TheSkiGoonsSome Ski Patrollers can be chill but others can be complete d*cks, anyone else have any bad or good encounters with ski patrollers?

All the patrollers at Smuggs are awesome. A lot of the patrollers at small Quebec resorts are less chill. They remind me of annoying lunch monitors.

Saw a ski patroller dump a sled like 10 years ago at west.

At bmilk during xgames a patroller slipped walking and slid down toward big air. When the crash happened went to respond and fell into a fence and down into the woods. I got a beer out of that one

Jay Peak patrol is usually great.

Most ski patrollers are pretty chilled. They have years upon years of experience. You bombing a hill may think you're in control but they can usually look at a skier and tell if they're in control. Most likely if ski patrol is getting on your back, you're not as good at skiing as you think

S.J.WMost ski patrollers are pretty chilled. They have years upon years of experience. You bombing a hill may think you're in control but they can usually look at a skier and tell if they're in control. Most likely if ski patrol is getting on your back, you're not as good at skiing as you think

literally this. I have (Had?) a friend who really liked bombing straight down busy green runs for whatever reason. And I mean like, he would literally just go straight, scared the fuck out of everyone he was riding with more than once. If someone popped out of the trees infront of him without looking the result would be more than catastrophic. Dulled edges and park skis generally don't make for the quickest stops.

patrol caught onto the fact that there was only one dude at our hill that wears gear as baggy as Henny, caught him a few times and put him on probation/ took his pass once(?) We had a discussion about it one day, I had enough of him saying that patrol was conspiring against him, and we haven't talked since.

"I paid for this I can do whatever the fuck I want"

Sun valley is about 50/50 the most chill guys or the biggest assholes ever.

I feel like the smaller the hill, the shittier the ski patrol. My hill is 200 ft tall and the ski patrol are kind of jackasses. Most of them appear to be relatively beginner skiers, and the word on the street is that it's more or less a social club around here. I will never understand how somebody who is still nervously wedging down the hill can tell me I'm out of control. I never see them on the hill, and it took them 20-30 minutes to attend to my 2 friends who have needed their help in the past.

They also have no jurisdiction beyond helping people with injuries at my hill, i.e they can't actually take your pass.

OP, you already know. Minsy let me hit that gap, but old silver helmet kicked me off the mountain. You know who to fuck with and who not to fuck with

Day after Stella hit, everyone was poaching everything in bounds at Whiteface and ski patrol didn't give a single fuck at all.

At jore some of the guys would have contests to see how much money they could extort from tourists in a weekend by threatening to kick them out. I remember somebody getting around $370 out of a weekend. #notbaddotjepeg

Well we have lots of Vail resorts around us, and one of my friends made a comment "I'm really glad they have yellow jackets. Because of the yellow jackets, ski patrol gets the respect they deserve since they don't have to be the douchy fun police on the mountain"

One time I was riding a chairlift up at Breck. I don't remember if I was riding with a ski patroller, yellow jacket, it was some mountain staff. There was somebody skiing in the trees idk maybe they ducked a rope somewhere but it was just barely off a groomer. Guy gets on his walky talky, reports the description of what the guy was wearing and tells whoever on the other end of the walky talky to pull that guys pass". Shortly after he gets off his walky talky, he starts trying to make small talk with me. All I could do was stay silent just livid thinking to myself "I have nothing to say to you, stop trying to fucking talk to me"

MalcolmAll the patrollers at Smuggs are awesome. A lot of the patrollers at small Quebec resorts are less chill. They remind me of annoying lunch monitors.

This is true. Rode Smuggs a few times this year and one patroller rode the lift up w/ me and was telling me the best spots to duck the ropes that day.

Stowe patrollers are awesome as well (at least in my experience). Only had an unfortunate encounter once when I was stopped because one thought I was going too fast around some blind corners (it wasn't THAT fast).

Simple apology was all it took to fix it up, the guy was just doing his job and I can't fault him for that.

