the jarring effects of jumping rope
or running on a treadmill. Such exercise
also helps strengthen the lower body in
preparation for skiing and ’boarding.
To help increase your cardiovascular
conditioning, aim to work out a minimum
of 30 minutes a day, several days a
week. This does not have to be the same
day you do your strength work. On the
day you plan to do strength work, a fiveminute
cardio workout is good to get the
blood flowing throughout the body. This
will help warm up and stretch your muscles,
making your legs more agile and
quick, which is important when carving
tight turns in the trees or navigating a
toboggan down a tough bump field.
snowboarding, you are working your legs
independently by placing more weight on
one leg and then shifting it onto the other.
The following exercises offer fun ways to
“play” and focus on balance. You may find
that one leg does better than the other, and
that’s okay. We recommend doing strength
You might think you have a great sense of balance
and don’t need to work on it. Well, in reality no matter what
you are training for, paying attention to balance is important.
work with one leg at a time to improve and
equalize the strength of each leg.
Think of this portion of the workout
as “getting in touch with the core.” While
the following exercises appear to be aimed
at your legs, you are actually using your
core stabilizer muscles in the back and
abdomen to improve balance.
Sideways Lunge
Start with a centered stance, and extend
the left foot out to the side while both feet
face mostly forward (photo 1). Keeping
your shoulders squared and your chest
LLOYD MULLER
WARM-UP
Before diving headlong into a balance
and strength workout, it’s a good idea to
warm up the muscles by doing slow, gentle
exercises without weights to help get
the blood flowing throughout the body.
BALANCE EXERCISES
You might think you have a great sense of
balance and don’t need to work on it.
Well, in reality no matter what you are
training for, paying attention to balance is
important. Many times while skiing or
photo 1
Sideways Lunge
30 Ski Patrol Magazine | Winter 2005

photo 2
PHOTOS BY LLOYD MULLER
Weaving Walk, lunge
photo 3
Weaving Walk, cross
photo 4
Soda Can Lunge
upright, transfer weight over to the left
foot without lifting the right foot off the
ground. Make sure the knee doesn’t flex
past the toes. Hold the position for 5 to 10
seconds. Inhale and exhale. You may feel
this in your hips, thighs, hamstrings, and
glutes. Slowly return to your centered
stance, extend the right foot out to the
side, and then transfer your weight to the
right foot and hold the position for 5 to 10
seconds. Inhale and exhale. Perform 10 to
12 lunges on each side. This exercise will
improve lateral movement and strengthen
the hamstring and quadriceps muscles,
which help skiers power through the
bumps and hold the skis on edge when
carving turns. When these muscles are
strong and balanced, they also help protect
the knee and other joints in the hips
and ankles.
Weaving Walk
From a standing position with your feet
together, extend your left leg to the side, as
in a sideways lunge. Then rise up, moving
laterally by crossing your right foot in
front of your left foot (photos 2 and 3)
and then return to the starting position.
Lunge once again with your left leg,
repeating the sequence as before. Do this
10 to 12 times, always moving in the same
direction. Then do it 10 to 12 times in the
other direction, lunging with the right leg
and then crossing the left foot in front of
the right foot. This balance drill will
improve side-to-side balance starting in
the ankles and working all the way up
through the hips, which will help you
maintain balance while turning on your
skis or board.
Soda Can Lunge
Place a full soda can, water bottle, or lightweight
dumbbell on the floor about 2 feet
in front of you. Stand with all your weight
on one leg and reach for the object with
your opposite hand (photo 4). It’s fine if
you bend your knee to pick up the object—
this will strengthen the glutes and quads.
Pick up the object and come to full standing
position, but keep all your weight on
the same leg. Then place the object back
down on the floor and return to an upright
position. Try to keep your non-weightbearing
foot off the ground completely, but
if you need to set it down momentarily as a
balance check, that’s okay.
Concentrate on keeping your shoulders
squared over your body and maintain
good flex in the weight-bearing knee.
Repeat this at least 12 times on each leg.
This exercise will test and improve your
fore/aft balance. When skiing, changes in
speed and the terrain can force you back
onto your heels or forward over the balls
of your feet. Being able to adjust your
body quickly to correct will keep you from
taking a nosedive or crashing back on
your tailbone. This exercise is also good
for the gluteus maximus muscles, which
help skiers and ’boarders hold and maintain
a strong flexed stance on the snow.
Quarter Hops
Stand upright with all of your weight on
one leg (photo 5, page 32). Take a short
hop, rotating your body 90 degrees and
landing on the opposite leg about a hip’swidth
away from the starting point (photo
6, page 32). The perpendicular lines on a
basketball court can serve as guides. Try to
land directly on top of the lines without
falling off. Continue going back and forth.
Maintain a 90-degree rotation but increase
the distance you travel, i.e., start and land
farther from the intersection point of the
two lines. This exercise will train the
quads, glutes, and the core stabilizers to
adjust as weight is moved and shifted from
one side of the body to the other. Jump
turns down a steep face mimic the same
types of movements.
STRENGTH EXERCISES
So far we’ve shown you balance exercises
and mentioned the need to do cardio
exercise to maintain conditioning. Something
tells us the last thing you want to
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W inte r 2005 | Ski Patrol Magazine 31

photo 5
PHOTOS BY LLOYD MULLER
Quarter Hop, start
❚ CONTINUED FROM PAGE 31
experience is an injury or your legs giving
out while you travel down the mountain.
Strength work is fundamental for injury
prevention. For example, it is very important
to keep the quadriceps strong so that
the knee stays in place.
Wall Sit
For this exercise you’ll need an exercise
ball like those found at most gyms and
training facilities. You can also purchase
them at fitness shops or retail outlets.
Place the ball between the small of your
back and a solid wall and place your feet
in front of you so you’re leaning back
slightly (photo 7). Begin to squat into a
seated position and allow the ball to travel
up your back. Sink down slowly until
you’re in a seated position with your knees
at a 90-degree angle. Be sure you don’t
bend so far that your knees are in front of
your toes. Hold the seated position for a
couple seconds and then rise slowly until
you’re standing upright, but do not take a
break at the top.
Initially do this up and down for 12
repetitions. When this exercise gets easier
as your strength improves, start holding
photo 6
Quarter Hop, hop
the seated position for longer periods: 5,
10, 15, 20, and 30 seconds. This exercise
builds strength in the glutes and the core
stabilizer muscles. As the knee flexes and
extends, the quads work to hold it in position.
This exercise helps you build
endurance for a day in the bumps, and the
use of the ball improves balance because
the exercise is then performed in a relatively
dynamic format.
Upper Body Strength and Balance
Do basic bicep curls or tricep presses
while standing on one leg. Not only will
this help you build upper body strength in
your arms, chest, and back, it will require
you to tighten your core muscles while
also working on stability. The movement
If you snowboard you’ll often need to rotate your upper body in order
to ride switch. Having a strong core and upper body
will keep you from over-rotating and losing your balance.
of the weight and your upper body will
challenge your lower body to stay balanced.
Your core muscles will tighten to
keep you from bending over at the waist
or losing your balance.
If you snowboard you’ll often need to
rotate your upper body in order to ride
switch. Having a strong core and upper
body will keep you from over-rotating and
losing your balance. When you’re ready for
a bigger challenge, try these exercises while
photo 7
Wall Sit
standing on a Bosu® (a popular balancetraining
device that’s essentially an inflated
dome on one side and a flat rubber platform
on the other.)
MACHINES
The following strength exercises call for
using weight machines. They are all performed
with one leg at a time to help condition
the legs for independent action on
the slopes. However, it’s important to
build both legs up to equal strength.
Everyone has a naturally dominant
side that will be a bit stronger than the
other, but if the ratio becomes too great,
the body will become unstable, making
balance even more difficult. Although
these exercises are performed in seated or
prone positions that don’t present balance
challenges, strengthening and toning
these muscles will improve overall muscular
stability in variable terrain, which can’t
help but aid balance.
Single-leg Press
This exercise can be done on almost any
leg press equipment and is particularly
well-suited to a seated leg-press machine,
as shown in photo 8. However, a proneposition
machine will also work. The benefit
of the seated machine is that it keeps
stress off the spine. This exercise is not
recommended for squat equipment, such
as the angled hack squat machine.
32 Ski Patrol Magazine | Winter 2005

PHOTOS BY LLOYD MULLER
photo 8
Single-leg Press
In the seated position, make sure your
toes, knees, and hips are aligned with your
body. In other words, you don’t want your
foot to be too far outside your body or too
far to the center of the press plate. Also,
make sure that the “lazy” leg isn’t helping at
all. Start with a light weight and build up
with each set of repetitions. Do two sets of
12 to 15 repetitions. Switch legs and repeat.
Single-leg Extension
If possible, for this exercise use an
adjustable leg extension machine that
allows you to move the seat and the ankle
bar (photo 9). Ideally, when in the seated
starting position, your knees should be bent
at a 90-degree angle, though this angle can
be greater if you need the flexibility to start.
Again, begin with a low weight, complete 12
repetitions with each leg, increase the
weight by a half plate, and repeat. This will
be hard, but it does an excellent job of
increasing strength and endurance of the
quadriceps. As your strength builds over
time, you may want to add more weight.
Only increase by a half-plate or to the next
photo 10
Single-leg Curl
photo 9
Single-leg Extension
level at a time. If it seems too hard, drop
down to 10 repetitions.
Single-leg Curl
This exercise, best done on a prone leg curl
machine, resembles the leg extension except
it works the opposing muscles (photo 10).
Start with a low weight, and add a half plate
for the second set. It’s important to work
both quadriceps and hamstrings, as they
work together to support movement.
Again, complete 12 repetitions for each set.
Start with a low weight and increase by a
half-plate as you get stronger.
Single-leg Lunge
This is a strength and balance exercise
CONTINUED
W inte r 2005 | Ski Patrol Magazine 33

STRETCHING
It’s never too early or too late in the season
to get in the habit of stretching after a workout
in order to keep the muscles loose. For
example, throughout a day on the moun-
CONTINUED ON PAGE 70
photo 11
PHOTOS BY LLOYD MULLER
Single-leg Lunge
photo 12
Bosu Hops
❚ CONTINUED FROM PAGE 33
similar to the single-leg press, so you
shouldn’t do both on the same day. Start
with one foot on the floor and the other
on a bench behind you. The foot on the
floor should be far enough in front of you
so that the front knee does not extend
beyond the toes as you bend it (photo 11).
Try to do 10 to 12 repetitions on each leg,
switching legs after one set. This works the
glutes, hip, and quadriceps, key muscles
used in skiing and snowboarding. Once
this gets easy, try it on the Bosu!
ance. Use the following drills to test and
improve your stability in motion.
Jumps
Use a solid stationary box such as a milk
crate or a gym bench that is no more than
a foot off the ground. Jump from the box
to the ground and use the power from
your leg muscles to propel you into the
DYNAMIC BALANCE EXERCISES
When you’ve developed good strength and
stationary balance using the previous exercises,
you’re ready to test your dynamic
balance, or balance in motion. Obviously,
when you’re skiing or riding, you’re not
standing still. You’re moving downhill at
high speeds and constantly adjusting your
body and your center of mass, which
means you’re constantly adjusting your
balance. Jumping exercises that use the
Bosu and stationary objects such as boxes
or benches can help you simulate the situations
you face on the mountain and help
train your body to develop dynamic baltwo
or more Bosus, hop from one to the
next (photo 12). First hop forward with
both feet. As you develop confidence and
balance, jump laterally and then with one
leg or the other. (If you have any kind of
ankle problems, this exercise can be dangerous!
Be sensible with this drill, and only
do it if you’ve done other jumping exercises
before.)
Jumping exercises that use the Bosu and stationary objects
such as boxes or benches can help you simulate
the situations you face on the mountain.
air. Concentrate on sticking the landing
and absorbing the impact with your
ankles and knees. Most likely, your body
will teeter one way or the other, but the
strength you’ve built up in your abs, back,
and legs should help you adjust your
body and keep you from falling over. Use
your abs to hold your upper body upright
and squared over your hips.
Bosu Hops
Agility and speed are important factors in
dynamic balance, especially on the slopes
where you might have to react quickly to
changing conditions and terrain. Using
It is best to first become adept on the
box jumps, making sure you can plant
your landing with both feet simultaneously.
Allow yourself to develop in this
skill, as it will help you in moguls and
jumps on the slopes. It is important to get
the feel of controlling your landings, so the
knees don’t take the shock of the jumps.
34 Ski Patrol Magazine | Winter 2005

BY SCOTT CAMPBELL
Autism
Awareness
A Patroller’s Guide
AT THE END OF A LONG DAY you receive a
radio call about a child who is running
wild outside the lodge, apparently unsupervised.
He’s reported to be wearing no
jacket or shoes and is acting erratic.
You jump on a snowmobile and cruise
to the lodge, but the boy runs away,
screaming, as you approach. When you
shine the light of the snowmobile on him,
he starts screaming even louder and heads
toward the busy parking lot. You shut off
the snowmobile and sprint to catch up
with the kid, but he doesn’t appear to
notice you or the oncoming traffic. He
even seems to ignore your shouts asking
him to stop. He is halfway through the lot
before you catch up to him and grab ahold
of his arm.
The boy is clearly alert but very agitated,
and he won’t look at you or answer
any questions. Is he drugged up, drunk, in
insulin shock, psychotic, or having some
sort of seizure? He squirms around, trying
to escape your grip, and his eyes dart from
side to side. He does settle down a bit when
you release your hold on his arm. He rocks
back and forth for a moment, then begins
to tear off the few clothes he has on.
Concerned that he might hurt himself or
you, you follow your local area’s protocol
for restraining an unruly guest and call for
additional patrollers and a spineboard. He
continues to resist, and this time he doesn’t
settle down. Instead, he begins to bang his
forehead on the pavement until it bleeds.
When help arrives you place him on a
spineboard to get him out of the parking
lot, but this agitates him further. All of his
vitals are elevated.
As you and the other patrollers
approach the lodge, carrying the boy on
the spineboard, a concerned woman runs
toward you. She explains that she is the
child’s mother and insists you remove him
from the spineboard. The woman quickly
gets her son calmed down by deeply massaging
his limbs and face and then explains
that he has autism, which causes him to
react this way in unfamiliar or uncomfortable
situations. With her help, you’re able
to treat the boy for frostbite and the gash
on his forehead, but you feel bad that you
weren’t able to prevent the entire situation
from the outset by recognizing the child’s
condition and special needs. You’ve heard
of autism, but, frankly, you don’t know
much about its symptoms.
Autism, a condition depicted by
Dustin Hoffman in the movie “Rainman,”
generally appears between 15 and 20
months of age and lasts throughout a person’s
lifetime. It is one of five pervasive
development disorders (PDDs) more commonly
known as Autistic Spectrum
Disorders (ASDs). The other disorders in
the spectrum include Rett’s Syndrome,
Fragile X Syndrome, Childhood Disintegrative
Disorder (CDD), and Asperger’s
Syndrome.
My son was diagnosed with autism
when he was 18 months old. In most cases,
a child with autism develops normally, but
then begins to show signs of regression by
losing speech, social skills, and physical
abilities, though they may appear perfectly
normal otherwise. No two individuals with
ASDs exhibit the same symptoms or behaviors,
but all display some deficit in communication
abilities, problems with social
interaction, or a tendency for repetitive
behaviors. People with autism can sometimes
become highly educated and function
normally. Others might completely
retreat into a world of their own.
Race, socioeconomic level, family
income, lifestyle, and education levels are
not factors in the development of ASDs,
and they are certainly not caused by misguided
parenting activities. The exact
cause of ASDs is unknown, but some doctors
and researchers believe they are
caused by a genetic predisposition, which
is then triggered by a number of environmental
issues including pollution, food
The exact cause of ASDs is unknown, but some doctors
and researchers believe they are caused by
a genetic predisposition, which is
then triggered by a number of environmental issues.
additives, pesticides, or industrial chemicals.
Some people in the autism community
advocate a theory that the disorder
may be linked to an accumulation of mercury
and other heavy metals in the body.
One theory suggests a connection between
autism and Thimerosal, a mercury-based
preservative that was once common in
children’s vaccines, but to date there has
been no conclusive evidence linking childhood
vaccines to autism.
Individuals with an ASD might also
have a host of biomedical and neurological
problems related to food allergies and
intolerances. Many of these individuals
are on gluten-free or casein-free diets (no
whole grains or dairy products) because
their digestive systems are unable to properly
process the substances. In addition,
some individuals have reactions to
peanuts or any tree nuts. Eating or drinking
any of these substances can immediately
cause shock at worst or increased
36 Ski Patrol Magazine | Winter 2005

