First Day of Work

My first day of work was pretty exciting. The Snowflake chair lift broke down and we had to assist ski patrol with evacuating the guests off of the chair. This involves throwing a rope over the cable and lowering the people on the chairs down with a harness. This apparently is a once a decade event at Breckenridge and I got to experience it on my first day. The rescue was pretty straightforward and the patroller I was working with was able to get 5 people down in about a half an hour. I think 80 people had to be rescued in all. The rest of the day I spent learning the normal duties of my job.
A normal day goes like this. We catch the chairlift up the mountain at 8am (30 minutes before the lifts open to the public). The next hour or so was spent setting up slow signs and fences on the runs. We then cruised around the mountain a bit. For about an hour in the morning we do speed control in one of the slow skiing areas. This basically involves yelling at people who are skiing too fast. I think taking passes away is a rarity, but we do try to scare people who initially ignore us. I got some basic training on how to deal with injured guests, lost children and other issues we may encounter on the slopes. The chairlift evac came shortly after lunch. We then did some more speed control and took down the slow signs at the end of the day. Overall it looks like this will be a pretty chill job. The people I'm working with are cool too.

I am no longer unemployed

Today I was hired for the job I applied for a week and a half ago. I am working for the Mountain Safety department which fits between ski patrol and guest services departments. I get to ski around all day, set up slow zones and fencing on the mountain, and take away passes from punk ass snowboarders. I am the muscle behind the ski fast/lose pass policy. Best of all they pay me to do all of this. Basically, I will be getting paid to ski. Sound like a good gig to me. It is a full time job, 5 days a week. My boss seems pretty cool and it looks like the job will be a lot of fun. My first day of work is on Saturday. I'm excited.

Night Skiing at Keystone

Yesterday I skied at Keystone for the first time. The resort is only about a 20 minute drive from my house. The mountain is very different from Breckenridge. The majority of the resort is below the treeline and in general the runs are steeper and longer than Breck. There aren't any lift serviced bowls, but there is a lot of tree skiing. They have a lot less snow than Breck, even though the two resorts are only a few miles apart. Some of the runs in the trees were pretty sketchy. Keystone has night skiing on a large part of the frontside of the mountain. The night skiing was a lot of fun. Apart from being cold, skiing at night was very pleasant. The resort was almost empty and you could ski as fast as you want without worrying about other people. I had dark goggles and it made it a little hard at times to spot icy spots on the mountain, but not too bad. Overall the night snow conditions were good. The best night skiing run was a black diamond called go devil which appears to be the downhill race course for the resort. The run is lined with orange fencing and netting and beyond the fencing everything is pitch black. It feels like you're in a video game bombing down the run under the lights. It was fun. The night skiing area is big and includes a terrain park and one run that is 3.5 miles long. Definitely worth going back for night skiing.

Stupid Mountain Time Zone

There appear to be no standards for when TV programs come on in the Mountain Time Zone. The Simpsons are a perfect example. The come on at 8ET/7CT so you would figure 6MT right? But that seems to early, so you would figure they would be shown at the normal 8pm time. Wrong, it comes on at 7pm. I'm just lost when it comes to watching sports, and other tv shows. It is really hard adjusting to a new time zone. (You can tell my brain hasn't been challenged much in the past month).