I think the true division of dickness relays on Pro or National. Lots of resorts have volunteer "national patrol" They are city folks that get a pass for the day to work the mountain. Most have serious ego trips and love to fuck with people. Think hall monitor. The pro guys and gals, most likely have have been there and seen it all. They just want to make sure everyone goes home safe at the end of the day. They tend to be crusty mountain lifers and are a great group of people. Its the difference between made up responsibility and respect.

Most of the patrollers that I have encountered in the Midwest don't really ride your ass about speeding and what-not, but they all suck at skiing. I personally get a lot of shit from them because of the misbehaviors, but oh well.... maybe they should stop fencing off good runs.

CoreyTrevorWell we have lots of Vail resorts around us, and one of my friends made a comment "I'm really glad they have yellow jackets. Because of the yellow jackets, ski patrol gets the respect they deserve since they don't have to be the douchy fun police on the mountain"

Those vail yellow jackets are the worst, I've witnessed them dick over a few people as well. One caught a buddy of mine riding Canyons with no pass and attempted to call the police/press charges and ban him from vail resorts for life. He was lucky a ski patrol came by and told the dude to chill and just let him leave the mountain.

As with anything, respect gets respect. Don't be a dick and we're cool. We have one repeat offender at my mountain that always skis one lift line that has never been opened for various reasons(lift clearance,snowmaking pipe, scrap metal just waiting to impale you). Every time we catch him we get a big "fuck you" and he gets the boot. If youre going to ski a closed trail, don't ski a fucking liftline, thats the easiest way to get caught.

TrabekThose vail yellow jackets are the worst, I've witnessed them dick over a few people as well. One caught a buddy of mine riding Canyons with no pass and attempted to call the police/press charges and ban him from vail resorts for life. He was lucky a ski patrol came by and told the dude to chill and just let him leave the mountain.

I mean that is theft....

.Hugo.I mean that is theft....

property lines are just a suggestion pffft

.Hugo.I mean that is theft....

Technically yes, my buddy was definitely in the wrong. But people hiking up for turns isn't uncommon. The guy was very rude and aggressive with us even though we were apologizing/being polite, just was unnecessary. He could of handled it better.

And the real theft that day was the $135 lift tickets, glad I got an epic season pass.

TrabekTechnically yes, my buddy was definitely in the wrong. But people hiking up for turns isn't uncommon. The guy was very rude and aggressive with us even though we were apologizing/being polite, just was unnecessary. He could of handled it better.

And the real theft that day was the $135 lift tickets, glad I got an epic season pass.

If the resort is in national forest land I'm pretty sure the only thing they can charge you for is the use of lifts....probably why you see people hiking

The only thing I've been yelled at for was skiing out of bounds, which you could probly argue that I deserved to get yelled at.

I patrol, and also ski park while I'm patrolling, poorly. In general people are pretty cool to patrollers, especially when they see them in the park. As a patroller I've dealt with some jerks, but haven't pulled any passes.

I worked park crew in various positions for the better part of a decade. I was a much bigger jerk and pulled a ton of passes while doing that. I think in general, park kids tend to be the most obnoxious and biggest assholes on the hill. Being surrounded by them all day long made me way more jaded.

jblaskiI patrol, and also ski park while I'm patrolling, poorly. In general people are pretty cool to patrollers, especially when they see them in the park. As a patroller I've dealt with some jerks, but haven't pulled any passes.

This, I like to mob through when theres a bunch of homies in the park just to blow some minds. Even won $10 at the Tell A Friend Tour while patrolling /claim. But for real, dont be a dick and we wont pull your pass.