hyperactivity at best. Because these foods
are not properly digested by the gastrointestinal
tract, they instead enter the blood
and travel straight to the brain where they
act like narcotics. In other words, individuals
with an ASD might literally get high
after eating a cookie. Therefore, patrollers
should be careful when offering food to a
child with an ASD, particularly if the child
is non-verbal.
Chronic diarrhea is another potential
problem. Because their gastrointestinal
tracts are damaged, some individuals also
have trouble absorbing vital nutrients,
minerals, and vitamins necessary for optimal
brain function. Simply put, these
individuals can experience a bunch of
hidden complications that may compromise
proper evaluation and treatment.
The best intention of giving a child a treat
to calm him or her down could have drastic
consequences.
The latest statistics from the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention state
the disorder is being diagnosed in as many
as 1 in 166 children with males being four
to five times more likely than females to
develop an ASD. With numbers like that,
there’s a good chance you might encounter
a person with an ASD who is in need of
care on the mountain. The very nature of
their disorder might predispose them to
winding up in dangerous situations that
result in injury, and the symptoms of the
disorder might make it very difficult for
you or others to provide care. However,
there are ways to recognize autism, and
methods you can use when approaching
and treating someone with an ASD.
SIGNS OF AUTISM AND ASDs
AND WAYS TO DEAL WITH THEM
Every person who suffers from an ASD
exhibits different behaviors at different
times, but there are several characteristics
and trends you might recognize and
watch for if you suspect a guest is autistic.
der off unexpectedly. This is called elopement,
and explains why the boy in the
opening scenario was by himself outside
the lodge. Breaks or transitions in routines
can be extremely upsetting to a person’s
sense of security and can cause him
or her to run off in an attempt to escape.
If you believe a person has run off
from his or her parent or guardian, notify
the patrol room of your location and do
what you can to spread the word that the
individual has been located. Often, family
members will be looking for the person
who has wandered off and, if brought to
the scene, can offer reassurance and calm
him or her down. Because every child or
adult with an ASD acts differently in different
situations, the family members will
know how best to respond.
Stimming
When they find themselves in unfamiliar
situations—as the boy in the opening scenario
might have if this was his first time
at a snowsports area—people with autism
will engage in repetitive, nervous movements
called self-stimulatory behaviors, or
“stimming.” This helps them “block out”
the scary and unfamiliar surroundings.
They may exhibit unusual or repetitive
physical actions such as flapping their
hands, flicking their wrists or fingers, spinning
objects, or rocking back and forth.
My son twirls string and then begins a
monotonous chant in order to retreat into
his own world, and his stimming and
behavioral problems will increase if he eats
a food to which he is sensitive.
When they finally block out the bad
stuff, people with ASDs can become
unaware of what is going on around
them. They have been known to run
across busy, multi-lane highways as
though they were in a park. They often
seek out high places or water. Water hazards
are significant, because about 40 percent
of deaths of children with ASDs are
due to drowning. Some people are drawn
to mechanical objects, particularly if the
machines are not making loud noises.
People with ASDs can also take longer to
Elopement
A very frightening aspect of autistic disorders
is the tendency for a person to wanprocess
information, and when anxiety is
heightened, they may not be able to
understand any basic commands.
When approaching an autistic person
experiencing a traumatic episode, it’s best
not to interrupt the stimming behavior—
provided the individual is not in immediate
danger. This mechanism helps people
with ASDs adapt to new situations. In a
scenario like the one described previously,
you could place yourself between the boy
and the parking lot to ensure he doesn’t
run into the traffic, but still give him
plenty of room—don’t threaten his personal
space. If you need to give the person
direction, try to use a variety of communication
styles. If he or she doesn’t
respond to your verbal directions, try
pointing or gesturing, and give the individual
plenty of time to respond because
it might take longer to process your
instructions.
Sensory Overload
Many people with ASDs also have heightened
sensitivity to stimuli, causing constant
sensory overload. This can take many
forms. Some people become intensely
aware of the texture and color of an object,
the sensation of each article of clothing
they are wearing, the sounds they hear
around them, and bright lights or reflections.
They may be sensitive to touch,
sound, bright lights, odors, or animals.
Conversely, they may be fascinated by
water, lights, reflections, or shiny things.
In the opening scenario, the sound of
the snowmobile, the bright light, and the
physical contact added to the boy’s sensory
overload and caused him to begin behaving
frantically. The boy became even more
agitated when his senses were overwhelmed,
and he shed his clothes as a way
to remove himself from the situation.
If you must approach the person, do so
in a quiet and non-threatening manner.
Compliment him or her and offer reassurance
that you’re there to help. Avoid touching
the individual, especially on the
shoulders and face, unless necessary during
CONTINUED
W inte r 2005 | Ski Patrol Magazine 37

❚ CONTINUED FROM PAGE 37
a physical exam. Remember that the person
may be sensitive to touch and might
jerk away or cry out. When using a stethoscope
or other devices, make sure to warm
them up before using them in an exam.
Strobe lights or penlights directed at
the eyes can cause seizures, which are a
common symptom affecting 40 percent
of individuals with ASDs. For this reason,
when examining a person with an ASD
it’s important to refrain from using
such devices.
If the individual must be restrained,
approach from the side, as people with
autism may throw their head back in an
attempt to resist. Never hold someone in a
prone position unless absolutely necessary.
Many have under-developed trunk
muscles (hypotonia) and may not be able
to support an airway.
Finally, transportation can also be difficult.
You or another patroller may need
to ride with the person in the toboggan, or
the autistic individual may not be able to
ride in it at all due to sensory issues. Use of
snowmobiles should probably not be considered
due to the noise and possible safety
concerns. As a last resort and as long as
injury doesn’t preclude it, you might have
to convince the individual to take your
hand for a walk to the patrol room.
Communication Problems
Up to 50 percent of individuals with
autism are nonverbal and learn to communicate
using sign language, picture
cards, gestures, pointing, or computers.
Nonverbal individuals might simply stare
at you or gaze off into space when you try
to address them, or they might act as if
they are deaf and can’t hear you at all.
Those who are verbal might be difficult
to understand or have variable communication
styles. For example, they
might simply repeat everything you say,
a phenomenon that is called echolalic
speech. They might ramble or speak in a
monotone, computer-like, or singsong
voice. Sometimes they speak in high or
low-pitched tones or in whispers, and
their speech patterns can change (often
unconsciously) in the presence of a different
accent. Like young children, they
might say “no” or “why” in response to
every question or give inappropriate
responses. And even if they won’t talk to
you, they might talk to themselves or to
no one in particular. Autistic individuals
are not especially tactful, but they are
typically very honest; they don’t lie.
Obviously, the inability to communicate
can be confusing for the individual
and those interacting with him or her. In
emergency situations, the individual
might not be able to provide his or her
name or any other important information,
and if a parent or guardian isn’t present,
gathering that information can be difficult.
Fortunately, people with autism
sometimes carry or wear identification
Signs and Characteristics of Autism
❚ Limited range of speech or vocabulary (50 percent are nonverbal)
❚ Echolalic, rambling, monotone, computer-like, or singsong speech
❚ Unusual or repetitive physical actions, self-stimulatory behavior, or self-injurious behavior
❚ Inability to understand or engage in nonverbal communication
❚ Tendency to avoid eye contact, cover ears, look away, or be left alone
❚ Pigeon-toed gait or contorted posture
❚ Discomfort with change
❚ Inability to recognize danger
❚ Attachment to objects that are not age-appropriate
❚ Sensitivity to touch, sound, bright lights, odors, or animals
❚ Fascination with water, lights, reflections, or shiny objects
❚ Difficulty judging personal space (may stand too close or too far away)
When Treating or Interacting with a Person with Autism
❚ Approach in a quiet and non-threatening manner.
❚ Reduce noise, light, and stimuli as much as possible.
❚ Do not crowd the person.
❚ If the individual needs to be restrained, approach him or her from the side.
❚ Incorporate the guardian (if one is present) when communicating with the person.
❚ Use deliberate, one-step commands or instructions.
❚ Allow for delayed responses to questions or commands .
❚ Model the behavior that you want the individual to display.
❚ Never place the individual in a prone position unless absolutely necessary. Many have
under-developed trunk muscles (hypotonia) and may not be able to support an airway.
❚ Avoid touching (especially the shoulders and face) unless necessary for the physical exam.
❚ Ignore repetitive behaviors that appear odd unless injury may result.
Helpful Autism Resouces
❚ Center for the Study of Autism: http://www.autism.com
❚ Cure Autism Now: http://www.cureautismnow.org
❚ Law Enforcement Awareness Network (L.E.A.N.) On Us:
http://www.leanonus.org/pages/1/index.htm
❚ North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System:
http://www.northshorelij.com
❚ Project Lifesaver: www.projectlifesaver.org
❚ Specialized Training of Military Parents (STOMP): http://www.stompproject.org
❚ Unlocking Autism: http://www.unlockingautism.org
—Scott Campbell
38 Ski Patrol Magazine | Winter 2005

tags or have non-permanent tattoos
describing their condition and any allergies
or medical concerns.
If a parent or guardian is present,
solicit suggestions on how best to communicate
with the individual, de-escalate
interfering behavior, and avoid sensory
triggers that might intensify the situation.
Whenever possible, use the person’s first
name, communicate on one issue at a
time, and use one-step directions. Even if
the person is verbal, he or she still might
be unable to coherently communicate
with you.
Nonverbal individuals can hear you
and might be able to respond without
speaking. It’s best to speak to them in
direct, short phrases using simple language
and a quiet voice. Avoid double
meanings, slang, or jokes, because people
with ASDs tend to take things literally.
Conversely, some higher-functioning
people, such as the character in “Rainman,”
learn to read early and develop an extensive
vocabulary at a young age. They
might initiate a conversation about a particular
interest that has nothing to do with
the situation at hand. In this instance, take
advantage of the opportunity to gain their
trust by discussing common interests or
educating them about what patrollers do.
Social Interaction Difficulties
In addition to their difficulty communicating,
individuals with ASDs might also
have an underdeveloped sense of appropriate
social behavior. In some cases,
they’ll appear anxious, argumentative,
stubborn, or belligerent. They may avoid
eye contact, cover their ears, look away, or
prefer to be alone. It’s not uncommon for
them to have difficulty judging personal
space, and they may stand too close or
too far away from people with whom
they’re interacting.
When people with ASDs get frustrated
or upset, they might exhibit forms
of self-injurious behaviors, spitting,
screaming, tantrums, stripping, or selfinduced
vomiting. Furthermore, they
sometimes grow attached to objects that
are not age-appropriate. Do not take away
a favored object, even if the item seems
inappropriate for that person. Instead, use
it to connect with the individual.
When examining or helping people
with autism, try to work with them where
they’re most comfortable, even if that’s on
the floor. If they seem nervous or don’t act
appropriately for the situation, model the
behavior you would like them to display. If
they are interested in a piece of equipment
you’re using for an exam, let them hold it
or play with it while you use a second one.
You can demonstrate how you’d use the
device on a doll before using it on them.
Delayed Response to Pain
Another frightening aspect of these disorders
is the way the brain receives and
processes information. While the senses
might pick up on stimuli, the brain can
take a while to get the proper response
started. Pain, or more accurately a delayed
response to pain, can be a big problem.
Many individuals with ASDs seem to withstand
a great deal of pain before they react,
which can be a serious problem in an onmountain
emergency.
Combined with his or her inability to
communicate, an autistic patient might
not notice a serious injury or be able to
alert patrollers to the discomfort. In the
opening scenario, the boy might have
become frustrated or scared enough to
bang his head against the ground but
might not have noticed any pain. For this
reason, it’s important to conduct very thorough
and deliberate exams in case the person
can’t tell you if something is hurt.
CONCLUSION
People with autism can be loveable and
capable individuals who can learn to enjoy
snowsports as much as the rest of us, but
an unfamiliar situation can quickly turn
scary for them. Considering the growing
numbers of the autistic population in the
United States, it is likely that while
patrolling you could encounter someone
with autism or another ASD. Recognizing
the behavior and being sensitive to the
needs of these individuals will help you
maintain a high quality of care. ✚
REFERENCES
Allen, R. “Safety in the Home.” Autism
Society of America. www.autism-society.org/site/PageServer?pagename=
livingsafety.
Autism Information Center. “About
Autism.” Center for Disease Control
and Prevention. http://www.cdc.gov/
ncbddd/dd/aic/about/default.htm.
Curry, K., M. Posluszny, and S. Kraska,
Training Criminal Justice Personnel to
Recognize Offenders with Disabilities.
Washington, D.C.: Office of Special
Education and Rehabilitative Services
News In Print, 1993.
Debbaudt, D. Autism, Advocates and Law
Enforcement Professionals: Recognizing
and Reducing Risk Situations for People
with Autism Spectrum Disorders.
London and Philadelphia: Jessica
Kingsley Publishers, 2002.
Dennis, D. Avoiding Unfortunate Situations.
Handout at Commonwealth
Autism Service Conference, Richmond,
VA, 2004.
Olejnik, L. “Understanding Autism: How
to Appropriately and Safely Approach,
Assess, and Manage Autistic Patients.”
Journal of Emergency Medical Services
(JEMS)29, no. 6 (June 2004): 56.
South Carolina Autism Society. “Protecting
the Child or Adult with Autism: Information
for Parents and Other Caregivers.”www.scautism.org/protect.html.
Scott Campbell and his wife, Debbie, are parents
of a young, nonverbal son with autism, and they
are active in the autism community in Northern
Virginia. Due to frequent moves as part of active
military service, Scott currently patrols at
Liberty Mountain Resort in Pennsylvania, his
eighth patrol in 14 years of volunteer NSP service.
He trains first responders to identify, evaluate,
and treat individuals with autism in emergency
situations. Scott is also an OEC, S&T, MTR, and
Avalanche instructor. For more information
on autism awareness, please contact Scott
at scott.alan.campbell@atec.army.mil.
W inte r 2005 | Ski Patrol Magazine 39

BY MARK DORSEY,
ASSISTANT EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Surveying
the Scene
Members Offer Association Insight
ASK AND YE SHALL RECEIVE. When asked
for feedback, you gave it—in the form of
responses to a specially commissioned survey
called the State of Community
Assessment (SOCA). The survey was sent
to all NSP members in November and
December 2003, and some 4,763 of you
took time to fill it out and send it in, yielding
an overall response rate of 19.4 percent.
The idea behind the SOCA survey
was to provide NSP leadership with baseline
information about the association,
while providing a means to compare
results with those of other, similar associations.
This article touches on several key
survey findings.
RESULTS
The survey illuminated some strengths in
terms of the association’s service to members,
and also suggested areas for
improvement. The following results are
represented as percentages aligning with a
specific response. For comparison’s sake,
baseline results compiled from similar
professional membership associations are
shown in parentheses. (Due to rounding,
the sum of the figures may be slightly less
or more than 100 percent.)
Most Favorable Responses
❚ Overall satisfaction with NSP:
88% positive (87%); 5% neutral
(5%); 8% negative (8%).
❚ How likely are you to renew your
membership when your current
membership expires? 95% likely
(95%); 5% unlikely (6%).
❚ If an employer did not pay the fee, how
likely would you be to maintain your
membership? 94% likely (89%); 6 %
unlikely (12%). This question may
not be as pertinent to NSP members
❚
❚
as to members of other associations,
given that 98 percent of respondents
indicated that they pay for their
membership out of personal funds,
compared to 74 percent of members
of other associations.
Overall, how likely would you be
to recommend that others join this
association? 92% likely (91%);
8% unlikely (8%).
The information I get from this association
is generally useful: 81% agree
(92%); 16% neutral (7%); 3% disagree
(1%).
Least Favorable Responses
❚ I participate in association sponsored
social functions: 21% agree (13%);
43% neutral (33%); 36% disagree
(54%). These responses speak to the
issue of time poverty, and indicate
that other associations apparently
don’t fare much better when it comes
to member participation in their
social functions. However, the study
also suggests NSP members tend to
socialize with each other more than
members of other associations do
with each other.
❚ This association’s web presence
(includes all web-based activities) has
strengthened my sense of connection
with other members: 25% agree (28%);
47% neutral (47%); 28% disagree
(26%). This result is not surprising,
given the reliance on face-to-face
communication evidenced in other
survey responses and the comparison
to other associations. Further, the use
of web-based technology is relatively
new, and other indications show
increasing acceptance of web-based
service among members.
❚
❚
❚
❚
❚
To what extent do you understand the
difference in roles between national,
your division, and your patrol?
36% understand; 37% neutral;
27% don’t understand. This is not
inherently negative. One explanation
may be that members do not differentiate
between national and local
activity, which means that if there
is a service failure by one level of
the organization, all levels are equally
accountable.
All members have equal access to
leadership roles in this association:
44% agree (38%); 27% neutral
(38%); 29% disagree (23%).
I am interested in assuming a
leadership role in this association:
38% agree (35%); 37% neutral
(40%); 26% disagree (25%).
The leaders of this association are
broadly representative of the membership
(in terms of ethnicity, profession,
age, gender, etc.): 47% agree (41%);
33% neutral (41%); 21% disagree
(19%).
This association values diverse perspectives:
45% agree (66%); 39% neutral
(29%); 16% disagree (6%).
NATURE AND VALUE OF
MEMBERSHIP
❚
❚
❚
Being a member of this association
makes it easier for me to be successful:
45% agree (55%); 40% neutral
(32%); 16% disagree (13%).
It is important to me to be a member
of this association: 75% agree (84%);
20% neutral (13%); 5% disagree (3%).
Most important reasons for joining this
association [could select more than one
response] are shown in table 1. These
responses indicate that a “one-size-
40 Ski Patrol Magazine | Winter 2005

