From the Patrol Director’s desk at Bear Valley…………..

 As we arrive at the beginning of the 2015/16 season many thoughts surround me and I’m sure I’m not alone on this……

With the lack of recent snowfall in the past 3 years on the West coast, retaining seasoned patrollers and new alike, a ski patrols continuing evolution amongst themselves, their employers and the ski industry, raises many questions about where we have been and where we are headed.

Risk management for ski patrol is on the increase over the last handful of years, not that we as patrollers haven’t been involved in it, but the industry at large is starting to take more notice of the vital role ski patrols play in Risk Management. As we have seen from the APP testing criteria for Risk Management and Hill Safety, our industry is handed many a different deck of cards on any given day and to manage those decks we as patrollers have learned to implement some very quality programs regarding safety on and off the hill. Hill safety alone in itself is huge including the added directives of guest risk management on all aspects of the area property. Currently the NSAA is aligning with the APP and our best practices/testing criteria approach which is a huge plus for us in the Professional and Volunteer patrols. Our goal is to show the industry that our profession is just that, a profession. 

At Bear Valley Mountain Resort and a host of others, senior management is beginning to take even more notice of the vital role we play and how we really are a cross (no pun intended) between Ski Patrollers and Risk Managers. By using our skill sets to provide a better quality, safer experience, greater risk reduction and so forth we are in effect saving the areas we work for a host of potential legal actions and ultimately reducing potential for writing a costly check. 

Another plus for the Patrol is through quality training/certification by the APP and being able to show tangible savings from fewer litigations which in turn can help our employers to understand our profession and how we truly are “Risk Management Professionals”.  That alone can help all to promote better education which management supports, and eventually the industry will see how wages should reflect that expanded recognition of the patrol’s professionalism and contribution to the bottom line.

Managing risk within the patrol itself starts at the top with a quality emphasis on safety for all involved. Mentoring is a vital process here, taking time to foster the seasoned and orient the new is a critical component to making patrollers into high quality risk managers. A great article that talks about risk management and how it meshes with avalanche control work (after almost 3 years with very little control work in the NorCal area) is in the current T.A.R. from the American Avalanche Association. It discusses many thoughts on inherent risk associated with lack of control work during a light season or more(in this case 3) and what we should be thinking of when doing control work and it gives a great process on judging ski cutting management. 

Much more can be given in this article as to how we manage Hill safety, Area safety, Avalanche control work, First Aid, Evacuations, Low vs. High angle rescues, Weather forecasting and more but as you can see the list starts to grow in volumes when we start to dissect it and we could all most likely write a well-defined chapter. 

So to all, engage yourselves and your employees and peers about your area’s programs involving safety/risk management.  Define the goals, make action plans coupled with education and we can make a collective effort to inform our senior management teams that we are truly a valuable resource for ski area operations so that increased compensation/benefits should become part of that equation.

It’s snowing currently and I’m headed out to make some turns………….

Cheers,

Mattly Trent

Director Professional Ski Patrol

Bear Valley Mountain Resort