The January 2-15th stormcycle kinda rocked us a little. It wasn’t really until after the storm Cedric and I tallied up the storm total. 12 feet 7 inches in 13 days. It is hard to get data, just like so many ski areas in Colorado weather data compiling is not that uniformly electronically parsed.
[easychart type="vertbar" height="250" width="450" title="January Snow" groupnames="New Snow (cm), Temp @, 0 degree isobar, Wind" valuenames="1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 ,7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15" group1values="0, 4, 6, 30, 30, 24, 2, 25, 30, 20, 20, 18, 60, 60" group2values="" group3values="" group4values="" group5values=""]
Every day is sensory overload, in the most positive way. It challenges me out of my comfort zone. The things that rock my world everyday is opening my locker in the vestiere of plateau de La flegere. The locker belongs to Dje Trappier, my counterpart in Snowmass.
Vestiere from Mariposa Productions on Vimeo.
Separate from our locker room is the bootdryer-room. And when I say bootdryer, I mean: warmer MacDaddy, OSHEA exceeding, MOSHINE!
This room is where we do morning briefings, in french that is. Afterwards Jules gives me a glance and I usually give him a percentage between 70-90% of comprehension level. He takes that number in and over the day sees to it that I catch up accordingly. It’s usually 2nd year pisteur Tim who I can review some “mots clés” (keywords) with.
It is then when I grab Djé’s radio out of the charger, that I am reminded every day that this must be at least equally rocking his world. I may never get to meet him, but I feel close to the man. 8000 miles away, I get to see what is usually only privy to his eyes.
Faites du bilan
After the storm from Mariposa Productions on Vimeo.
The early mornings, the camradery, the jokes, the hair raising avy control work in “enverse passage de trois” the blizzard-white-out snowmobile rides in the dark, and sometimes close calls.
I get a smile of knowing that Dje is having and adventure of a lifetime too. “I know that snowmass ski patrol, it must be good.”
The patrol is small and the terrain serviced is huge. I think the work we do here at la Flegere with 8 peeps, would be covered by 25 snowmass guys. It seems like mission impossible some days, but we pull it of everyday. Thank goodness we have mission impossible help by the helicopter and Gazex.
Fly by Haute Savoie style from Upper terrain from Mariposa Productions on Vimeo.