❚
❚
fits-all” approach to membership
may not be in NSP’s long-term best
interest. In comparing the responses
of volunteer and paid patrollers,
these groups appear to have different
reasons for affiliating with the NSP,
especially as it relates to connecting
with other members and whether
membership is expected. Judging by
input on these previous three questions,
although respondents may feel
that membership is very important,
the association has some room for
improvement when it comes to helping
members feel successful and
meeting their needs.
[I receive] information about industry,
profession, trade, or interest area
mostly from: [could select more than
one response]. These responses (see
table 2) point to traditional means
of communication being important
to members, with non-traditional
means of communication gaining
ground; one out of three members
receive information via the website
and one in five from staff members.
While it is easy to look at events as
central to delivering messages (and
this is likely much more true at the
divisional level than at the national
level) only about one in eight members
indicate they receive patrolling
information at events,
even though event attendance is
high. The primary delivery systems
are newsletters and magazines.
Do you belong to any other associations
that represent this industry, profession,
trade or interest area? 19% yes (52%);
81% no (48%). This indicates NSP’s
strong position as an information
resource for the member.
table 1
table 2
Most important reasons for joining this association
[could select more than one response] Volunteer Paid Other Associations
Professional development 34% 48% (76%)
It is expected in my profession or field 15% 44% (15%)
Association sets standards 26% 27% (36%)
Cause, concern, or profession is important to me 65% 48% (59%)
Information availability 9% 11% (37%)
Opportunity for connecting with other members 38% 19% (26%)
Networking for professional contacts 5% 6% (30%)
Desire to support advocacy on issues of concern to me 7% 7% (13%)
[I receive] information about industry, profession, trade, or interest
area mostly from:
[could select more than one response] Volunteer Paid Other Associations
Association newsletter 66% 52% (60%)
Association journal/magazine 67% 67% (77%)
Association sponsored events 16% 14% (23%)
Association website 34% 30% (38%)
Non-association publications 10% 16% (22%)
Other association members 32% 31% (13%)
Non-association colleagues/friends 4% 10% (7%)
Association staff 19% 22% (7%)
Association electronic conference/email list 15% 10% (21%)
REPRESENTATION AND
GOVERNANCE
❚
This association is dominated by a
small number of subgroups. (Note:
Negatively worded item. Disagreement
is the positive response.):
CONTINUED
W inte r 2005 | Ski Patrol Magazine 41

❚ CONTINUED FROM PAGE 41
47% agree (33%); 35% neutral
(46%); 18% disagree (21%).
❚ Relationships among various interest
groups within this association are
good: 48% agree (38%); 43% neutral
(57%); 10% disagree (5%).
❚ This association’s leadership does its
job well: 57% agree (64%); 32% neutral
(32%); 11% disagree (5%).
STAFF RELATIONSHIPS/
INFORMATION SUPPORT
❚
❚
❚
❚
❚
❚
If I have a question or problem, I know
how to get in touch with an association
staff person who can help me find
a solution: 69% agree (61%); 18%
neutral (21%); 19% disagree (19%).
This association’s staff does its job well:
66% agree (68%); 28% neutral (28%);
7% disagree (5%).
When I have a problem or question,
NSP shows a sincere interest in resolving
it: 49% strongly agree/agree;
39% neutral; 12% disagree/strongly
disagree.
In my experience, NSP maintains
accurate records: 65% strongly agree/
agree; 19% neutral; 15% disagree/
strongly disagree.
NSP offers services at times that
are convenient for me: 64% strongly
agree/agree; 28% neutral; 8% disagree/strongly
disagree.
NSP performs services right the first
time: 56% strongly agree/agree;
36% neutral; 9% disagree/strongly
disagree.
SURVEY ASSESSMENT
In utilizing survey results, one of the most
difficult steps is narrowing the areas of
focus while defining specific actions that
can contribute to improvements and
desired outcomes. Initial and subsequent
review of the data suggests there are no
differences among respondents that
would merit further analysis of subgroups
within the NSP.
For example, with regard to members’
intention to renew, the data shows that 95
percent of respondents within each analysis
group (i.e., age, membership category,
division) stated they were likely or very
likely to renew their membership. This
means that only 1,325 out of 26,500 people
in the NSP are unlikely to renew. Perhaps
more important, any association executive
will tell you that a 95 percent renewal
intention is quite good.
WHERE DOES THE SURVEY
TAKE US?
This study suggests that NSP covers the
basics pretty well—as evidenced by intention
to renew, the actual renewal numbers,
and the satisfaction with staff
support and communication channels.
However, the association recognizes the
call to improve web-based communication
as well as perform services more correctly
and at times that are more
convenient for members. Further, the
survey suggests that different groups of
members affiliate with NSP for different
reasons, and that NSP needs to explore
how the association meets those needs if
it is to attract and retain new members,
much less retain current members. To
this end, NSP is making changes in computer
systems and web services, which
will ease access to individual member
information, streamline communications
To order a certificate,
fax your request to
800-222-I-SKI
(800-222-4754)
or 303-988-3005.
Include your:
✚ National I.D. number
✚ Mailing address
✚ Credit card number
and expiration date
✚ Name and address
of the gift certificate
designee
between the national organization and
the divisions, and create services impossible
to deliver with current technology.
Moreover, the survey has prompted the
NSP Board of Directors to examine strategic
issues, focusing on how trends will
require the association to offer adaptable,
flexible programs and services to meet the
needs of an increasingly demanding,
diverse, and segmented membership and
industry. Although overall satisfaction levels
are high, issues unique to different stakeholder
groups (i.e., different sports or
populations) should be addressed. Clearly,
the association should not rest on its laurels.
One obvious goal may be to drive
more positive responses to a question like
“What does my association do for me?”
while giving consideration to how those
answers might differ according to where
you live, whether you’re a volunteer or
paid patroller, and your role as a patroller
at your home area.
All in all the SOCA Survey results are
very positive, suggesting that many of you
believe NSP does a good job of providing
value for your membership dollar and
would recommend involvement in the
association to others. Regardless of past
success (or perhaps because of it), you can
look forward to seeing continually improving
member benefits and services. ✚
hate shopping?
NSP Gift Certificates Now Available
If you’re a shopaphobic or you simply resist the notion of wandering aimlessly
through a mall come gift-buying time, you’ll be happy to know that NSP gift certificates
for Winter Catalog items are now available. They’re a great idea for birthdays,
holidays, and other special occasions, and a thoughtful way to congratulate a fellow
instructor on passing an exam or express your appreciation to a supervisor.
To order a certificate—available in any increment of $10—simply fax your
request to 800-222-I-SKI (4754) or 303-988-3005. Send us your name, national
I.D. number, mailing address, credit card number and expiration date, and the name
and address of the gift certificate designee. (You can also mail this information
with your check to: NSP Gift Certificate, 133 South Van Gordon Street, Suite 100,
Lakewood, Colorado, 80228-1700.) We’ll mail the certificate to you or whomever
you designate, free of charge.
Please allow one to two weeks for processing. Rush orders sent overnight via
Express Mail are an additional $10.
42 Ski Patrol Magazine | Winter 2005

avalanche
& mountaineering
BY HENRY BALLARD, DALE ATKINS, AND LIN BALLARD
zoning in
on new probing tactics
R
Researchers are constantly looking for
better ways to find avalanche victims, but
the age-old method of probing will always
be necessary in some situations. While
variations of a standard probe search system
have been in wide use for about four
decades, recent studies suggest that the
original projection for the probability of
detection (POD) of 70 percent for an
average victim was far too optimistic.
Therefore, as researchers in the field, we’ve
been busily crunching numbers and creating
computer models of bodies lodged
in avalanches in order to devise more
effective probing tactics.
A big part of the problem with historical
probe models is that the “targets” incorporated
into the original calculations in
use in the 1960s and ’70s did not adequately
represent the human form. The
victim was depicted by a rectangle that,
depending on whether the victim was in a
vertical, prone/supine, or sideways orientation,
could be of varying size. While the
target was modified in the 1990s into more
of an elliptical shape, neither truly took
into account the full range of positions in
which a body can come to rest in the wake
of a snowslide. A more realistic model of an
avalanche victim’s body shape and positioning
has given us the opportunity to
improve the results of probing.
Over the past year, we developed a
computer program named PROBE, which
takes into consideration the dimensions of
an average human body as well as such
variables as resting location and dimensional
positioning under the snow. By
incorporating a more realistic victim into
an examination of today’s most commonly
used probe/grid procedures, we’ve
collected data that suggest certain modifications
in traditional search procedures
Co-author Lin Ballard (facing camera) and fellow members of the Bryan Mountain Nordic Ski Patrol demonstrate
proper probing aided by a guidon cord marked at 50-cm intervals.
can improve probabilities of detection.
The notion of an improved set of calculations
for the victim set in motion the
search for a more effective probing procedure,
and the findings of this research
were presented at the International Snow
Science Workshop in September 2004 in
Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Here’s a basic
summary of that presentation. Those
seeking more details will find the full
study at http://geosurvey.state.co.us/avalanche/Portals/0/3HPS_ISSW_2004.pdf.
HENRY BALLARD
44 Ski Patrol Magazine | Winter 2005

avalanche & mountaineering
table 1
Comparisons of targets (approximately to scale) and PODs for traditional 75 by 70 cm grids. (A typical body generated by PROBE will have a surface area in
the prone/supine position of between 0.4 and 0.5 m 2 .)
Orientation Target area Square body, Square Elliptical body Ellipse PROBE PROBE
m 2 aligned to grid (1976) POD (1997) POD (2004) POD
Vertical 0.10 20% 19% 22%
Prone/ Supine 0.50 95% 75% 74%
Side 0.40 76% 63% 49%
Average 0.37 70% n/a n/a 59%
WHY PROBE?
While some have suggested that probing is
antiquated and inefficient, it’s still the best
method for finding a victim when other
methods have been exhausted or are not
immediately available. Even with a relatively
high POD, the slow and arduous
probing process can still be more than a
“recovery” procedure, particularly considering
that 14 percent of victims located by
probing are found alive. While immediate
search options such as rescue dogs, beacon
tracking, and the use of electronic systems
such as RECCO (a European avalanche
victim-locating system now making
inroads in the United States) certainly produce
more successful results in terms of
making a live rescue, the fact is that not all
victims wear beacons, and dogs and search
teams often take time to mobilize. For the
foreseeable future, then, rescuers will have
to probe for victims and need to know how
to use the practice to its best advantage.
Although there’s evidence that shepherds
in the Caucasus Mountains used
their staffs as impromptu probing poles
more than 2000 years ago, organized
probe line strategies didn’t develop until
the 18th century, starting in Europe and
eventually making their way to the
United States. In the middle of the 20th
century, the “state of the art” of probing
technique was presented in the Avalanche
Handbook, published by the U.S. Forest
Service in 1952. Written by Felix Koziol
and NSP’s legendary avalanche guru
Monty Atwater, the book included specific
language that probers should be “...spaced
shoulder to shoulder and probe every
square foot.”
By the late 1970s search and rescue
personnel had settled on a probe line
strategy-based on a 75- by 70-cm grid.
A body measurement of 0.4 square meters
aligned with the probing grid resulted in a
projected POD of 76 percent for a body
on its side (table 1). An “average” body of
.37 square meters resulted in a POD of 70
percent. For the actual calculations, refer
to our original paper on the aforementioned
website.
A modification of a technique introduced
in the 1970s—which called for
searchers to probe twice per step rather
than just once (called the open order
coarse probe)—enhanced efficiency of the
coarse probe. Twenty years later, in a
paper presented at the 1996 International
Snow Science Workshop in Banff, Canada,
authors Tim Auger and Bruce Jamieson
made a case for a three-hole-per-step
(3HPS) technique that suggested placing
rescuers 175 cm apart and probing directly
in front of their bodies as well as 50 cm to
the right and left of that center probe. The
probe pole could be angled out 10 degrees
to the sides to allow the searcher to
quickly and easily perform two additional
probes for increased coverage from the
single position.
A year after the introduction of the
3HPS method, Auger and Jamieson
replaced the square model with an elliptical
model in an effort to better represent a
victim’s body in the space beneath the
snow. In terms of creating a realistic image
of a person buried in an avalanche, it was
believed that the new calculations for the
victim’s body (in terms of space and positioning)
were closer to reality than the
0.4-square-meter measurement used in
the old model. Factoring in the elliptical
model of a human body, the researchers
found that the probability of detection
within the traditional 75- by 70-cm grid
was reduced (again, see table 1).
Researchers assumed that the 3HPS
method improved the efficiency of probing,
but a study conducted in 2000
revealed that the insertion of probes at an
angle is ill advised because the procedure
literally allows “too much room” for error.
The results of the study determined that
angled probes leave large unprobed gaps.
Research suggests that probes at 10 degrees
to each side cross paths with the probes
of adjacent searches at a depth of about
210 cm and leave large un-probed gaps on
the first pass. Thus, there are clear indications
that vertical probing provides the
best opportunity for finding victims.
Fortunately, the NSP never adopted or recommended
the angled probing technique,
and to the best of our knowledge it is not
in common usage anywhere today.
OUR EXPERIMENT
Rather than employing the simple geometric
forms used in past computergenerated
models of victims and their
CONTINUED
W inte r 2005 | Ski Patrol Magazine 45

avalanche & mountaineering
table 2
Probabilities of detection calculated for a
first pass of various probe lines calculated
by PROBE.
Probe grid (cm) PROBE POD on first pass
30x30 99.9%
40x40 97%
50x50 88%
60x60 75%
70x70 63%
80x80 51%
75x70 59%
❚ CONTINUED FROM PAGE 45
possible locations, we did our best to
model a body as it might rest in all variations
in the wake of an avalanche. The
PROBE program generates a set of overlapping
spheres to model the torso and
limbs of a buried body in random orientation
with consideration for the natural
range of the movement of the limbs.
Using averages, the victim modeled in the
program is 175 cm in height and consists
of about 950 spheres.
After developing the model of the victim’s
body, we had the computer generate
a model of a snowfield and provide coordinates
and dimensions for a body buried
in that field. The computer was then
instructed to choose a random starting
point from which to begin a search for the
“victim.” With the grid predetermined
and held consistent at 75 by 70 cm and the
victim’s location established, the program
conducted a probe search across the grid
until the victim was found or until the
probing had clearly missed finding the
body on the first pass.
To test the validity of several variations
of the shape and size of the target, the programmers
ran 10,000 probing trials on the
computer. That is, the program ran 10
random starting points for probe searches
for 1,000 separate victims. As shown in
table 1, this model gives an even lower
POD for the 75 by 70 cm grid (except in
cases of vertical body orientation).
We were not just interested in understanding
past results and unexpected
failures. We wanted to find a probing
table 3
table 4
Expected time to discovery for various probing grids
GRID DESCRIPTION (CM), HPS = HOLES PER STEP
30 by 30 3HPS
40 by 40 3HPS
50 by 50 3HPS
70 by 70 2HPS
70 by 75 2HPS
80 by 80 2HPS
60 by 60 3HPS
technique we can recommend and teach
that will yield higher POD percentages
for various target areas, so we started by
collecting more statistics.
EXPECTED TIME UNTIL
DISCOVERY
If first-pass POD percentages were the sole
criteria for devising a probing strategy,
searchers would obviously always use a 30-
by 30-cm fine probe (table 2). The 99.9
percent POD offers some level of assurance
that the victim will be found. But at
what cost? Such a time-consuming grid
search would never be warranted if
searchers hoped to rescue a live avalanche
victim (table 3).
But even when probe lines are used for
recovery rather than rescue operations
some thought must be given to the speed
of the search in terms of the morale and
well-being of the search team. Some past
studies determined probing efficiency by
calculating probes per area per second, but
we chose instead to calculate the time it
would take to find a victim by simulating
how probe lines actually work.
0 50 100 150 200 250 300
EXPECTED TIME TO DISCOVERY (MINUTES)
Comparison of several statistics for several grid sizes. (Percentages are plus or minus 1 percent.)
% FOUND ON VARIOUS PASSES
Technique 1st 2nd 3 or more Time per pass Average passes ETD (min.)
30 cm sq. 99.9% 0.1% 0% 487 min. 0.50 244
40 cm sq. 97% 2.8% 0.04% 274 min. 0.53 144
50 cm sq. 88% 12.1% 0.8% 175 min. 0.64 112
60 cm sq. 74% 20.8% 4.4% 122 min. 0.83 100
Trad. 70x75 60% 26.5% 13.6% 96 min. 1.15 111
To determine the expected time to discovery
(ETD) for each size grid, our calculations
called for a 20-person probe line
inside a space of 10,000 square meters
(1 hectare). We also used an estimate of 3.7
seconds per probe, 4.4 seconds per step, a
descent speed (i.e., the rate at which rescuers
return to the bottom of the debris
field for the second pass) of 1 second per
meter, and 60 seconds for reorganization.
We did our best to keep the numbers reasonable
and consistent across the various
trials (again, see table 3).
After the first pass, we had to define
what we needed to do in order to keep
probing until the body was found. To
maximize the probability of finding the
body, the probe coordinates for the second
pass were offset from the first by half
of the grid dimensions. That is, after covering
the standard 70 cm by 75 cm grid,
the second pass was offset by 35 cm up the
hill and 37.5 cm laterally for each probe
step. Thus the probe holes of the second
pass were exactly halfway between the
holes left by the first pass.
CONTINUED ON PAGE 72
46 Ski Patrol Magazine | Winter 2005

