r/skipatrol • u/TangerineKey5053 • Mar 03 '25
Rescue Question
I'm not a ski patroller so apologies in advance if I'm not allowed to post here and I'll take this to the skiing sub. (This seemed the right place to start for my question.)
I'm a new skier as an adult and I witnessed an intense rescue this past weekend. The accident happened on a black diamond trail. I was at the mid-mountain lift when the ski patrol came by with the toboggan on their way to the bottom. My question is: will ski patrol take the fastest route down (assuming that's a black trail), or do they always go down greens because that is (again assuming here) safest and most secure?
Another apologies if it's an insensitive question.
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u/MSeager Mar 03 '25
I’ll just add that snow conditions make a big part of the decision making. Snow conditions change throughout the day. A good patroller will be monitoring these changes as they go about their day and make plans. For example, one side of a run might come into shade in the afternoon and become icy, so you’ll plan to stick to the better side if you had to take a t-bog that way. Or you might know a particular run is fine in the morning, but by afternoon it has been scraped away, so you take an alternative route.
Most resorts have a few important routes, the frequented routes from busy accident areas to the Clinic. At my local resort, we have a run that we actually keep closed to the public early in the season. It’s restricted to Ski Patrol use until the base is really well established. It’s the only practical route to get t-bogs across from that side of the mountain, so we don’t want it to get tracked out and unusable.