CoreyTrevorAll I could do was stay silent just livid thinking to myself "I have nothing to say to you, stop trying to fucking talk to me"

Bullshit. You probably bent over to keep his dick warm with your mouth.

theabortionatorAt jore some of the guys would have contests to see how much money they could extort from tourists in a weekend by threatening to kick them out. I remember somebody getting around $370 out of a weekend. #notbaddotjepeg

Good idea. Let the tourist jerry's who are causing problems pay their way out of them and keep ruining the experience for the rest of us so they can buy some new boot liners. Great mindset.

one time my friends and I ducked a rope and this jerk ski patrol tried to cut our passes but he didn't know my dad owned the resort so I got him and 10 other patroller's asses fired

One time a ski patrol dude dropped me a solid high five for landing a lip on blind tru

tru story

my experience in summit county is that if they're under 30 they don't really give a shit unless you do something outrageous, but old patrollers have a huge stick up their asses and will do everything in their power to fuck up your day.

jblaskiI worked park crew in various positions for the better part of a decade. I was a much bigger jerk and pulled a ton of passes while doing that. I think in general, park kids tend to be the most obnoxious and biggest assholes on the hill. Being surrounded by them all day long made me way more jaded.

Maybe it was just the hill I was patrolling at but I found the race kids were 1000x worse than the park rats. Whenever someone hurt themselves in the park, the park kids were great about blocking off the feature before we got there, and would stay well uphill so they could warn anyone else coming down to steer clear. The race kids were a pack of entitled nightmares who figured that the rules of the hill didn't apply to them and seemed to take pleasure in fucking around.

To everyone else: yeah I'm a patroller at one of those small-sized small town ski hills a bunch of you are complaining about. We're talking about 148m elevation (150m above sea level) and close regularly for having "too much fresh snow" level of small. We're talking about first name only on the ski pass small. We're talking about also functions as a golf course AND a yacht club so they can stay afloat level of small.

So sure the older guys mostly patrol for the social aspect. Sure they spend a lot of time hanging out in the cabin warming up. Sure we have low standards for the ski capabilities of our patrollers, so some of them are mediocre at best. If the patroller can get to an injured person anywhere on the runs and get them out smoothly on a sled that's good enough. It shouldn't surprise you that someone being able to handle the medical-side of things well trumps being able to look flashy while doing it. And finally sure it may take us a while to respond - there may only be two or three of us and that chair runs just as slow (and stops just as often) for us as for anyone else. At least if the guys are lounging in the cabin rather than out riding you know they'll get the radio call immediately and be on the lift heading up in moments, whereas with all the shitty reception on the mountain them being out riding means they may not even hear the call for a couple minutes.

It also shouldn't surprise you that it's hard to get people to work for a ski patrol team like this. Nobody is going to do it for a free season's pass when the pass only costs $250 (that's $187US). Just taking into account the 60hrs of preseason first aid training, that works out to making $6/hr ($4.50US) and you haven't worked a single shift.

Some years it's worse. Last winter the mountain couldn't afford to pay for our first aid course so we had to pay ourselves. I spent $140 just so I could get that $250 pass. Subtract that and we're making less than $1.90/hr ($1.40US) for the time we're sitting in the course, and again haven't worked a single shift. Add in the assigned ski patrol shifts and we're under $0.95/hr ($0.70US). Add in the times I figured that since I was skiing I may as well put on the pack and jacket and I would be better off looking for dropped change in the bar.

Nobody is going to do it for the excitement either - most shifts we had no calls so our only role was to sweep the hill at the end of the day. Most of the calls we did get were for people who needed help getting down a run that was harder than they expected or had fallen and had a sore wrist. Or had lost a mitten off the chairlift. There was one big call I saw last year - I spent it standing at the bottom of the chairlift explaining to pissed off people that the chairlift was closed because there had been an accident at the top (remember what I said before about it kind of being nice to have patrollers hanging out in the cabin not-skiing? Our patrollers that had been skiing were trapped on the chairlift, it was those of us that were warming ourselves inside that were able to respond. Luckily it was a sunny weekend day so we had a bunch of extra guys).

We're not allowed to drink or go in the bar when we're patrolling. Hell we don't even get to skip the chairlift line unless we're on a call.