avalanche
& mountaineering
BY STEVEN REINFURT, EdD
be slide-wise to navigate
direct route to avvy info
T
The avalanche danger in the Wasatch,
Utah, backcountry was characterized as
considerable (read: human-triggered avalanches
probable). Early season storms
had deposited several feet of snow that
then weakened during a relatively dry
January. Several small storms then loaded
extra weight on top of the unstable layer
in February. But to my brother, Andy, his
wife, Sharon, and five others who hoped
to cut some fresh tracks in a bounty of
new snow the scene was more enticing
than unnerving. As they traversed the
northwest face of the square-top mountain
ridgeline at 12:45 p.m. on February
27, 2001, little did they know they were
basically skiing over a ticking time bomb.
The group was vacationing from New
Hampshire at Park City’s The Canyons
Resort and decided to take advantage of
easy access to off-piste terrain. All highly
skilled skiers and riders, none of them
had felt compelled to carry avalanche gear
such as shovels, probes, or beacons.
From the top of The Canyon’s Ninety
Nine 90 Lift, the group exited the snowsports
area through a backcountry access
gate and proceeded to Red Cliff Rocks area,
despite large signs warning them of potential
avalanche danger. They crossed the
northwest face, which had a slope angle of
more than 30 degrees and was at an elevation
of about 10,000 feet, two factors that
contribute to the risk of an avalanche.
As Andy continued northwest to view
the entire cornice, Sharon descended from
the ridge and made a few turns before she
fell and lost a ski. Her son and two others
skied down to help and the remaining two
members of the party stayed on the ridge.
As they waited for Andy to return, a large
slab of snow broke loose just below the
ridgeline and carried Sharon, her son, and
Warning signs mark the boundary of The Canyons Ski Resort outside Park City, Utah.
two others 20 to 50 feet down the slope.
Sharon’s son tumbled with the snow until
he hit a tree, forcing him to the surface
unhurt. Another skier who was caught in
the slide was buried up to his waist but
managed to dig himself out. Sharon and
the fourth skier caught in the slide disappeared
into a gully. When the slide
stopped, the group located the fourth
skier, who was completely buried but able
to yell from underneath the snow. Sharon
was still missing.
An immediate rescue effort was called
and then postponed due to slide danger;
search teams were evacuated while the
slope was blasted. When the area was
finally deemed safe, rescuers returned to
the area and located Sharon buried under
4 feet of snow. It was approximately 3:56
p.m., more than three hours after the
slide. My sister-in-law did not survive.
Unfortunately, this dramatic scene is
becoming all too familiar. This year, the
State of Utah is reporting the deadliest season
ever since avalanche reporting began
in 1951. Six people have been killed, and it’s
only February. Among this year’s victims is
a snowboarder caught in a massive slide on
the same face that claimed Sharon
Reinfurt’s life. Coincidentally, a little more
than a year before her death, two other
skiers died in the same spot.
Under similar avalanche warning and
conditions, accident reports from January
22–25, 2005, logged 13 skier and boarder
fatalities in France, Switzerland, and
Austria. These included European, U.S.,
and Canadian citizens whose ages ranged
from the early 20s to late 50s.
All these victims are examples of a
growing trend of skiers and riders who
confuse technical skiing and riding ability
with backcountry preparedness. What’s
more, they are reminders of the over-
AP PHOTO/DOUGLAS C. PIZAC
48 Ski Patrol Magazine | Winter 2005

avalanche & mountaineering
whelming need for better education and
awareness of avalanche danger.
THE LURE OF THE BACKCOUNTRY
Perhaps due to crowded ski areas, long
lines, boredom with the same old slopes,
technological advancements in gear, commercial
marketing of all things extreme, or
the call of the pristine backcountry, a soaring
number of winter enthusiasts in the
past 15 years have taken to crossing beyond
many a resort’s boundaries.
A quick look at the average ski video
of today compared to an older movie creates
a dipstick for what today’s audience
supports. The steep-and-deep flicks that
draw cult-like followings don’t include
much footage of inbound skiing at
family-friendly resorts. Instead, big-name
extreme competition champions are
shown blazing new trails off vertical cliffs
and down 60-degree slopes. These films
seemingly reflect a cultural phenomenon
within snowsports of touting one overarching
concept: the more extreme the
better. Adventurers in Europe and North
America are answering the call of the
wild; some of the individuals are experienced,
some inexperienced. Some go with
guides, some without.
As ski resorts continue to expand and
add new terrain, bigger, faster, and higher
chairlifts take people closer to action that
previously was only accessible to those
willing to “earn their turns” with several
hours or even days of backcountry touring.
What was once out-of-reach is now at
our skitips, and people are taking full
advantage of the new terrain.
Poaching—ducking under area boundary
ropes to access off-piste terrain—has
long been a concern for ski areas worried
about the safety of their guests. However, in
a lot of places in the United States, poaching
is not illegal if ski areas are on and/or
adjacent to state or national forest land,
which is open to public use. Neither is it the
patrol’s or the area’s responsibility to police
those who would ski out-of-bounds at
their own risk. Just as skiing in bounds
presents risks for which the resort is not
responsible, so does skiing beyond the
area’s boundaries. The ropes are merely
indicators of the boundaries of patrolcontrolled
terrain. Still, resorts recognize
the tendency for people to cross over those
lines and have set up “access gates” as a way
to funnel would-be poachers through a
single point at which warning signs and
information can be posted.
Backcountry access gates at snowsports
area boundaries allow people to
explore off-piste terrain without committing
to a several-day jaunt into the wilderness.
You can spend the morning in the
halfpipe or the back bowls, grab some
afternoon freshies on the other side of the
gate, and then return to the hotel hot tub
and aprés-ski activities in the resort village.
This adventurous trend is a good
thing for the snowsports industry as a
whole because it keeps the sports fresh
and exciting. Unfortunately, problems
arise when novices and, yes, even experts
underestimate the danger and overestimate
their qualifications.
WHEN BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO
POORLY PREPARED PEOPLE
Snow scientist Peter Höller conducted a
study of avalanche knowledge 15 years ago
for the Austrian Institute for Avalanche and
Torrent Research in Innsbruck. He drew up
50 questions and distributed 500 copies of
his questionnaire to two regional Austrian
alpine clubs. Three significant findings in
the study suggested that avalanche education
in Austria needed to reach a broader
group, particularly those headed to the
snowy outback.
Höller found that 1) a mere 19 percent
of the ski mountaineers who participated
in the study had any formal
avalanche instruction; 2) only 60 percent
of ski mountaineers regularly participated
in avalanche beacon training or refreshing;
and 3) most of the respondents didn’t
even realize high avalanche danger exists on
north-facing slopes! The investigation
drove home the fact that just because a
backcountry enthusiast had first-class skiing
and guiding skills didn’t mean the
individual had the necessary avalanche
awareness education.
Höller’s immediate recommendations
were to address and reduce these problems
by offering more precise details on hazard
management via public service announcements
on TV and using radio weather
broadcasts that actually mentioned the
word “avalanche.” Seasonally his organization
and numerous others worldwide offer
free classroom seminars and/or nominalfee
avalanche field courses that are formally
advertised and open to everyone. A parallel
icon in the international avalanche industry
is Bruce Tremper, director of the Utah
Avalanche Forecast Center.
Since Höller’s initial research, the
snowsports community has experienced
growing involvement in backcountry
activity. However, despite the efforts of
Höller, Tremper, and others there remains
a major problem: Avalanche accidents
have not decreased in Europe or America.
In fact, fatalities in North America are
still on the rise. The number of U.S. avalanche
fatalities in 2003–04 (34) compared
to 20 years earlier in 1983–84 (14)
and 30 years earlier in 1973–74 (5) suggest
more people are traveling and dying in the
backcountry. Another study conducted in
Austria during the 1999–2000 season
showed a few positive changes, but none
that would suggest backcountry accidents
were less common or less likely to occur
than a decade earlier. In 1990, for example,
about 33 percent of the backcountry
skiers surveyed had little or no idea about
the processes that affect snowpack. In
2000, that number dropped only slightly
to 25 percent. Clearly, the increase in education
and awareness doesn’t match the
increase in activity.
In the years since Höller conducted his
research, there have been numerous developments
in avalanche technology and
tools. For European skiers and ’boarders
the daily avalanche rating is traditionally
found at the ticket office and posted on all
major resort trail map marquees with
flashing lights that visually inform skiers
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W inte r 2005 | Ski Patrol Magazine 49

avalanche & mountaineering
❚ CONTINUED FROM PAGE 49
to become further informed before crossing
area boundary lines. This information
is updated as weather changes. The three
standard lights used for ski safety are
green (go), yellow (use caution), and red
(danger, DO NOT GO). Also, resort terrain
is sometimes taped as “off limits”
when avalanche possibility is high, and
might include the placement of pictorial
signage that is easy to understand. In
some situations patrollers are placed at
specific on-hill spots to give awareness of
the pending dangers.
Many companies have introduced a
new generation of products that, when
used correctly, can help mitigate avalanche
dangers. User-friendly avalanche beacons,
technical clothing, collapsible shovels, and
an invention called the AvaLung (See
“AvaLung Designed to Deliver O 2 to
Avalanche Burial Victims,” spring 2000) all
promise to buy an individual and his or
her traveling companions more time in
the case of an avalanche. More time, that
is, but not a miracle.
Conversely, these tools can provide a
false sense of a security. Having the equipment
means nothing if the people don’t
practice using it before getting caught in a
slide. High-tech equipment will never
replace sound judgment based on direct
experience and that most fundamental
asset: common sense. People often ignore
or simply don’t understand nature’s warnings,
and thereby fail to follow basic rules
of avalanche safety. Placing that responsibility
in the hands of others, though, isn’t
the answer.
Backcountry guides take people offpiste
into territories where the majority of
avalanches occur, but you can’t blame
Mother Nature for every injury or fatality.
Even trained professionals have been
known to throw caution to the wind when
emotions and steep-and-deep stashes get
the best of them. Errors of judgment
account for a large percentage of avalanche
accidents every year. In a few cases,
placing too much trust in a guide proved
fatal for some skiers; their guide chose to
go in overconfident and did not retreat
even when he or she knew better.
In Europe, official investigations into
avalanches in recent years have uncovered
accidents resulting from poor decision
making on the part of overconfident veteran
guides. In fact, there are several cases
pending on the continent that involve
experienced backcountry leaders who
exhibited what the courts call “reckless
judgment and culpable negligence” that
led to a death or severe injury to one of
their guests. When facts show that safer
alternatives were available and accidents
could have been prevented, European
guides often have their licenses revoked
and are subject to legal action.
Mother Nature is not always at fault,
and there isn’t always a negligent professional
to blame either. Sharon Reinfurt and
the other victims caught in avalanches outside
of The Canyons let their advanced ski
skills outweigh their knowledge of terrain,
snowpack, and weather.
ALPING OTHERS ALP THEMSELVES
Writing an article for Ski Patrol Magazine
about the risks of backcountry travel is sort
of like preaching to the choir. Most
patrollers—especially those in the Rockies,
out West, or in the Alps—pursue extensive
avalanche education. Many of us train for
rescue efforts and understand how to avoid
dangerous situations. Even those of us in
places such as Michigan, New Hampshire,
Vermont, and Virginia have participated in
an avalanche course or two. Unfortunately,
area guests don’t always understand that
our responsibilities and our work stop at
the ski area boundary lines and that “backcountry”
means uncontrolled.
Neither patrols nor ski area management
should ever be held responsible for
poor judgment on the part of their guests,
especially when the guests leave the area’s
boundaries. While we can’t prevent people
from ducking ropes or skiing out-ofbounds
and into dangerous terrain, there
are a lot of ways patrollers can encourage
skiers and riders to learn about and be
prepared for avalanche danger.
Considering the ever-increasing ease
of access to information of all kinds,
there’s no excuse for those thinking of visiting
the backcountry not to keep up with
the latest avalanche information available,
whether it relates to new equipment, rescue
techniques, or even daily snow conditions
for a given region. However, some
people might not know where to look for
it or even that they should. And when
intrigue in the form of fresh powder just
beyond the nylon rope meets impulse, the
unprepared get in trouble.
As a patroller, you can lead by example:
Keep current on your knowledge via the
avalanche courses offered in your area. Stay
in close contact with local snow authorities.
If your area provides backcountry
access by way of gates, take the time to
check snow conditions in those off-piste
areas, even if you don’t plan to ski there.
Understand how recent weather patterns
might have affected the snow, and be prepared
to explain it to guests who are thinking
of skiing out of bounds. You can also
facilitate with the education of others by
helping people in your town or visitors to
your area find the education they need.
(For recent avalanche statistics and information
in North America or Canada, the
following are a few sites with outstanding
links: www.avalanche.org, www.nsidc.org,
www.nsp.org, www.csac.org, and www.
avalanche.ca. To view the various offerings
of European avalanche centers, as well as
links, refer to www.lawine.org.)
The NSP works with a number of
affiliate organizations that lead avalanche
courses on a regular basis. One such NSP
affiliate is the Colorado Mountain College
(CMC), an accredited school that offers a
popular Level I Avalanche Training
Seminar. The curriculum covers the basics
of terrain, weather patterns, and snowpack
in terms of avalanche buildup. Also
included is information on everything
from the natural process of snow generation
in the atmosphere to current avalanche
rescue procedures. Patrollers and
recreational skiers alike are welcome and
CONTINUED ON PAGE 52
50 Ski Patrol Magazine | Winter 2005

avalanche & mountaineering
Jackson Hole Sets Example
for Backcountry Travelers
❚ CONTINUED FROM PAGE 50
encouraged to take the course.
For those who live in an area where
there is no avalanche instruction or who
are interested in creating their own programs,
the American Avalanche Association
(AAA) has developed a set of guidelines for
that purpose (see www.americanavalancheassociation.com).
While the AAA’s guidelines
do not represent a curriculum for
Wyoming’s Jackson Hole Ski Area stands out as a shining example of how to both provide
backcountry access and promote safety for snowsports enthusiasts. Choices made by the
resort’s area management help create a positive, personal interaction with visitors who choose
to cross the area’s boundary. The resort took the time to demonstrate that it’s possible to provide
quality customer service without instilling a feeling of being policed.
The resort literally “opens the door” for backcountry enthusiasts by providing four gates
within the area’s boundaries that allow guests to access the backcountry. The gates are only
open at times when backcountry conditions meet the criteria for safety as determined by a
member of the ski patrol designated as the “touring officer,” or that individual’s assistant.
Each of the four gates feature “control points” that fit into a plan of “physical access
management” whereby skiers and snowboarders are forced to stop at the gate and confront
signage and questions regarding their readiness for backcountry travel. The three control
points are as follows:
1. A swinging boundary gate that the guest must physically push open to access the given touring
area. Each gate has a locking sign that is adjusted daily with regard to the conditions
beyond it. When the sign on the gate is flipped down, it reads: “YOU ARE NOW LEAVING THE
SKI AREA BOUNDARY. THIS IS YOUR DECISION POINT.” This side of the sign also contains language
stating that hazards exist in the touring area, guides are recommended, and individuals
are responsible for their own safety and rescue. When the sign is flipped up to lock the
gate, it contains this message: “CLOSED DUE TO AVALANCHE HAZARDS.”
2. Each gate also features a notice that’s updated periodically with postings for the backcountry
avalanche report as issued by the region’s forecast laboratory. Every day the snow safety
manager delegates the responsibility of updating the signs to a specific patroller.
3. And finally, touring status boards with area maps are located at the gates, ticket areas,
base, and top stations as well as other locations that are applicable to that given resort’s
backcountry area. In addition, this is usually where resort liability disclaimers are clearly
posted. The boards are easy to read under various weather conditions, have meaningful
information (e.g., scaled map of area, tips, and emergency phone numbers), and feature a
laminated daily regional avalanche center warning report.
In addition to the area setting a prime example for the snowsports do-it-yourself crowd, the
Jackson Hole Resort Mountain Sports School helps enthusiasts seeking knowledge by offering
a number of backcountry camps each winter. As part of the school, Jackson Hole Alpine Guides
prides itself on being an “educational guide service,” and the online course description for its
main winter camp says that it is: “. . . designed to teach aspiring backcountry travelers how to
safely break away from in-bounds terrain and explore the areas beyond . . . ” The goal of the
backcountry camp is to teach participants how to travel in the winter backcountry “safely
and confidently.”
Over the course of the three-day camp, leaders cover the basics of route selection, avalanche
hazard evaluation, transceiver use, and rescue techniques. Students learn snow safety
by performing such tests as the compression tap, shovel shear, and Rutschblock. In addition
to supervising the hands-on aspect of the course, guides also cover intangible topics such as
backcountry decision-making and group dynamics.
—Steven Reinfurt
instruction, they do provide a framework
to be used by instructors interested in
writing their own curricula. The guidelines
were developed by avalanche professionals
who are experts in avalanche
forecasting, education, and control.
More than anything, patrollers can
help by staying in touch with area guests
as well as area management. Talk to skiers
and riders who plan to travel in the backcountry
and make sure they know what
steps to take before venturing off-piste. If
part of your patrol duties include
“sweeps,” frequently visit access points
where skiers and riders might go out-ofbounds
and dissuade those who aren’t
prepared. Consult with area management
about ways to publicize educational programs
offered by the area, the patrol, or
local affiliates.
CONCLUSION
When passing through the backcountry,
it’s never simply a case of every man,
woman, and child for him- or herself.
Staying safe demands solid education,
awareness, common sense, the possession
and knowledge of the proper tools, and
common courtesy for the lives of others.
Even if the number of avalanche deaths in
the U.S. and Europe begin to decline, it’s
important for everyone—from patrollers
to guides to backcountry novices—to
remain alert and on the lookout for potential
danger in the outback. Overconfidence
can easily kill, but keeping current with
education and refresher courses in avalanche
safety skills can save lives. ✚
Dr. Steven Reinfurt is a member of the American
Association of Avalanche Professionals, American
Mountain Guides Association, National Ski Patrol
(as a Senior alpine and nordic patroller, instructor/
trainer, and Advanced Avalanche and Mountaineering
instructor/trainer). He’s also the co-founder
of the European division of AAAP as well as board
member of the Cyberspace Avalanche Center.
Reinfurt has resided in Germany for more than
20 years and is a member of the Garmisch
Mountain Patrol and the Bergwacht/Skiwacht
helicopter rescue service.
52 Ski Patrol Magazine | Winter 2005

