WINTER PARK – The load on the red coats can be large. Especially this slow-to-arrive snow season as dense crowds pack limited terrain.
Ski patrollers are on the front line of those crowds, handling ugly traumas, terrible accidents, near-misses and worse. They hike to remote snowfields and hurl explosives. They chase down rope duckers. They spend 45 hours a week working in ski boots.
And then they live in communities with glaring wealth disparity as they piece together lives in some of the most expensive valleys in the country.
It can be overwhelming for ski patrollers in mountain communities that already are struggling with growing numbers of stressed out residents who are not addressing their mental health as well as they could.
But a new three-year program at Winter Park ski area is better preparing patrollers for the stresses of front-line resort work. The partnership with Responder Alliance is designed to build stress resilience by delivering a host of tools for patrollers to bolster their mental well-being.
“There’s real pressure to perform and perform safely, and it’s important that as a patrol that we have a sort of professional and mature environment and take those jobs very seriously,” Winter Park ski patrol manager Zach Akselrad said, noting a growing self-awareness among patrollers that is eclipsing the old perspectives of macho men who never need help. “There’s a recognition that what we are doing is super meaningful, and we really have to perform at our best, and so there’s a lot of pressure there with all the different things that are asked of us every day … the trauma that we can witness, big incidents, fatalities, injuries with children, close calls. It can be very tough.”
The partnership between Winter Park operator Alterra Mountain Co. and Responder Alliance, which has trained thousands of outdoor professionals, including a lot of volunteer search and rescue team members in Colorado, starts with courses designed to give bosses a way to identify overly stressed workers and provide organizations with support systems to reduce the risk of stress-related injuries. Alterra is also launching three-year initiatives for patrollers and guides at Arapahoe Basin and Steamboat, as well as more than a dozen other ski resorts.
“Ski patrollers are exposed to acute long-term stress and short-term stress and historically, response to that stress has been reactive,” said Griffin Lawrence, the director of Responder Alliance. “What we are seeing in the industry is a seismic shift from being reactive to being proactive in how we handle traumatic stress. We used to wait until someone complained. Now we are prepared and saying: ‘Hey this is hard and it’s going to take a toll and that’s because you are human. Let’s do things to reduce the damage from that stress.’”
Starting with Pilates and PT
The program at Winter Park includes a physical wellness program that includes regular Pilates classes, visits with physical therapists, programs developed by athletic trainers and a stipend to spend at the local recreation center.
On the mental health side, the patrol has developed a program to make sure employees are reacting well to major incidents and they have access to resources if they need help. That mental health check-in is based on Responder Alliance’s “3-3-3 Traumatic Exposure Protocol.”
There are patrollers who lead the check-ins based on the 3-3-3 system, which identifies if a fellow worker needs help three days, three weeks and three months after traumatic incidents like a bad wreck, a difficult rescue or a series of stressful work days. The system uses a questionnaire to make sure employees are properly recovering from an incident so they can avoid a stress injury.
At regular meetings for the 45-member ski patrol, the patrollers arrive and place a magnet on a stress board colored with green, yellow, orange or red. Those magnets reflect each person’s stress level and, while anonymous, help patrol leaders identify the general vibe on the team and identify the need for intervention with some employees.
“It’s just a great tool for managers to take the pulse of the team. And on any given day we can react to that. You know, are we asking too much of the team?” Akselrad said. “Is this a day everyone just needs to lay low and ski powder? Maybe we need to reduce trainings for that day. Do we need to be buying the team lunch or having a camaraderie event?”
The stress continuum board at patrol meetings also have QR codes so individual patrollers can submit a self-assessment for managers and the patrol resiliency team.
“One of the biggest things that we want to consider is who actually wants help, because sometimes people don’t necessarily always want to talk to us or work with us,” said Chantal Kershner, a ski patroller who is taking a lead on the check-ins with her Winter Park colleagues. “So our biggest thing by using these initial check-ins is to make sure that we’re not overdoing it with those that actually want to help themselves. But for those that actually do want further help and further counseling or further resources, we’re able to determine if people actually want more help down the line. And even without the critical incidents, this is still an option.”
Winter Park offers all its employees anonymous access to therapists who visit the resort twice a week all season long. Every employee has access to six free counseling sessions.
“It’s important to talk about the pre-work you have to do for your mental health, so when incidents do arise or when you finally do hit your tipping point, you have the tools and mental awareness to say ‘I need to step back for a second.’ Or you can say ‘Hey, I got this. I can work through this. I know how to help myself here,’” said Kershner, who works on the patrol’s new resiliency team.
Stress testing the tools
As ski patrollers take their new stress resiliency tools from the workplaces into their communities, there is hope they can become models for how best to handle the increasing stress of mountain-town life.
“I think within the resort community, we’ve really tried to set an example, just through what we do culturally, things we’ve learned from Responder Alliance,” Akselrad said. “The example that we could provide could be terrific for the resort community and the town community. Certainly, the town is under-resourced in that regard.”
Responder Alliance also is partnering with the 30,000-member National Ski Patrol.
“By supporting their resilience, we’re also supporting the safety culture that defines our mountains,” Stephanie Cox, the CEO of National Ski Patrol, said in a statement. “This new partnership helps our patrollers with skills and training that strengthen them mentally, emotionally and as teams.”
The partnerships with ski patrols can trickle into communities that are feeling overwhelmed as housing prices explode and the typical grind to make a living in mountain towns becomes exceptionally challenging.
“What we are seeing is that whole communities are impacted by stress, and it’s a bigger-picture stress around this affordability crisis,” Lawrence said. “And then living in mountain communities, we can be rocked by sudden and really traumatic stress when something bad happens. And we want to promote a community resiliency model — basically stress awareness recognition — that can benefit more than rescuers and first responders.”
Lawrence equates the risks of stress to the danger of carbon monoxide. Once you know there is an odorless, colorless gas that can kill swiftly in a contained space, you can recognize the danger long before the threat turns fatal.
“That’s what we are trying to do with stress. Know those early warning signs and you can stop it before it gets too bad,” he said.
On the day after Thanksgiving, Kerschner and Akselrad were dealing with lots of skiers wedged on a few beginner runs at Winter Park. It was a mix of skiers that can be dangerous, as experts sped through easy terrain next to beginners. The patrollers posted up at critical corners and joined a host of other red coats and yellow-jacketed safety crew members, trying to keep a high profile. It was the first turns of the season for most everyone and the stoke was high despite the lack of snow.
“It’s gonna snow. This is all going to change,” Kershner said. “We’ll be skiing powder soon.”