So what's left? You ski patrol because you care a lot about the mountain and want everybody to have the chance to enjoy it. And you ski patrol because then you have a good excuse to hang out at the hill every weekend with your buddies, break out the BBQ on the patio when you get bored and enjoy that one perfect run at the start/end of the day where the hill is closed so you have the space entirely to yourself. And these guys care a lot about the mountain. That's why they'll patrol for 20 years and their kids will join too as soon as they're old enough. That's why, despite only having two people assigned to a shift, we'll often have five people show up. That's why they'll also show up to run the ski swap or help clear brush from the new gladed run in the off-season. And that's why they'll host a BBQ so that everybody on the hill gets free hotdogs.

Sure some of the patrollers are douchey. Some people are douchey - if you give them a radio and a uniform they often become more douchey. If you want more cool patrollers join your local patrol team, and encourage your friends to do the same.

CoreyTrevorWell we have lots of Vail resorts around us, and one of my friends made a comment "I'm really glad they have yellow jackets. Because of the yellow jackets, ski patrol gets the respect they deserve since they don't have to be the douchy fun police on the mountain"

One time I was riding a chairlift up at Breck. I don't remember if I was riding with a ski patroller, yellow jacket, it was some mountain staff. There was somebody skiing in the trees idk maybe they ducked a rope somewhere but it was just barely off a groomer. Guy gets on his walky talky, reports the description of what the guy was wearing and tells whoever on the other end of the walky talky to pull that guys pass". Shortly after he gets off his walky talky, he starts trying to make small talk with me. All I could do was stay silent just livid thinking to myself "I have nothing to say to you, stop trying to fucking talk to me"

I'm so glad I'm skiing in Europe....

Our ski patrollers at holiday valley (New York) for first aid our really chill. But we have a separate watch group that wears yellow jackets and they are the most jackass people in the ski world. They will try and cut your pass if the bar is not down even if you apologize and everything.

Mitch_7495Our ski patrollers at holiday valley (New York) for first aid our really chill. But we have a separate watch group that wears yellow jackets and they are the most jackass people in the ski world. They will try and cut your pass if the bar is not down even if you apologize and everything.

We don't have yellow jackets, but courtesy patrol at one of the mountains I ski at are similar. Even then, there are a few that are really cool. I think it depends on how long these guys have been skiing for. At also helps knowing a few patrollers so they know that you can ski without hitting a tree or something stupid. Having (distant) family in patrol helps too

Mitch_7495Our ski patrollers at holiday valley (New York) for first aid our really chill. But we have a separate watch group that wears yellow jackets and they are the most jackass people in the ski world. They will try and cut your pass if the bar is not down even if you apologize and everything.

Holiday Valley NY can fuck right off. I once had my little sister film me on a rail there. She stood on the knuckle of a dfd for about 30 seconds to do so, and because of that, this punk ass 15 year old looking snowboard instructor chased us down the fucking hill to the lift and tried to take our passes because of it.Got all in my face. I told him I'd feed him his teeth if he tried to touch me or my sister. He didn't take our passes. I can only imagine how much worse the ski patrollers are there

CoreyTrevorWell we have lots of Vail resorts around us, and one of my friends made a comment "I'm really glad they have yellow jackets. Because of the yellow jackets, ski patrol gets the respect they deserve since they don't have to be the douchy fun police on the mountain"

One time I was riding a chairlift up at Breck. I don't remember if I was riding with a ski patroller, yellow jacket, it was some mountain staff. There was somebody skiing in the trees idk maybe they ducked a rope somewhere but it was just barely off a groomer. Guy gets on his walky talky, reports the description of what the guy was wearing and tells whoever on the other end of the walky talky to pull that guys pass". Shortly after he gets off his walky talky, he starts trying to make small talk with me. All I could do was stay silent just livid thinking to myself "I have nothing to say to you, stop trying to fucking talk to me"

My first time skiing at PC some fun police oldster pulled me over and threatened to pull my pass because I was sitting down on my skis, no-one around but me and it was a slow zone. He also told me "don't jump or ski through trees, and also none of those stupid side hits, they're dangerous."

erickson660also none of those stupid side hits, they're dangerous."