in memoriam
DONALD I. GILBERT
Loveland Basin and Valley Ski Patrol and
the Rocky Mountain Division will dearly
miss longtime patroller Donald I.
Gilbert, who died February 16, 2004, due
to a heart condition. He was 80.
Don was born on January 22, 1924,
in Los Gatos, California. After serving in
World War II as a communications specialist,
Don graduated from the University
of California, Davis, with a degree in dairy
science. He worked more than 20 years as
a microbiologist before deciding to follow
his passion and begin a career in carpentry.
He found great satisfaction working
with his hands. His love of the outdoors
brought him to skiing, and eventually
to Colorado.
Don joined the Far West Division in
1958 and served in the Sacramento and
Sugar Bowl Patrols in California. He was
the Sacramento Patrol’s treasurer from
1961 to 1963, patrol leader from 1964 to
1966, and assistant patrol leader from
1969 to 1970. He became a mountaineering
instructor and avalanche instructor
and also served as section chief and first
aid adviser for the Mother Lode Region.
He also was involved in Ski and Toboggan
testing and training. In 1967 he received
National Appointment #3116.
In 1972, Don moved to Denver and
joined the Loveland Basin and Valley Ski
Patrols, where he was active in avalanche
training until he became an auxiliary
patroller in 1988. He became a CPR
instructor and OEC instructor in 1990,
then served as Eastern Region OEC advisor
in 1996 and 1997. Don received the
Distinguished Service Award in May 2000
and remained active at the patrol level
until his retirement in 2000.
Don always had a smile, a joke, and a
hug for all, and he was well-liked
throughout the patrolling community.
He is survived by his sister, Jackie; son
Steven; two daughters Roseanna and
Jennifer; five grand children; and four
great grandchildren.
SUBMITTED BY PATROLLERS OF THE LOVELAND
BASIN AND VALLEY SKI PATROL, CO
WILLIAM E. “BILL” CAMPBELL
The National Ski Patrol lost a piece of living
history with the passing of William E.
Campbell, an alumni member of the 1960
Olympic Ski Patrol at Squaw Valley,
California. Bill died peacefully at his home
on April 3, 2004, after a long illness.
He was born July 31, 1925, in Morton,
Washington, a small logging town at the
foot of Mt. Rainier, and those impressionable
early years in the mountain environment
triggered a lifelong love of the
outdoors.
In 1943 he moved to Phoenix, Arizona,
and graduated with a degree in electrical
engineering from the University of Arizona,
where he was a member of the engineering
honor society. He tried to enlist in the Army
but was rejected for being “too skinny.”
After college he was drafted (not too skinny
this time) and had the interesting fortune to
sometimes work alongside the German scientists
brought to this country after the war.
When he got out of the service, he went to
work briefly for General Electric and then
joined Arizona Public Service, from which
he retired after 38 years.
Bill joined the National Ski Patrol when
the Phoenix Ski Patrol was formed in 1952.
For more than 20 years he served as patrol
leader of that group, a metropolitan patrol
that served Flagstaff’s Arizona Ski Bowl,
Sunrise Ski Area, and Williams Ski Area. A
special joy for Bill was being a member of
the 1960 Olympic Patrol and then attending
many of the group’s reunions over the
years. A fellow alumni member of that
patrol was Jimmie Nunn, with whom Bill
shared a lifelong friendship. Having known
each other since 1947, Jimmie gave the
eulogy at Bill’s memorial service.
Bill received National Appointment
#1877 and continued his patrol affiliation
until the early 1980s. He suffered a massive
heart attack in 1988 and dealt with serious
heart disease with admirable dignity and
tenacity from then on. Though his health
exhausted him, his grandchildren were a
great joy. He shared his love of the outdoors
with his sons, as they went on many
memorable hunting and fishing excursions
over the years. The camping and skiing
trips were truly family favorites.
Bill is survived by Nancy, his wife of
more than 39 years; sons, Chris and Ian;
and four grandchildren.
THE CAMPBELL FAMILY, PHOENIX, AZ
JIMMIE NUNN, FLAGSTAFF, AZ
THEODORE “TED” SALESKE
Wisconsin’s Nordic Mountain Ski Patrol
mourns the loss of Theodore “Ted”
Saleske, who died July 1, 2004, after a fiveyear
battle with cancer. He was 75.
Born on August 11, 1929, in Milwaukee,
Ted proudly served his country as
a member of the Air Force and later pursued
an accounting degree at Spencerian
College in Tennessee. He worked as vice
president for Ideals Publishing and later
served as a business administrator for the
Rockford Assembly of God Church in
Rockford, Illinois. His first wife, Beverly,
preceded him in death in 1984.
Though Ted skied occasionally in his
early years, his workload prevented him
from pursuing the sport more ardently
until an invitation from a friend moved
him to renew his interest in skiing in 1985.
From then on he began taking ski trips to
Austria, New Zealand, and many
American ski destinations. Ted collected
pins from the various resorts as mementos
of his travels. His second wife, Martha,
whom he married in 1989, accompanied
Ted on many of his ski trips. Martha was a
loving companion, glad to see him
through good times and bad. In 1994 Ted’s
desire to serve others moved him to join
the Nordic Mountain Ski Patrol, which he
served with distinction. For three years,
Ted was the patrol’s secretary-treasurer.
Sadly, Ted’s patrol service was interrupted
when he was diagnosed with cancer,
but a lengthy remission allowed him
to return to patrolling after a year’s
absence. In addition to skiing, Ted
enjoyed hunting and fishing, and he
spent many happy times teaching his
grandchildren to fish. Also very dear to
his heart was his church, and there he
served God humbly and joyfully.
54 Ski Patrol Magazine | Winter 2005

in memoriam
Ted’s happy smile and his willingness
to serve will be sorely missed by all who
called him friend.
Survivors include a son, a daughter,
and seven grandchildren.
REV. JOHN P. BRANDT
NORDIC MOUNTAIN SKI PATROL, WI
JOHN HIGHT
Members of the Snoqualmie and Hyak ski
patrols came together on December 30,
2004, to remember John Hight, a dedicated
patroller and friend, who died on
July 2, 2004. He was 87.
Born in Seattle, Washington, on
October 2, 1916, to John “Jack” Hight and
Harriet “Olive” Crawford Hight, John was
introduced to skiing by a junior high
school teacher, Lyle St. Louis, who later
became the first elected division director
of the Pacific Northwest Division. Hooked
immediately, John made his own pair of
Maplewood skis in shop class, and in 1938
he joined the National Ski Patrol.
In 1941, John joined the U.S. Navy
and served in the South Pacific. One day
the ship captain handed John two letters.
One notified him that he received
National Appointment #545; the other
was a letter from Minnie Dole inviting
John to transfer to the Tenth Mountain
Division of the U.S. Army. John declined
and stayed in the Navy. He served a second
tour during the Korean Conflict.
John adopted a daughter and had a
son with his first wife, Betty, whom he
divorced in 1961. In 1972, he met Norma
while working at Snoqualmie Summit,
and they were married a year later.
During his years as a patroller, John
served as the Pacific Northwest Division
equipment advisor, assistant patrol director,
and patrol director, and was the first
member of the Ski Patrol Rescue Team
(SPART) at Snoqualmie. He also spent
two years as patrol director at Mt. Hyak.
John passed on his love for skiing to
his son and everyone with whom he came
into contact. He will be missed.
FRED HOHEIM
PACIFIC NORTHWEST DIVISION
BARRY KOEHLER
Washington’s Snoqualmie Pass Ski Area
suffered a great loss on August 3, 2004,
when patroller Barry Koehler died in a
plane crash. He was 57.
Barry was piloting a light plane from
Sequim, Washington, on his way to Seattle
when he and two passengers went down in
the Hurricane Ridge area on the Olympic
Peninsula. Those who have known Barry
for many years are shocked and dismayed
that he will not be with us anymore.
An active hiker, biker, blue water
adventure-kayaking tour leader, and pilot,
Barry put his heart in everything he did,
especially patrolling. He joined the
Snoqualmie Pass Ski Patrol in 1980, and
stayed on the team until 1988 when he
moved to Hurricane Ridge. There he
assumed various patrol leadership roles,
serving as assistant duty patrol leader
in 1989, as duty patrol leader from 1990 to
1992, and as patrol director from 1992
to 1995. Always eager to gain more experience,
Barry completed several avalanche
education courses in late 1993 and early
1994. He was also a section chief, an assistant
Ski and Toboggan advisor for the
region, and a member of the division’s
toboggan demonstration team. His sharp
eyes and quick wit will be forever missed;
he was a class act.
Barry is survived by his daughter, Liz,
who is a Senior patroller at Summit West
Ski Area on Snoqualmie Summit.
RUSTY PARNELL
ALPENTAL SKI PATROL, WA
BOB RONNER
It is with deep sadness that members of
the Okemo Ski Patrol in Vermont say
goodbye to Bob Ronner, who died peacefully
in his sleep on September 1, 2004.
Bob joined the Okemo Ski Patrol in
1987. Through the years he became our
mountain’s OEC and CPR/AED instructor.
He had a passion for skiing and for sharing
his love of this sport and his knowledge of
OEC with other skiers and patrollers.
Bob’s passion was not limited to skiing.
He was preparing for his 23rd
marathon. He was also an avid hunter,
fisherman, hiker, sailor, and diver. He
taught his grandchildren about all of his
outdoor sports and took them annually
on as many vacations as their parents and
school teachers would permit.
He was equally attentive to his friends.
From just listening, to offering a place to
stay, Bob was always available to help. His
mountain breakfasts at the top patrol hut
are legendary; he made the best
“McRonner” breakfast sandwiches regularly
and was always planning his next
patrol breakfast or barbeque.
Always smiling, he brightened every
morning meeting with a greeting that
included a hug. And each first run Bob
made down Okemo began by stopping at
a beautiful picturesque knoll, to give
thanks for the privilege of being in such a
beautiful environment. A daily thought
that would be good for all of us to have!
A true man of peace, love, and respect
for all people, Bob will be sorely missed.
JIM MCCALL
OKEMO MOUNTAIN PATROL, VT
WILLIAM R. HARRIS
Eastern Division’s Catamount Ski Patrol
lost one of its most stalwart and dedicated
members when William R. “Rees” Harris,
of Salisbury, Connecticut, died on
September 7, 2004. He was 87.
Rees was a graduate of Williams
College in Williamstown, Massachusetts.
His commitment to emergency services
and skiing was a recurring theme
throughout his life. He enlisted in the
Army in 1942 and served with the Tenth
Mountain Division and the 38th Infantry.
He was awarded numerous ribbons and
medals, including the Bronze Star for
“meritorious achievement in combat.” In
1961 he joined the NSP, serving the
organization as an active ski patroller for
nearly 45 years. For many of those years—
when NSP members still participated in
American Red Cross training programs—
Rees was a first aid and CPR instructor for
his patrol, and he also managed to work as
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in memoriam
❚ CONTINUED FROM PAGE 55
an EMT on his local ambulance squad. He
received National Appointment #3751.
Rees had skied at numerous areas
throughout Europe and North America;
however, he called Catamount his home. In
addition to being a Senior patroller and
EMT he initiated the start of emergency
medical services in his home state of
Connecticut. He was the first chairman of
the Governor’s Commission on Emergency
Medical Services and wrote the
state’s first ambulance regulations. He was
also the founder of the Salisbury Volunteer
Ambulance Service and one of the first
EMS instructors in Connecticut.
He is survived by his wife, Ginny, who
has also been a member of Catamount’s
patrol; his son, William; daughter, Laura;
and three grandchildren.
The Catamount Ski Patrol mourns
the loss of a long-time friend.
FRED HARDER
CATAMOUNT SKI PATROL, NY
W. ROBERT MELVILLE, JR.
W. Robert Melville, a former member of
the Swain Mountain Ski Patrol in New
York, died suddenly on September 8,
2004, of a heart attack at his home in
Scottsville, New York. He was 81.
Bob joined the Swain Ski Patrol in 1964
and became a Senior patroller after passing
his Ski and Toboggan test during the blizzard
of 1966 that left all the Senior candidates
and examiners stranded in the storm
and unable to travel home for two days.
After many years of quiet and steady leadership
by example, he was elected to serve
as patrol director at Swain from 1985 to
1987. Bob retired from patrolling in 1987
and became an NSP alumni member. His
competent demeanor earned him the
respect of all who had contact with him,
and he continued to maintain a close relationship
with patrollers after retiring. His
son, John, continues his patrolling legacy at
Bristol Mountain, New York.
Born, raised, and educated in Buffalo,
New York, Bob served in the Army Corps
of Engineers in Europe during World War
II. After the war, he received his bachelor’s
degree in mechanical engineering from
MIT and went to work for Bausch and
Lomb Optical Company in Rochester. He
spent 40 years with the company and
finally retired as a vice president.
An avid skier and sailor, Bob shared
his passions with his wife, Jean, their four
children, and their grandchildren. During
the years that Bob patrolled, Jean worked
as a ski instructor, and they skied extensively
in the United States, Canada, and
Europe. A summer home on Tapawingo
Island in Ontario, Canada, was the starting
point for many trips around the Great
Lakes and through the Sault St. Marie.
Woodworking was another of Bob’s hobbies,
and he filled his home with beautiful
furniture crafted in his shop. He also handbuilt
the canoes his family used to explore
the waterways of Parry Sound, Ontario.
Bob is survived by his wife, Jean; a
daughter, Ann; three sons, Robert III, John,
and James; and nine grandchildren. He was
a friend and colleague of many patrollers
throughout his years on the slopes and will
be missed by all who knew him.
HARRY STONEHAM AND NICHOLAS SCHIAVETTI
SWAIN SKI PATROL, NY
CYNTHIA S. GARDNER
The 49 Degrees North Ski Patrol in
Washington lost one of its cherished
alumni members with the passing of
Cynthia Gardner on September 17, 2004,
following a two-and-a-half year battle
with cancer. She was 60.
Cynthia was born on February 12,
1944, to Harry E. Spieth and Cynthia
Spieth in Boise, Idaho. Her early years
were spent traveling the world, as her
father was in the Air Force. After 33 moves
in 13 years, Cynthia’s family ended up in
Tacoma, Washington, where she attended
Wilson High School. Later she attended
both the University of Washington and
the University of Puget Sound. From 1966
to 1979 she worked for Washington
Mutual Savings Bank and later ran her
own tailoring business for 10 years.
On August 28, 1964, Cynthia married
Ron Gardner, whom she met during college
(and who is now a member of the
NSP). They lived in Seattle and Spokane
for 24 years before moving to Denver in
1990.
Cynthia joined the National Ski Patrol
in 1979 as a member of the 49 Degrees
North patrol. She served as a local and
regional board member during her active
patrolling years. In 1985 she received
National Appointment # 6553. She discontinued
her active service in 1987, and in
1988 became an alumni member. Cynthia
will be missed by all who knew her.
FRED HOHEIM
WHITE PASS SKI PATROL, WA
ROBERT J. HOSTAK
The Hyak Ski Patrol in Washington lost
one if its finest when Robert J. Hostak
died on October 1, 2004, after a battle
with cancer. He was 71.
Bob was born in 1933 to Louis and
Leona Hostak and grew up in the Seattle
area. After high school, he served in the
U.S. Army for three years and received a
Good Conduct Medal, a National Defense
Service Medal, and achieved the rank of
sergeant. Bob attended Everett Community
College and in 1957 began working for
Boeing. Three years later, he married his
first wife, Patricia, with whom he had one
daughter, Connie. He and Patricia were
later divorced.
Several years ago, Bob retired from
Boeing. He remained in south Seattle with
his second wife, Marian, whom he married
just one year ago.
The former director of the Hyak Patrol,
Bob will be remembered for his courage in
dealing with a patrol and an area that had
management problems for many years in
the mid-1960s. He was also the patrol director
during a chairlift accident in which a
young boy was seriously injured after being
thrown from the chair.
According to Shirley Cummings, who
patrolled with him in the 1960s, Bob’s
leadership skills were well-known throughout
the region. When the Alpental Ski Area
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56 Ski Patrol Magazine | Winter 2005

