Every day, ski patrol begins with a morning meeting to review the mountain status: which runs are groomed, which runs are closed, special events planned for the day, and new issues that have come up. Next, the patrollers ski “awareness runs” on every run on the mountain. On these runs, patrol checks and rechecks everything. They look for known hazards and new hazards. They inspect signs and fencing, moving them if necessary, repositioning them and adding markers near any new hazards. While these runs are happening, other patrollers are digging avalanche pits and monitoring snowpack. They record each day’s information and transmit it to the Colorado Avalanche Information Center, a resource for backcountry skiers.
Patrol also checks every toboggan, emergency and trauma response backpack, lift evacuation packs and backpacks with gear and instructions for rescuing chairlift “danglers.” While many of these incidents may never occur during a ski season, patrol checks and documents everything, every day, just in case.
Patrollers are trained in emergency and outdoor medicine and most of the calls they get are to help injured skiers and snowboarders. When patrol gets a call, they move quickly (hence the “grab and go” backpacks) to stabilize all injured parties, extricate them and to ski them down to the first aid room, from which they are transported to medical care if necessary.