Especially to the family of four going through the park, but I don't see patrol complaining about them when they bust their asses

I've never really had a problem with ski patrol at my home mountain (7 Springs). There was one time last year that my buddy sprayed the rest of our group and ski patrol thought he was doing it in retaliation of a situation, but that's about it. The only time patrol was truly a douche to me was at Killington. It was my brothers' and I first day there (ever) and we asked him if we had passed up a certain park, and he responded with "Can you fucking read signs". Really caught me off guard because everyone else there was beyond cool.

Ive found that patrol at prissy mountain are usually the bigger dicks, and Im honestly not sure why. I know Breck is a big mountain and some of their high alpine is a bitch to do avy work on, but for the most part I have to imagine it cant be to the scope of what JHMR and Big Sky Patrol does.

Ive met a ton of cool patrollers at Alta and Jackson Hole. Ive also met some fucking boners at Keystone and Breck. I guess maybe it depends whats in their coffee that day.

Anybody got advice on certs to get to be a patroller? Looking to patrol while I'm in grad school

Profahoben_212Anybody got advice on certs to get to be a patroller? Looking to patrol while I'm in grad school

WFR (Wilderness First Response)/ EMT course, CPR cert, and that's pretty much all I can think of.

.MASSHOLE.WFR (Wilderness First Response)/ EMT course, CPR cert, and that's pretty much all I can think of.

Ballin thanks dude! Prolly gonna try to work at Homewood since they always need more patrol...get some experience and maybe try to go somewhere bigger

Profahoben_212Anybody got advice on certs to get to be a patroller? Looking to patrol while I'm in grad school

Ski patrol works from the Outdoor Emergency Care curriculum. EMT basic can be a help but OEC is what you will need.

Profahoben_212Ballin thanks dude! Prolly gonna try to work at Homewood since they always need more patrol...get some experience and maybe try to go somewhere bigger

jblaskiSki patrol works from the Outdoor Emergency Care curriculum. EMT basic can be a help but OEC is what you will need.

Awesome thanks dudes

Profahoben_212Anybody got advice on certs to get to be a patroller? Looking to patrol while I'm in grad school

OEC(outdoor emergency care) or EMT at a minimum. My recommendation would be EMT as you can use it outside of the mountain if you want to join a local ambulance service. Experience working as an EMT is definitely helpful, going right from class to actually using your skills is like two different worlds. Reach out to the Patrol director and be polite, express your interest in becoming a patroller, and be persistent(just not annoying). It's a great way to spend your time on the mountain and helping people.

I've had good luck with patrollers at my mountain At the end of the day they are just some ski bums like us they just have to focus more on safety.

in the woods blazing when one of the park crew guys and stopped after he saw us blowing clouds. He then took out some papers and smoked a joint with us.

Back in sophomore year of high school, my friends and I were gooning at West Mountain on opening weekend (the last year before the ownership was turned over) and we went on a trail that was "closed" but didn't have anything closing it off, so we kept merging in and out of the woods in that area. At the end of the trail there was a snow gun in the middle so we skied around it and didn't ski over the lines to the snow gun.

At the end, one of the patrollers was absolutely furious demanding two of my friends to give him their passes without giving a reason why or even letting them explain theirselves. They said "no" while the patroller was acting even more childish than we were (what was worse was that the guy was old as shit). Another one of my friends stepped in to defend them, then he started getting yelled at for being "insubordinate" and then the patroller started demanding that he give him his pass.

By far the pettiest shit I've ever seen ski patrol at any mountain do.

Sun valley has some that suck, i got pole flicked and talked to today on my second run by this fucking dick, but later I needed some plyers so I went in the shack and they were all mad chill and let me borrow their shit.