in memoriam
❚ CONTINUED FROM PAGE 56
opened, Bob was asked to leave Hyak and
move to Alpental to become the first
patrol leader there and to organize and
train a whole new group of patrollers. In
recent years, we were pleased that Bob
came back to Hyak for alumni ski days
and dinners. He was in great spirits,
happy to share the news of his recent
marriage to Marian, and planned to come
up to Hyak to visit again.
GARY M. BURKE AND SHIRLEY CUMMINGS
HYAK SKI PATROL, WA
LINDA LESTER
The Western Appalachian Region said
goodbye to one of its finest patrollers on
October 12, 2004, when Linda Lester lost
a six-year battle with cancer in Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania. She was 56.
Linda was born in Braddock,
Pennsylvania in 1948. She met and married
her husband Lee, with whom she
raised two children. In 1991, she joined
the Boyce Park Alpine Ski Patrol in
Southwestern Pennsylvania and later
became an EMT and an OEC instructor.
She often visited neighboring patrols to
help teach candidate courses. When the
Boyce Park Nordic Patrol formed, Linda
became the patrol director and is remembered
for her drive and dedication.
When she wasn’t on the mountain,
Linda was running Perfection Sewing
shop, which she owned. She also worked
at the Children’s Hospital in Pittsburgh.
When work began to conflict with her
patrol duties at Boyce Park, she joined the
Courtesy Patrol at Seven Springs, where
Lee worked as a safety ranger.
Even in failing health, Linda tried to
help whenever and wherever possible.
When she ended her active patrolling
career, she joined the alumni patrol and
was a member until her death.
Linda is survived by her husband, Lee,
and her two children, Michael and
Brooke. She will be greatly missed by all
who knew her.
GUY LOMBARDO
WESTERN SECTION CHIEF
WESTERN APPALACHIAN REGION
WILLIAM ROBINSON
William “Digger” Robinson, longtime
patroller with ties to NSP pioneers Minnie
Dole and Roger Langley, died on
November 1, 2004. He was 82.
In the 1920s, at the age of 10, Bill began
skiing with friends at various areas in New
Hampshire. He participated in local and
regional amateur jumping events, through
which he met and became close friends
with Roger Langley (National Appointment
#1), who was the head of the
National Ski Association. During an event
at Mt. Mansfield on March 4, 1938, Bill and
Roger met Minnie Dole, who told them
about the ski patrol he had formed at
Mansfield. Intrigued, Roger suggested
forming a national patrol committee as a
subgroup of his National Ski Association.
He asked Minnie to head up the program.
Bill became one of the first patrollers
in the system, although being just 16, he
was too young for official recognition. A
few years later when World War II began,
Bill enlisted in the Navy. After the war, Bill
officially joined the National Ski Patrol
and remained an active member for 56
years. In 1987 he received National
Appointment #6805.
After the war, Bill met and married
his wife Phyllis, with whom he had a son,
William Jr. Bill became the undertaker at
the Pillsbury Funeral Parlor in Barre,
Massachusetts, and remained there until
his retirement in 1987. One of the last
funerals Bill coordinated was that of
Roger Langley.
Bill shared his stories about the “good
ol’ days” of skiing with anyone willing to
listen. He loved the sport and he loved the
National Ski Patrol.
LAURIE PULIAFICO
PINE RIDGE PATROL, MA
REX McLEAN
Mt. High Resort in California lost a dear
friend when Rex McLean died of lymphoma
of the brain on November 27,
2004, at his home in Wittier, California.
He was 72.
Rex McLean was born on July 15, 1931
to Rowena and James McLean in Oxnard,
California. He joined the U.S. Navy in 1951
and served four years before being honorably
discharged. In 1957 he married his
bride and lifelong friend Normadale
“Nornie” Carlson. Rex graduated from
U.C. Santa Barbara with a degree in industrial
arts and later earned a master’s degree
at U.C. Long Beach. He and Normadale
had a son and a daughter.
For more than 40 years Rex worked as
a teacher and counselor with the Wittier
Union High School and is remembered by
peers and students for his friendship and
leadership. In 1962, he put those attributes
to work when he joined the National
Ski Patrol. He served as patrol director at
Mt. High and was the Wrightwood
Section chief for many years. He received
National Appointment #6817 in 1987.
As a memorial to Rex’s 40 years of
service, Mt. High Resort has announced
that it’s renaming the top patrol shack
“Rex” in his honor.
He is survived by his wife Nornie; son
Guy; daughter Sandra; two children; and
three siblings, David, Sandy, and Roy. He
will be greatly missed. Happy trails, Rex.
GARY BIEHL AND TERRY DIPPLE
MT. HIGH SKI PATROL, CA ✚
If a fellow patroller has passed away, the
national organization would like to help your
patrol pay its respects in Ski Patrol
Magazine.
To keep the In Memoriam department current,
please submit your write-up within
three months of the patroller’s death. Also,
please keep obituaries to 300 words or less
and include a daytime number where you
may be reached.
Send your submission to Ski Patrol
Magazine, 133 South Van Gordon St., Suite 100,
Lakewood, CO 80228-1700 or via e-mail to
spm@nsp.org. For more information please
call (303) 988-1111 or e-mail spm@nsp.org.
58 Ski Patrol Magazine | Winter 2005

news briefs
NSP Helps Educate
USSA Med Crew
In November 2004, the National Ski Patrol,
in partnership with the United States Ski
and Snowboard Association (USSA) and
Wilderness Medical Society (WMS), held a
three-day emergency care training course for
USSA team physicians and medical staff. The
course offered attendees continuing medical
education (CME) credits through the WMS.
The course was held at Beaver Creek,
Colorado, the weekend before the “Birds of
Prey” World Cup Downhill, thus giving USSA
staffers the opportunity to work alongside Vail
and Beaver Creek patrollers who provide emergency
care at the annual event. Faculty for the
course included experts in sport- and winterrelated
emergency medicine, with support
from local NSP race patrollers.
A committee of NSP and WMS members
in conjunction with USSA created original
course content specifically designed for those
who provide medical coverage to elite ski and
snowboard athletes at training camps or competitions
around the world.
The course covered topics from NSP’s
fourth edition of Outdoor Emergency Care and
subjects specific to the concerns of team
physicians. Training consisted of morning lectures,
afternoon hands-on outdoor scenarios,
and evening sessions on related topics.
“As NSP continues to explore new opportunities
for membership and association
enhancement, events such as the USSA course
will strengthen the association’s credibility
with industry partners and support the vision
of the NSP being the premier provider of education
programs and services that benefit the
global outdoor recreation community,” said
Julie Rust, director of the Vail Ski Patrol. ✚
DON’T BLAME YOUR MAIL CARRIER
You won’t receive a spring/summer issue of Ski
Patrol Magazine, but it’s not because of hording by
the U.S. Postal Service or censorship run amok. The
spring/summer issue, which traditionally contains
the Refresher Study Guide and some OEC-oriented
articles, will be replaced by a separate magazine—
under a new title—devoted solely to Outdoor
Emergency Care. Look for it this summer! ✚
New Education Director Settles In
at National Office
The NSP has hired Bill Spialek as its
national education director. Spialek
will be responsible for developing, managing,
and supervising the organization’s
educational programs. He will serve as an
educational resource for NSP members
and divisions, while also acting as liaison
with industry partners, regulatory agencies,
and other organizations.
“Bill is a great fit for this job because
he has a strong background in adult education
and medical credentialing,” said
Stephen Over, NSP executive director.“His
main function will be to develop, improve,
and promote NSP educational programs
not only to the membership but to the
industry at large so the NSP can expand its
programs into new markets.”
Spialek has a bachelor of science degree
and is slated to obtain a master’s degree in
Health Care Administration from Denver’s
Regis University in December 2005. He has
worked as an instructor, trainer, and director
for several private ambulance companies,
one fire department, and two medical
centers in the Denver area. He was most
recently employed at the Medical Center
of Aurora, Colorado, where he was EMS
program manager in the hospital’s trauma
center and was responsible for quality
assurance, continuing education, and
Bill Spialek, NSP Education Director
outreach program development. Spialek
also completed the application process to
certify The Medical Center of Aurora as a
State Training Center.
Spialek is a member of the NSP and
has been a patroller at SolVista Basin at
Granby Ranch in Colorado for the past two
years. He is also an adjunct faculty member
for the Paramedic Training Program at the
Community College of Aurora, and served
in Desert Storm as a combat medic. Spialek
lives in Parker, Colorado, with his wife and
three daughters.
“Working with the NSP presents a
wonderful opportunity to combine my
professional experience with my passion
for snowsports,” said Spialek. “I’m looking
forward to contributing to the development
and growth of the organization.” ✚
Election Results and Deadlines
Bob McLaughlin, Pamm Ferguson, Julie Rust, and Ron Plumer have all returned to the NSP
Board of Directors and will serve three-year terms. Slated by the NSP Nomination Committee
to fill or re-fill seats vacated in December 31, 2004, all four were accepted by the NSP’s general
membership and began new three-year terms on January 1, 2005. McLaughlin, who served a oneyear
term as chair of the Planning Committee in 2002, will replace Kenneth Hess, who served a
two-year term and chose not to run again. The committees were slightly reorganized, and a complete
list of members can be found on the NSP website (www.nsp.org).
In other board-related news, NSP members interested in running for a spot on the NSP
Board of Directors should note two upcoming deadlines. The last day to nominate yourself or a
colleague for one of four expiring terms on the board is May 1. Applications must be competed
by June 1. For more information on the 2005–06 election, consult the NSP website. ✚
DENNIS LANE
60 Ski Patrol Magazine | Winter 2005

outdoor
emergency care
BY STEVE DONELAN
that’s a wrap: wound
bandaging made easy
A
Among the first skills that patrollers learn
is how to control severe bleeding, but
that’s only one aspect of proper emergency
care. Because open wounds are an
invitation to bacterial infection, it’s also
important to know how and when to
clean a wound, dress it, and secure it with
an appropriate bandage.
Foreign matter and dead tissue in
wounds are potential growth sites for
harmful bacteria that can increase and
multiply in a matter of hours. If not
removed, contamination in the original
wound can spread infection that the body’s
defenses may not be able to control—
because the immune system protects only
living tissue. While antiseptics may slow
down bacterial growth, they are no substitute
for cleaning a wound and protecting it
from subsequent contamination.
WOUND CLEANING
Cleaning and getting debris out of a
wound requires forceful irrigation and is
important if the patient is two or more
hours away from hospital care. Otherwise,
just apply a dressing and bandage and
leave the wound cleaning to the hospital.
If bleeding is severe, however, you should
stop the bleeding immediately without
trying to clean the wound Also, never try
to scrub an open wound in the field,
because that will introduce more contamination
and can cause further damage.
When the patient is far from the hospital,
flushing the wound will help ensure
that it remains free of contamination that
can lead to infection. Wound irrigation
syringes are designed to do the job, but if
you don’t have one you can improvise
with a clean Ziplock® bag. Fill the bag
with clean water, seal it, and punch a pinhole
in a bottom corner using a penknife
or small scissors. Hold the bag over the
wound and squeeze. You may need to use
tweezers to remove debris that will not
flush out, then irrigate the wound some
more. If your tweezers are not sterile, you
can at least clean them with benzalkonium
chloride, a standard antiseptic available
on moist towelettes sealed in foil.
For the last irrigation, you can use an
antiseptic such as 10 percent povidoneiodine
(Betadine), diluted to 1 percent by
mixing one part antiseptic with 9 parts
clean water. You might also put some
diluted antiseptic on the dressing before
applying it to the wound. However, if you
don’t have Betadine, clean tap water is
still very effective.
While antibiotic ointments are heavily
advertised, no independent studies have
found that they have any antibacterial
action, and there is a possibility that they
may cause an allergic reaction in the
patient. For wilderness situations, you
might want to consider a traditional antiseptic
from your food supply: honey.
Many recent studies suggest that honey—
especially the dark, unprocessed kind—is
more effective than modern antiseptics.
In Australia, medicinal honey (irradiated
to make it sterile) is sold for this purpose.
The sugar in honey kills bacteria by
dehydrating them (which is why sugar
also helps preserve food against spoiling),
and unprocessed honey also has an ingredient
that generates a low level of hydrogen
peroxide in the wound, which acts as
an antiseptic.
DRESSINGS
Once the wound has been thoroughly irrigated,
you need to protect it. A dressing
literally covers the naked wound to help
prevent contamination, and a bandage or
strips of tape hold the dressing in place.
Sterile gauze pads are the most common
dressings, especially in the 4-by-4-inch
size. They are absorbent, which helps form
a clot by trapping and holding enough
blood for the fibrin and fibrinogen to
coagulate before it can be flushed away by
the flow of uncontrolled bleeding. But if
bleeding is not a problem, a non-stick
dressing will be more comfortable and
easier to remove when it is time to change
the dressing. Non-stick dressings have a
porous non-adhering layer over the
absorbent pads. To remove stuck dressings
or tape, there are several tricks that can
minimize discomfort. First, if there is hair
underneath, always peel in the direction
that the hair grows. Second, as you peel,
dab alcohol (e.g., from an alcohol prep
pad) under the stuck dressing or tape.
Alcohol dissolves the adhesive.
Another type of dressing, particularly
useful for burns and abrasions, features a
soothing water-based gel sandwiched
between thin sheets of plastic. To use it,
peel off the plastic from one side and lay
the sheet of gel on the wound. If you are
going to cover the gel with a sturdier
dressing, you can also peel off the top
layer of plastic. This dressing is sold under
brand names such as Spenco 2nd Skin®
and Burn Aid®.
THE ART OF BANDAGING
Most of the traditional bandaging techniques
have disappeared from emergency
care courses and books, as the growth of
the EMS system reduced the need for
extended care by lay people; and bandages
applied by urban EMTs only need to stay
on during a short ambulance ride to the
hospital. Patrollers, however, still need to
know how to apply bandages that will
62 Ski Patrol Magazine | Winter 2005

outdoor emergency care
securely stay on during loading and transport,
especially in nordic or wilderness
situations. Fortunately, with a little practice
beforehand it doesn’t take long to
bandage a wound properly in the field.
Bandages
Triangular bandages can be used to create
slings and to secure splints as well as
dressings. Cotton muslin is the traditional
material, though any fabric that is not too
slick or bulky will do. These bandages are
also available in non-woven synthetic fabrics,
which repel fluids.
Stretchy gauze rollers are equally versatile
and are made with either a clingy but
not very strong weave (e.g., Kling® brand,
with ragged thread ends on the surface to
give it some Velcro®-like self-adhesion), or
a plain open weave that has to be tied off or
taped to secure it. The 3-inch width is good
for most roller bandages, and the 2-inch
width works best for finger bandages. While
there are many specialized bandage-dressings
on the market that may have advantages
for certain injuries, every bandaging
job can be done with triangular or gauze
roller bandages and sterile gauze pads.
Closed Spiral Wrap
Gauze roller bandages are easy to apply, but
also easy to drop in the snow, especially if
you are wearing gloves or your hands are
cold. To maintain your grip, hold the bandage
so that it unrolls like a wheel against the
limb, as shown in figure 1. A slight pressure
of the bandage against the limb keeps your
grip secure. This doesn’t work if you hold
the roller away from the limb because that
forces you to juggle the bandage in your
hand as you unroll.
❚ To apply a closed spiral wrap, start
on the distal end of the wound and
wrap toward the thicker, proximal
part of the limb. Anchor the bandage
by leaving one corner out when you
start wrapping, then folding the corner
over and locking it down with
the next wrap.
❚ Maintain even tension on the bandage
and overlap by the same amount
figure 1
❚
❚
❚
❚
Closed Spiral Wrap
with each wrap. This will produce a
closed spiral wrap.
When you have covered most of the
dressing, fold the exposed end or corner
of the dressing over and lock it
down with the next wrap of the
bandage. This will prevent the dressing
from slipping out of position.
Continue wrapping at least several
inches past the dressing.
If you have enough bandage left, you
can tie it off by bending it backwards
over your fingers (creating a doubled
end) and tying it to the single end.
Alternatively, you can tear the last
several inches of the bandage down
the middle, and bring the two strips
around in opposing directions to
tie together.
Bandaging a forehead or ear with a roller
is straightforward. Just wrap it around a
few times (locking down the dressing with
the second wrap), and tie it off, going as
low as possible behind the head and just
above the eyebrows on the forehead, so it
will not slip off.
Figure-Eight Wrap
A variation on the closed spiral wrap is the
figure-eight wrap (fig. 2, page 64). This
wrap will apply firm and evenly distributed
pressure to the wound, so it’s a wise option
for controlling bleeding. It is also sturdy
and quite secure, making it a good bandage
for patients who will be using the injured
limb. The tradeoff is that this technique
requires a longer length of roller gauze.
❚ Begin by anchoring it the same way
as a closed spiral wrap.
❚ Instead of spiraling continuously
toward the thicker (proximal) end
of the limb, however, you change
direction each time you complete
one wrap around the limb.
❚ Wrap one full turn by angling the
gauze forward (proximally) and
then one full turn by angling the
gauze distally.
CONTINUED
ILLUSTRATIONS BY EVELYN SINCLAIR
W inte r 2005 | Ski Patrol Magazine 63

