The adventure begins again - Patroling at a new resort

[Idris]

Last week I accepted a job for the upcoming winter at Megeve! Probably as different a resort as possible from last winter at La Romme, but just the oposite side of the same mountain, les Aravis.
This winter I will not be a lifty, a mechanic, an electrician. I will be a full time patroler and part time info post.
My mornings will start earlier and my days will finish later, but the drive will be shorter.
I will have to ski many runs to open them and at the end of day close them. Many more signs to put up and take down.
I will probably have to do more than 5 rescues in a season, wont be surprised if I end up doing more than 5 a week.
Lunch is provided and if I'm not to busy I get an hour to eat it. No more packed lunch on the go!
There will be co workers and Colleagues to learn from, not make it up as I go along.
There are procedures, plans and preparednes, not just thrown the keys and told best of luck.
New uniform of many parts not just a used Jacket with a name on it.
Why did I get the job, they wanted an experienced person with real English skils (They only have one other real english speaker on the whole operations staff). As a bonus I'm happy to do high wire rescue (aparently the majority of staff are terrified of it?)
Am I looking forward to it, hell yes. Any terpedation, yup they grilled me for 10 min about where my rugby loyalties lie....and I don't even have a telly!

[Buster Highmen]

Great news T!
Megeve is sort of a fancy spot, eh? As I fail, maybe I'll stop by to cruise the groom.

[shirk]

Cool. Hopefully a good season ahead.

[I Skied Bandini Mountain]

Man, if I only had to lie about team allegiances during my years of employment interviews I'd be pretty happy.

[Idris]

Just done 3 days of corprate intro, training and just getting ready for winter stuff.

[Buster Highmen]

++++

[romeo tango]

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[up an down]

Just done 3 days of corprate intro, training and just getting ready for winter stuff.

Congrats and good luck!

[PB]

Seems like a lot of hangin' around ..........

[Brownski]

Awesome. This is very cool and I’m looking forward to more. I hope you keep us updated

[MakersTeleMark]

I have been following your life for almost 20 years. I am so psyched for you.

Do you feel that you are happy, now, right now?

[Idris]

I have been following your life for almost 20 years. I am so psyched for you.

Do you feel that you are happy, now, right now?

Yes

[whipski]

How many days/week? Free time is muy importante!

[Idris]

It's been over 2 months since I've updated this, sorry. In that time we got rained almost shut, got snowed on and 2 rounds of holidays (in the middle of the 2nd set).

Every morning I open runs, I am lucky we get a different circuit (we have 9) each day, some resorts you stick to one for the season. Sometimes it's so fresh you follow the piste bashers as they go home. Early season we see sunrise on the mountain.



Not all the runs can be accesed by gravity at the start of the day, so we call and uber and get a tow (these are lifties going first)



Sometmes reopening runs that have been shut for a while



Some morning there is a fair bit to fix



Mornings are usually quite in terms of rescues, so we spend time making sure things are right (in some parts of the ski world there is trail crew to do this, but here it's patrol). After the last big snowfall we had to find all the buiried safety mats and dig them up



Lunch is taken in shifts so there is always someone on call - NOW, not 5 min later after extracting yourself from a resturant. In Megeve we do eat quite well



Early afternoon is when we get most calls, I've been lead or solo on more than a dozen and aid to three times that number so far this season. A few scary ones but nothing that you can't recover from (eventually),a few anoying ones that you may not get called for in another country and whole bunch of knees!



I've only been on two heli assisted rescues so far, one was quite serious and both were in places that are hard to get out from with a person in a rescue sled.



Sometimes you end up in a corner thinking how am I going to get them out of here. When it's not a serious accident (or other mitigating circumstances) we can't just call for a heli. This one in a stream bed took a bit of thought and making a escape route on foot.



Once we've found you, stabilized you, then it's off by sled to the ambulance



At the end of the day we get to watch the sun go down from the top of the mountain



We each have a run or runs to close on the way home, sometimes they are a bit of a mess



And sometimes its nice

[Squirreljam]

Great post, way to bring the patrol stoke!

Jealous of your lunch