I made my way up the stairs, the smell of pancakes filling the room. One of the more “seasoned” patrollers—let’s call him Rossignol—was parked in his usual spot in front of the stove, making breakfast. As soon as I took a seat, he came over with a king-size Hershey’s bar for me to keep in my pack (another one of his recurring, kind gestures). I thanked him, sliding it beside the unopened bar from last week.
Having made the mistake of going night skiing the evening prior, I shoved warmers into my ski boots. It was impossible to tell if they were working or not, as my toes were still numb. The icing on the cake was that today’s high would be around 0 degrees.
“Okay everyone, listen up,” said one of the Three Musketeers (I don’t yet know their names). “I know it’s cold, but don’t forget it’s also windy out there. Windy enough to blow an elk into the highway.”
“Is that what that was? There were pieces of it everywhere.”
“A truck hit it. Must’ve exploded.”
“Yep. Proof is all over my car if you need it.”
Our candidate group was slightly smaller today, due to the cold and wind. After opening, I was assigned PC Bump, which I quickly learned meant I would be holed up in a less-than-20-square-foot cabin with about four other patrollers. Our job, I assumed, would be to wait around until something went wrong and someone called. But there were so few people on the mountain, it was rather uneventful.
It gave me some time to get to know some of the patrollers a bit better. Hear their stories. Most of which involved cracked femurs, tourniquets, and other moderately gruesome details.
Like I said: way in over my head.
We returned to the patrol building for lunch and I immediately set out to remove my boots. The numbness had gone from uncomfortable to mildly concerning. Naturally, one of the patrollers also happened to be a doctor.
“Check your cap refill,” she said. “If it’s bad, you shouldn’t go back out there.”
I stepped away from the table, taking her advice to get some hot water bottles and wait it out. After a half hour or so, they felt like they’d gone up in flames (which in my case, was a good sign).
I returned to the table with my bare feet, hoping for her to tell me they looked good enough to go out. I didn’t realize I was opening the door for incident-hungry candidates who’d completed medical training to start poking at my toes like I was some kind of science experiment.
After finally getting the go ahead from the doctor, one of them chimed in.
“I get it,” he said, pointing to my still-bare feet. “You stepped away because you’re self conscious about your weird toes.”
They informed us that afternoon that we’d be starting to actually use toboggans. The first part, however, would involve learning how to take a toboggan on a chairlift. (File that under “things I didn’t know I had to be concerned about until now.”)
I quickly realized that getting on wouldn’t be the issue–it was making sure I didn’t crash on the way off.
And didn’t. That first time, at least. In fact, I learned that this is one of the few things I was actually good at, given that it required only brute strength and basic coordination.
When it was time to start training with the toboggan, we were paired up with other candidates in the group. They walked us through the basic commands and communication needed between the handles and tail rope. My mind gradually drifted back to doubles in tennis: imagine a 10-foot rope between each other and communicate as much as possible.
This was familiar territory—I could do this.
Much like the previous Saturday (and what I assumed would be every Saturday after), it was a long and exhausting day. I could feel my legs hang limp from fatigue on one of the last lifts up, which I took with Solomon. In between the small talk, I could tell he was trying to gauge if I was second-guessing my decision, finding ways to convince me that it was something worth doing.
He clearly didn’t know me well enough yet to know that I’m not the type of person who needs convincing.
“It’s a nice break from the real world,” he said finally, leaning further back into his seat. I nodded—I knew exactly what he meant, yet I felt like the work they—”we”—were doing was so much more rewarding than the real world.
So much more real.