❚ CONTINUED FROM PAGE 63
❚ Each proximal wrap moves further
up the limb, and each distal wrap
reinforces it.
As you progress, you will note that the
bandage forms an elegant interlocking
pattern. Be sure that every wrap angles
either proximal or distal. If some wraps go
straight across and around the limb, the
bandage will be irregular and less secure.
figure 2
Figure Eight Wrap
ILLUSTRATIONS BY EVELYN SINCLAIR
Finger Bandages
Be sure to remove any rings, watches, or
bracelets before applying a finger or hand
bandage (and preferably before swelling
makes removal difficult). Then put them
with the other personal property that will
go with the patient to the hospital.
To make sure a finger bandage stays
on, always anchor it to the wrist and go
across the back of the hand when running
the wrap from the wrist to the finger
(fig. 3). This method has two advantages:
It ensures that flexing the hand will tighten
(not loosen) the bandage, and it keeps the
bandage out of the way in case the patient
has to use the hand. The direction in
which you wrap the wrist depends on
which finger you are bandaging because
you should go diagonally across the hand
to the finger, not straight up, to keep the
wrist anchor secure. So, for a bandage of
the ring or little finger, cross the back of
the hand from the radial to the ulnar side
of the wrist, and for a bandage of the
thumb, index, or middle finger, cross from
the ulnar to the radial side.
❚ Apply a dressing to the wound and
ask the patient to hold it with the
adjacent finger.
❚ Anchor the bandage at the wrist,
leaving one corner out then folding it
over and locking it down with a subsequent
wrap around the wrist.
❚ Unroll the bandage to the base of the
finger, ask the patient to fan out the
fingers while you hold the dressing to
the injury, then secure the dressing
with a spiral wrap, moving up toward
the tip of the finger.
❚
❚
❚
❚
❚
From the finger tip, spiral back to the
base of the finger.
If you need to cover the finger tip,
do some up and down wraps from
the base over the finger tip and back
to the base.
Secure the up and down wraps with
more spiral wraps.
From the base of the finger extend
the bandage back to the wrist, this
time stretching the bandage to the
opposite side than you started on,
and secure it with a bow or knot.
You can bandage several adjacent
fingers with the same gauze roller,
provided the dressings separate the
injured fingers.
Hand Bandages
A hand bandage, like a finger bandage,
should be both started and finished at the
wrist (fig. 4.) This will anchor it securely,
while allowing the patient to use the hand
if necessary, e.g., in a self-evacuation from
the wilderness. The figure-eight wrap with
a gauze roller works for holding a dressing
on either the palm or the back of the hand.
❚ After anchoring the bandage at the
wrist, wrap alternately around the
distal and proximal side of the
thumb, overlapping to cover most
of the dressing.
❚ Fold the end or corner of the dressing
over and lock it down with the
next wrap.
64 Ski Patrol Magazine | Winter 2005

outdoor emergency care
figure 3
Finger Wrap
ILLUSTRATIONS BY EVELYN SINCLAIR
❚
Bring the bandage back to the wrist
and tie it off.
For multiple finger lacerations or open
fractures, a variation of the figure eight
works well. After laying dressings over the
injuries, place a spare gauze roller or other
pad in the palm, and let the patient’s hand
relax into the flexed position of function,
with the tip of the thumb touching the tip
of the index finger. Anchor the bandage at
the wrist, then diagonally across the back of
the hand and around the fingers, pulling
them gently shut over the pad in the palm.
Take a turn around the wrist and diagonally
across the front of the hand back to
the wrist. Continue until the fingers are
secured, then do some wraps across the
hand and tie off the bandage at the wrist.
Cravat Bandages
A triangular bandage folded into a cravat
can apply pressure to a bleeding wound
much more efficiently than a gauze roller.
Just fold the point of the triangle over to
the long side, and keep folding it in half
until it is the desired width. A cravat
CONTINUED
figure 4
Hand Bandage
W inte r 2005 | Ski Patrol Magazine 65

outdoor emergency care
❚ CONTINUED FROM PAGE 65
makes a very sturdy bandage, which is an
advantage if the patient has to ski out or
be evacuated from the backcountry.
Moreover, a cravat can be improvised
from any spare piece of cloth. A simple
pressure bandage for the arm, leg, forehead,
or ear requires no special technique—just
wrap it around a few times
and tie it, maintaining the tension by
passing the tails from hand to hand as you
wrap. A bandage for the elbow or knee,
however, needs to be anchored proximally
and distally to ensure the bandage will
stay on (fig. 5).
❚ Apply the bandage while the arm or
leg is straight so that flexing the joint
will tighten (not loosen) the bandage.
❚ Capture the dressing on the elbow or
knee with the center of the cravat.
❚ Wrap one tail proximally and the
other distally to the joint so that there
is a complete wrap on either side.
❚ As you continue wrapping the tails
around the limb, cross them to lock
the bandage.
❚ Tie the tails together with a square
knot on the outside of the limb.
figure 5
figure 6
Elbow Cravat Bandage
Hand Cravat Bandage
ILLUSTRATIONS BY EVELYN SINCLAIR
You can also use a cravat to do a figureeight
bandage of the hand, similar to the
gauze roller bandage. Just lay the center of
the cravat over the wrist, wrap both tails
diagonally over the hand to secure the
dressing, then bring them diagonally back
to the wrist to tie them off.
For severe bleeding of the palm, you
can apply more pressure with a variation.
Lay a dressing on the palm, then have the
patient make a fist around a spare roller
bandage or other padding (fig. 6).
❚ With the injured hand extended
palm up, lay the center of the cravat
over the wrist.
❚ Wrap one tail diagonally across the
back of the hand, and diagonally
back to the wrist.
❚ Maintaining the tension, wrap the
other tail diagonally across the hand
and diagonally back to the wrist,
making an X.
❚
❚
Notice that each tail of the cravat is
pulling two of the fingers tight into
a clenched fist.
Wrap the tails around the wrist and
tie them off.
To secure a dressing over a scalp wound,
you can use a triangular bandage in a
configuration that resembles a turban
(fig. 7, page 68):
❚ After placing a dressing on the scalp
wound, lay the bandage over the
head with the point hanging down
the back of the neck and the straight
edge around the forehead just above
CONTINUED ON PAGE 68
66 Ski Patrol Magazine | Winter 2005

outdoor emergency care
❚ CONTINUED FROM PAGE 66
the eyes and ears.
❚ Bring both tails back and cross them
behind the head below the base of
the skull.
❚ Bring the tails around to the front and
tie them together just above the eyes.
❚ Tug down on the point behind the
neck to snug the bandage, then tuck
in loose ends.
figure 7
Head Cravat Bandage
To control severe scalp bleeding, you can
pull the wound edges together without
putting pressure on the skull—important
if there is a possibility of a fracture. If the
patient has enough hair, lay a piece of
thin cord (e.g., strong thread or dental
floss) across the dressing (in line with the
laceration), grip tufts of hair on either
side of the wound, and use them to pull
the wound closed. Then have a partner tie
the tufts of hair together with the cord.
For a bald or short-haired patient, use
butterfly bandages or tape to pull the
wound shut.
figure 8
Sling
American style
American style with swathe
Slings
Triangular bandages are also used as slings
for injured arms (fig. 8). In the usual
American sling style, you ease the bandage
under the patient’s injured arm so that the
point is towards the elbow of the injured
arm, drape one tail over the good shoulder,
and briefly let the other tail hang
down. Then you bring the dangling tail up
over the shoulder on the injured side and
tie it to the other tail, behind the patient’s
neck. To reinforce the cup in which the
elbow rests, you can use a safety pin. After
applying a sling, you should bind the
patient’s arm to the body with a swathe.
While the American style offers good
stability for the injured arm, there are two
variations that are more comfortable and
secure. Both alternatives begin the same
way, by twisting the point of the triangular
bandage into a “rat tail” and tying an
overhand knot in it to make a cup for the
elbow. After positioning the cup around
the elbow, you drape one tail over the
good shoulder, as in the American
method. You now have two choices of
where to go with the dangling tail before
tying it to the other tail.
❚ Wrap it around the upper arm on the
injured side (French style).
❚ Slip it under the armpit on the
injured side (British style).
The American style is probably the most
common wrap taught in the United
States, and while easy to apply it puts a lot
of pressure on the neck. The French style
is usually more comfortable, and cradles
the injured arm quite well. The British
style also relieves pressure on the neck and
is very secure. It may be more comfortable
for a humerus fracture than the American
or French methods.
With any of the three styles, if you
have trouble getting enough wrist elevation
(which helps reduce swelling), twist
the tail over the good shoulder clockwise
to take up slack in the edge of the bandage
French style
British style
that supports the wrist before tying the
tails together.
CONCLUSION
Bandaging is almost a lost art in urban-oriented
emergency care courses, but it is an
essential skill for patrollers. Wound cleaning
is also important if the patient is two
hours or more from the hospital. A secure
and elegant bandage takes no longer to
fashion than a crude and haphazard one,
and it is much more likely to stay in place
when a patient is being evacuated from or
skiing out of the backcountry. ✚
Steve Donelan is OEC officer of the Pinecrest Nordic
Ski Patrol in California. He is national chairman
of the Wilderness Emergency Care program he
developed for the American Safety & Health
Institute (www.ashinstitute.org) and section
editor on education for Wilderness & Environmental
Medicine (www.wms.org). Steve can be reached
at www.wildernessemergencycare.com.
68 Ski Patrol Magazine | Winter 2005

nutrition
❚ CONTINUED FROM PAGE 28
since they’re real food, can work well as
part of a meal. There are many more bars
out there, and it’s just important to read
their labels.
BACKUP PLANS
First, always try to have on hand an
“emergency backup reserve” of quick and
nutritious foods with a long shelf life.
Keep energy bars in the glovebox of your
car or stash some almonds, pecans,
cashews, and dried fruit in your locker. If
you have a freezer at work, stock up on
frozen meals for those occasions when
you don’t have time to prepare something
at home. (Some of the healthy choices for
frozen meals are made by Amy’s®, Seeds
of Change®, Ethnic Gourmet®, or Linda
McCartney Foods®.) One thing to watch
out for is the sodium level in prepared
frozen foods. Too much sodium can lead
to complications for people with high
blood pressure. The recommended daily
allowance for sodium is 3,000 mg, but
most Americans average 17,000 mg a day.
Second, if you’re in a pinch, go ahead
and eat a meal at your area cafeteria or
lodge. Each resort typically offers a broad
range of fare, and in terms of nutrients
your best option would be to go for fresh
fruit, salad (if you can, skip the iceberg lettuce
and go for dark green lettuces or
spinach), soup, or cooked vegetables.
Choose a sandwich on whole-grain bread
that also has some veggies with it. If you
crave sweets, you could choose yogurt,
energy bars such as PowerBar or Clif Bar,
or Gatorade®.
Your third choice would be chili, a granola
bar, or a baked potato. It would have
to be a dire emergency before I’d recommend
eating a candy bar. The amount of
sugar in a “king-size” candy bar is more
than you should have in an entire day!
Nutritionist Carolyn Dean doesn’t recommend
more than 21 gm of sugar or getting
more than 5 percent of your daily calories
(based on a 2,000-calorie diet) from sugar.
A can of soda or a candy bar, however, can
contain 50 to 65 gm of sugar. For those of
you with a sweet tooth, it’s important to
know that artificial sweeteners are not a
“natural” solution and can create greater
cravings for sugar or give you a headache.
(For optimum performance, I’d recommend
consuming less than 40 gm of sugar
over the course of an active day, and closer
to 20 to 30 gm on a resting day.)
CONCLUSION
A great deal of planning and preparation
goes into everything you do on the hill and
in the aid room. Taking the time to plan
your nutritional requirements is equally
important. If your pack is well-stocked but
you don’t have the energy to help out on
the hill, how useful will you be? As a
patroller your health and vitality can
determine how well you can help others
recover the same, and because of this it’s
worth the extra effort to eat nutritious and
real food. Take the time to put together
healthy, nutritious meals that will keep you
alert, feed your hunger, and sustain your
energy. You’ll never go back to chips and
soda once you feel the difference! ✚
Robin Peglow, M.A., is a certified holistic health
counselor, integrative life coach, yoga instructor,
and speaker who supports people in aligning their
goals, values, and intuition through wholeness
and nutrition. Her web address is www.signsoflifehealth.com.
on solid ground
❚ CONTINUED FROM PAGE 34
tain, the hamstrings and quadriceps extend
and contract repetitively. Stretching helps
bring them back to their normal range of
motion. All stretches should be held for a
minimum of 20 seconds and repeated a
couple times. Make sure that you don’t
overextend your range of motion; you
should feel a nice stretch, but no pain.
Quadricep Stretch
Hold onto a doorway for balance. Stand on
one foot, bend the other leg, and grab its
foot with your free hand. Push your foot
into your hand and hold the position for 20
seconds. Repeat two to three times; you’ll
find you can go further with each stretch.
Hamstring Stretch
While lying on your back, raise one leg up
and place it against a corner or door
jamb, getting your body as close to the
wall as possible. The other leg should be
extended flat on the floor. Hold the
Get in the habit of stretching after a workout
in order to keep the muscles loose.
stretch for 20 seconds and repeat two to
three times. Switch corners and legs.
So there you have it: a complete
hour’s workout leading to improved
fitness and balance. Following these exercises
should make your ski or ’boarding
experience more fun. Not only will you be
better at your sport, but you will also
recover quicker for the next day. As you
progress with these exercises, be playful!
Add variations to reduce boredom and
keep your enthusiasm up. After all, skiing
and riding are meant to be fun, and the
time you spend exercising should be
no different. ✚
Lloyd Muller, Ed.D., has been a member of PSIA
since 1985 and is currently a Level II instructor
at Pennsylvania’s Whitetail Ski Resort. Before
becoming a PSIA instructor, he taught for eight
years in Europe.
Jill Williamson is a certified personal trainer at the
Skyline Sport & Health Club where she has been
working with Lloyd and his wife for more than a
year. Jill brings more than 20 years of experience
in the fitness industry to her work with clients of
all ages and experiences. She holds a master’s
degree in health fitness management and a
certification from the National Academy of
Sports Medicine.
70 Ski Patrol Magazine | Winter 2005

avalanche probing
❚ CONTINUED FROM PAGE 46
When examining the various probing
techniques, we found that the traditional
open order coarse probe and the 3HPS
probe with 50 and 60 cm square grids are
pretty comparable in terms of success
rates and ETD. We also noted a big jump
in the dependence on three or more
passes between the 50-square-cm grid and
the 60-square-cm grid before the probe
line had success (table 4, page 46). A similar
jump appeared with the dependence
on a second pass from the squared grids of
30 cm to 40 cm, and again between the 40
cm and the 50 cm grids. But the ETDs for
searches conducted with the 30-squarecm
and 40-square-cm grids were so
lengthy that it made them impractical.
With all things being equal in a computer
model, the 60-cm square grid would
seem to be the best choice. But all things
are not equal in the real world of avalanche
searches: One big reason to skip the 60-by-
60-cm grid on snow is because it can
require too much of a reach and more
passes in the long run. The 50 cm square
grid, therefore, seems to offer the best
combination of a reasonable ETD, the
ability to do 3HPS, and fewer passes.
In choosing a grid spacing, we also
considered the need to reduce the stress
and fatigue on rescuers by keeping the
number of passes to a minimum—and yet
still maintain the hope of finding that rare,
living victim. As shown in table 4, the ETD
for the 50-square-cm grid is comparable
to those of other methods, but it has a
higher POD on the first pass (88 percent).
REAL LIFE PROBING
The computer easily simulates multiple
passes with precise offsets, but rescuers
often experience trouble trying to maintain
proper spacing even in the first grid.
Searchers can help ensure the accuracy of
a probe line by using a guidon cord (a
lightweight cord of a specific length
marked at regular intervals to help probers
maintain a consistent distance apart as
they move forward while probing) and
carefully flagging the probe area on the
first pass. If the area probed is well-flagged,
cord-handlers can offset subsequent
passes relative to the first pass with a second
set of probes halfway between those
created on the first pass.
If the area is not flagged, or if a guidon
cord is not used, there’s no way to know if
the search has effectively covered the designated
terrain. Therefore, subsequent passes
may not be optimal, and could in fact
prove fruitless. Experience has shown that
probers tend to gravitate toward the same
footprints made on previous passes. To be
fair, though, even when using the best
probing techniques the computer’s suggested
search patterns can be impossible to
reproduce if field conditions are less than
favorable. This is particularly applicable to
searches that require multiple passes.
When the need for multiple passes
arises while using grid spacing that is relatively
wide, there can be difficulties in
setting up a subsequent offset pass for
optimal POD effectiveness. In the previous
discussion of the advantages of the
50-square-cm grid, we mentioned that
fatigue and stress can be important factors
in terms of POD accuracy. It’s not
uncommon, for example, for searchers to
experience a great deal of strain when
they have to re-probe an area. And if it’s
stressful for the average rescuer, it will
certainly add stress for the search leader
who has to decide whether to re-probe
the area or shift the probe line to a different
section of the avalanche scene. Since
such challenges are sometimes magnified
by the number of passes required, it made
sense to weigh the average results of additional
passes against the results we generated
with the PROBE program. Older
probe methods recommend a fine probe
after two coarse probes, but after two
passes along a 50-square-cm grid a fine
probe is practically redundant.
CONCLUSION
To sum things up, we provide the following
recommendations:
❚ Use three vertical probes per step on
a 50 cm square grid.
❚
❚
❚
Use a guidon cord to facilitate precise
probe placement.
Mark each pass of the probed area
with wands or flags for accuracy of
probing and to help offset subsequent
passes.
Because organized probe lines require
significant resources, rescuers should
not start using probe lines until an
immediate search has been adequately
completed. ✚
Henry Ballard serves as a patroller with Colorado’s
Eldora Ski Patrol and Bryan Mountain Nordic Ski
Patrol. He also patrols at Devil’s Thumb Ranch,
near Winter Park, and in Rocky Mountain National
Park. He is a long-time avalanche instructor.
Dale Atkins is an avalanche forecaster with the
Colorado Avalanche Information Center. He is also
an NSP alumni member.
Lin Ballard is a past NSP National Avalanche
Program Director and is currently an avalanche
instructor trainer in the Rocky Mountain Division
as well as a member of NSP’s National Avalanche
Committee. She patrols with the Eldora Ski Patrol
and the Bryan Mountain Nordic Ski Patrol.
RESOURCES
Atkins, D. “The Probe Efficiency Index and Better
Ways to do the Coarse Probe,” The Avalanche
Review, 18, no. 3 (2000). American Avalanche
Association.
Atwater, M. and F. Koziol. Avalanche Handbook.
Washington, D.C.: U. S. Department of
Agriculture Forest Service, 1952.
Auger, T. and B. Jamieson. “Avalanche Probing
Revisited.” Procedures of the International
Snow Science Workshop (1996). Revelstoke,
British Columbia: Canadian Avalanche
Association.
Fraser, C. The Avalanche Enigma. Chicago: Rand
McNally, 1966.
Perla, R.I. and M. Martinelli, Jr. Avalanche
Handbook. Fort Collins, Colorado:
U. S. Forest Service, 1976.
Schild, M. 1963. “Absuchen und Sondieren.”
Symposium über Dringliche Massnahmen
zur Rettung von Lawinenverschütteten (1963).
Milan, Italy: Vanni Eigenmann Foundation.
Schild, M. “Previous Experience in the Practice of
Avalanche Rescue.” Avalanche Protection,
Location and Rescue (1975). Milan, Italy: Vanni
Eigenmann Foundation.
Tremper, B. Staying Alive in Avalanche Terrain.
Seattle: Mountaineers, 2001.
72 Ski Patrol Magazine | Winter 2005

MAGAZINE INDEX
This index lists articles published in Ski Patrol Magazine in the last five years.
index
Administrative
area management, outlook for patrollers 16 Fall 02
board election process, summary 36 Fall 02
call for board candidates 44 Fall 03
candidate slate 38 Fall 02
42 Winter 04
28 Fall 04
donation, Harry Voege 40 Winter 04
origins of the NSP 46 Fall 04
organizational restructuring 33 Fall 00
45 Spr/Sum 01
46 Fall 01
pro form etiquette 40 Fall 03
Avalanche and Mountaineering
avalanche accidents, human element 61 Fall 01
avalanche education 48 Winter 05
avalanche SAR dogs 12 Spr/Sum 03
avalanche program changes 35 Winter 03
avalanche season statistics
98–99 42 Spring 00
99–00 46 Spr/Sum 01
01-02 36 Spr/Sum 03
02-03 50 Fall 04
avalanche hazard evaluation 48 Winter 03
Avalung 50 Spring 00
backcountry, avoiding complacency in 20 Spr/Sum 04
contour lines 64 Fall 01
e-mail MTR course 87 Fall 01
helicopter rescue 42 Winter 02
Level II course at Whiteface Mountain 48 Winter 04
map and compass use 52 Spring 00
mapping and GIS 50 Fall 03
MTR program changes 32 Winter 03
MTR training put to use on Everest 30 Spring 00
pre-season avalanche tour 48 Fall 03
probing, new technique 44 Winter 05
snowpack assessment 42 Winter 01
windchill chart, new 34 Winter 02
winter rescue, Utah 44 Winter 01
Awards
awards banquet, staging an 50 Winter 01
awards FAQs 32 Spr/Sum 04
sponsor letter, importance of 70 Fall 01
Equipment
Avalung 50 Spring 00
battery performance 42 Spr/Sum 02
Bend-A-Knee splint 44 Winter 03
boots, purchasing tips 26 Fall 01
footbeds 32 Fall 01
global positioning system, update 38 Fall 00
multi-tool, care of 61 Spring 00
patrol radio systems 54 Fall 02
pro form etiquette 40 Fall 03
shaped skis, alignment on 20 Winter 02
ski tuning 18 Fall 00
splint (improvised) for lower extremities 64 Fall 03
winter ski apparel 22 Winter 04
Health and Fitness
conditioning, boot-camp style 24 Fall 04
nutrition, on-mountain 24 Winter 05
sleep apnea 36 Fall 04
Legal
health insurance portability and
accountability act (HIPAA) 42 Fall 03
Kane vs. NSP reversal 48 Fall 01
Nordic
rollerskiing 52 Spr/Sum 02
short shaped skis for telemarking 58 Spr/Sum 01
ski sailing 56 Winter 02
skinning technique 50 Spr/Sum 03
telemark alignment issues 56 Winter 03
telemark exercises 58 Winter 00
telemark to improve alpine 24 Fall 03
telemark turns, two types 40 Spr/Sum 04
telemark workout plan 48 Fall 00
white pass turn 60 Winter 01
Outdoor Emergency Care
ACL tear, treatment options 22 Spring 00
bracing 16 Winter 05
recovery from 24 Spring 00
adaptive patrons, care of 24 Winter 03
64 Spr/Sum 03
altitude illness 68 Winter 00
antibiotic use and tendon injury risk 36 Winter 02
assessment, simplification of 66 Spr/Sum 01
autism awareness 36 Winter 05
automated external defibrillators, deployment of 58 Fall 00
avalanche victims, care of 68 Winter 03
bandaging technique 62 Winter 05
brain attack 66 Spr/Sum 03
chest injuries 48 Spr/Sum 04
cold injuries, non-freezing 28 Winter 04
critical incident stress 30 Fall 00
diabetes, skiing with 32 Winter 04
difficult patrons, dealing with 26 Spr/Sum 04
doctor on the scene 68 Winter 01
Emergency Medical Services interface 42 Spr/Sum 01
emergency scene management 70 Spring 00
facial injuries 58 Spr/Sum 04
femur injuries 63 Fall 02
foot care 35 Winter 00
hearing-impaired patients, care of 28 Winter 03
hip and pelvis injuries 62 Spr/Sum 01
knee injuries 54 Spr/Sum 04
latex allergy, prevention of 64 Winter 03
lymphedema 62 Winter 02
MI and stroke, need for fast transport 62 Winter 00
neurological injuries 68 Spr/Sum 01
OEC, fourth edition introduced 39 Spr/Sum 02
OEC in the woods 34 Spr/Sum 01
oxygen administration 82 Fall 01
pediatric patients, assessment of 64 Winter 01
pediatric patients, communicating with 62 Spr/Sum 04
periarticular injuries 56 Spr/Sum 02
pregnancy at high altitude 32 Winter 02
pregnant patients 44 Spr/Sum 04
pulse oximetry 66 Fall 02
refresher, different approach 54 Spr/Sum 03
scenarios, staging of 64 Spr/Sum 04
shock, treatment of 63 Spr/Sum 02
snow blindness 31 Winter 01
spineboards, when to use 56 Winter 04
spine injuries 57 Spr/Sum 03
spiral tibia fracture 58 Winter 02
spleen, signs of injury to 56 Fall 00
splint (improvised) for lower extremities 64 Fall 03
splints, various options 58 Winter 04
tooth injuries 85 Fall 01
traction splint device 59 Winter 02
vital signs, on-hill 66 Spr/Sum 02
postural 68 Spr/Sum 02
volunteering at Ground Zero 10 Winter 02
16 Winter 02
Risk Management
multiple-casualty incident management 28 Winter 00
patrol involvement in risk management 28 Winter 02
Ski Area Operations
2002 Olympic patrol, administration 24 Spr/Sum 02
day-to-day activity 28 Spr/Sum 02
nordic patrol 32 Spr/Sum 02
Birch Hill 8 Spr/Sum 04
Boston Mills/Brandywine 8 Fall 04
Cockaigne 10 Winter 04
Colorado Mountain College, curriculum 16 Fall 04
Granite Peak 8 Spr/Sum 02
Holiday Valley 8 Fall 02
Jiminy Peak 12 Winter 00
June Mountain 8 Winter 05
Lost Trail 4 Spring 00
Pine Knob 8 Fall 03
Pinecrest Nordic 8 Fall 01
Schuss Mountain 8 Winter 03
Silver Mountain 8 Spr/Sum 01
Ski Apache 8 Winter 01
Ski Roundtop 8 Fall 00
Sky Valley 8 Spr/Sum 03
Ski and Toboggan
ankles, use of 24 Winter 00
hands, in ready position 71 Fall 02
powder skiing 16 Winter 00
skiing steeps 16 Spring 00
toboggan handling 66 Fall 00
Skier Safety
chairlift, unloading safely from 42 Winter 03
fee for rescue in Chamonix 16 Spr/Sum 04
jumping injuries, safety outreach 66 Fall 04
toboggan packs, restocking 70 Fall 04
tree-well immersion, risk of 18 Spr/Sum 03
Telecommunications
NSP website 24 Fall 02
patrol websites 72 Spr/Sum 01
Training and Techniques
ankle flex 35 Spr/Sum 01
ankles, use of 24 Winter 00
balance
BOSU to improve 36 Winter 04
exercises to increase 30 Winter 05
boot, ski inside 16 Winter 04
conditioning, boot-camp style 24 Fall 04
continuing education, value of 30 Spr/Sum 04
core fitness, benefits of 34 Fall 03
dryland training 24 Winter 01
edge exchange in carved turns 30 Spr/Sum 01
e-mail MTR course 87 Fall 01
hamstrings-to-quadriceps strength ratio 38 Winter 01
helicopter transport 32 Spr/Sum 03
interfacing with EMS 32 Winter 00
lift evacuation for adaptive skiers 32 Fall 04
multiple-casualty incident management 28 Winter 00
pilates 26 Spr/Sum 03
plyobalance 42 Winter 00
powder skiing 16 Winter 00
rollerskiing 52 Spr/Sum 02
skiing ice 18 Winter 01
stretching, on the snow 47 Fall 02
student patrol program (Gould Academy) 18 Spr/Sum 02
teaching techniques 68 Fall 00
telemark alignment issues 56 Winter 03
telemark, new equipment and techniques 40 Spr/Sum 04
telemark to improve alpine 24 Fall 03
telemark workout plan 48 Fall 00
yoga, benefits of 16 Winter 03
ad index
Bollé ......................................................................19
Cascade Toboggan .....................................................35
Dale of Norway .........................................................47
Duofold ..................................................................C3
Dynastar .................................................................29
Goode ......................................................................2
Grabber ..................................................................41
Leedom Helmets.........................................................3
NSP Outdoor Emergency Care Manual .........................22–23
NSP Outdoor Emergency Transportation Manual.................61
NSP Powderfall Education Convention .........................12–13
NSP Sponsor Recognition.............................................75
NSP Website ............................................................59
Ortovox...................................................................21
OVO .......................................................................C4
Patagonia................................................................69
Patagonia Member Benefit ...........................................51
Philips Medical .........................................................53
Rudy Project Eyewear ..................................................5
Smith Optics ............................................................C2
St. Ives ...................................................................73
Subaru Member Benefit ................................................7
Subaru of America......................................................71
Suunto U.S.A. ...........................................................57
Swany America .........................................................43
Traverse Rescue ........................................................67
74 Ski Patrol Magazine | Winter 2005

out of bounds
Winning Anecdote
Guy Lombardo, Western Appalachian Region
It was the last week of March 2004, and Tyler Davis was on the mountain
for the first time all season. Due to some personal issues, the
92-years-young patroller had been notably absent from the slopes at
Pennsylvania’s Seven Springs Mountain Resort (the area for which he formed its first patrol back in 1958).
We all loved skiing with Tyler, especially me. He’s won every national honor given by the NSP, including the
Minnie Dole Award, and received Eastern Division’s Outstanding Instructor Award. In 2002 he was inducted
into the Pennsylvania Ski Hall of Fame. Tyler asks nothing for himself and is always doing things for others.
He’s a true role model.
As I sat in one of the patrol huts I heard a call over the radio saying, “Tyler is skiing and now on top of
the Stowe Slope.” Eager to catch Tyler, I jumped into my skis and, with Superman-like speed (sort of),
headed to a spot where I could intercept him. As luck would have it, Tyler was carrying a radio and responded
to my call. He said he’d wait for me. But I know Tyler, and where skiing is concerned, he’ll only wait so long.
He’s not one to waste precious skiing time waiting for others to catch up.
The snow was perfect as it is most of the time at the Springs, and I asked Tyler which trail he wanted to
ski. “Cortina,” he said. This trail is rather steep and has a left-hand hairpin turn about 100 yards from the top
that crosses over Stowe Slope and onto Wagner, which leads to the main lodge.
Tyler took off first, doing his famous larger-than-life snowplow. Suddenly he brought the skis together
and gained speed. I was in hot pursuit yelling, “Hey, kid, slow down!” We approached a small rise at the
bottom of Cortina, speeding along at what seemed like Mach 1. There I had visions of Tyler flying over the
rise and crashing on the other side. Boy, was I wrong!
As Tyler shot up the rise, he planted his downhill pole and did a 180-degree turn, his skis coming completely
off the snow. At first I thought he was out of control, but again, I was wrong. I was the one who was
out of control. While he gracefully skied onto Wagner and disappeared out of sight, I hit the rise and flew
through the air. I landed on the uphill edge of my uphill ski in a kamikaze-like touch down. In a feat neverbefore
and never-since performed by a person on two skis, I somehow made the 180-degree arc onto Stowe
and skied down Wagner.
I caught up with Tyler at the bottom of the slope, where he was waiting for me. “Hey, what the heck were
you doing?” I exclaimed. Flashing the smile he’s famous for, all he said was, “That felt so good. Let’s eat!”
The following day Tyler suffered a heart attack, which, although thankfully not fatal, has ended his skiing
career. I feel honored to have taken one last run with such a legend. ✚
KATJARINA HORWITZ
Write a caption
for this photo!
Your Time to Shine
Yeah, yeah . . . we’ve heard all the excuses. You were planning to submit something for
the Out of Bounds department but got called away to give a presentation on conjunctivitis
at the local Boy Scout Jamboree. Or, you’re waiting to find out if Spielberg is optioning
the movie rights to your favorite patroller anecdote.
Frankly, we’re not buying it. But you could be buying something out of the NSP Winter
Catalog if you send us a boffo photo caption, engaging anecdote, or funny and/or captivating
photo.
It’s easy. Send photo captions and patroller anecdotes via e-mail to spm@nsp.org.
Submit photos (slides or prints) to Ski Patrol Magazine, 133 S. Van Gordon St., Suite 100,
Lakewood, CO 80228. (Digital images may be sent to the e-mail address, but we require
that they be shot at high resolution and submitted at 300 dpi at a size of at least 4 x 6
inches.) Winning entries will receive a $25 gift certificate for the NSP Winter Catalog.
So, enough with the procrastination! Give it a go!
COURTESY OF BRIGITTE SCHRAN
Winning
Captions
Fall 2004
THE WINNER
“At first, Harry tried to save
the patrol director. Then he
remembered we’d all move up.”
—Dana Scalf, Purgatory Ski Patrol, CO
Runners-up
1. Apply gentle axial traction and anticipate
hypovolemic shark. (This caption is best
appreciated if recited with an Old Yankee
accent.)
—Alisa Phillips-Griggs, Sundown Ski Patrol, CT
2. “Frankly, I think it’s a Great White Lark.”
—Dave Pearson, Alumni, Point Pleasant
Beach, NJ
3. The OEC textbook’s recommended technique
for removing a snow shark’s airway
obstruction.
—Robert C. Johnson, Look Out Pass Patrol, ID
4. “This is the last #$&%-ing time we give
Sea World a discount on lift tickets!”
—Frank Jones, Wisp Ski Patrol, MD
5. Patroller Bob demonstrates the new device
for removing Lange boots.
—Pete Storer, Pahquioque Ski Patrol, NY
Actual Caption
Mickey Bombyk, a patroller at Washington’s
Summit at Snoqualmie, discovers that the
“confined area rescue” class she signed up
for was not what she had expected. ✚
76 Ski Patrol Magazine | Winter 2005