The morning at a ski area begins long before the first chairlift starts spinning, when the mountain is still quiet and covered with a fresh, untouched layer of snow. After all, behind every run a guest makes down a powdery smooth slope is a team of patrollers who have already put in hours of unseen work.

By the time most skiers have clicked into their bindings, ski patrollers have already swept the slopes and ensured that they are as safe as possible and ready for them to enjoy. Sections of terrain have been allocated to different patrollers, plans for avalanche mitigation work are in place, and runs are being checked for potential hazards and opened.

“Our job is about risk management and making sure that people have a safe and fun skiing experience,” said Lindsay Wiebold, assistant patrol director at Arapahoe Basin Ski Area. “So all of those little things that we do in a day, whether it’s training, rope work, and marking hazards on the hill or helping people who’ve been hurt, the whole point of the job is to kind of take care of people and make sure they have fun, and I find that really rewarding.”

After completing morning patrols and openings, the patrollers regroup to respond to incidents, work on projects across the mountain, do “manual compaction” with skis (stepping on the mountain to compact snow down), and much more.

At the end of the day, patrollers meet back up at headquarters and sweep the mountain, skiing every run to make sure no guest has been left behind.

While patrollers can do their best to prepare for anything that might happen on the mountain, Wiebold says that after 11 years of working in the ski industry, she’s learned to expect the unexpected.

Karah Frizzel, a ski patroller at Breckenridge, reinforced that sentiment.

“Everything that you need to address throughout the day really keeps you on your toes,” Frizzel said. “It’s always an area of growth, we can always be learning. I would say that you would not see a tenured ski patroller that is like ‘I know everything.’ Every situation is so different, you have to think creatively, get resourceful, and it just really keeps you on your toes and requires a lot of critical thinking.”

When asked about her most memorable day on the job, Frizzel spoke about a day a few years ago when two Flight For Life helicopters landed at the mountain within about an hour. Another guest went into cardiac arrest in the same hour, and was saved and transported off of the mountain. Frizzel said that since helicopters are for people who are critically injured and who need to get off the mountain as soon as possible, it’s rare to land helicopters, making the incident even more momentous.

Wiebold’s most memorable day was an intense windstorm in December of last season, which caused the power at A-Basin to go out. This meant that battery life on patroller radios was dwindling, no computer systems were working, and lifts had to run on diesel as a backup, of which the resort had a limited supply. At the end of the day, patrollers brought home their radios to charge them, and someone brought in a propane heater to patrol headquarters to make up for the lack of heat. Despite the complications, the ski resort was still running.

“We still find a way to operate and make sure people can come up and go skiing if they want to safely,” Wiebold said.

As far as Wiebold’s favorite day of each ski season goes, it’s the day the iconic and daunting East Wall at A-Basin opens. According to Wiebold, opening that section of the mountain requires a “tremendous amount of physical labor,” as patrollers have to ski every line, make sure the snow is safe and compacted, and that it’s a good “skiing product.”

“It’s some of the best skiing, hike-to extreme skiing in the state and people just froth over it,” Wiebold said. “So the day that we get the East Wall open and can give that to the people is a really rewarding sort of sense of accomplishment.”

As well as the physical demands and unpredictable nature of the job, it also builds a strong level of trust between coworkers.

“We end up trusting each other with our lives on a daily basis,” Frizzel said. “Ski patrollers are a very tight knit group for a reason and it’s because we build this level of trust with each other. If I’m going out on an avalanche mitigation route with explosives or without explosives and you’re expected to ski something and create an avalanche, you are trusting that your teammates are going to rescue you and save you if something goes wrong. I’ve never worked anywhere else where you’re so close with the folks that you work with, and they become family, friends and family. It’s a very special team.”

To those considering a career in the skiing industry, Wiebold says to do it even if you’re not an expert skier yet. She says to be a good teammate and learn all you can, with skiing skills improving over time.

Frizzel emphasizes the significance of teamwork in the profession of ski patrol. To prospective ski patrollers, she says to “prepare for the most physically demanding job you’ve ever had, but expect to create some of the best relationships of your life.”

In Colorado’s mountains, where things can turn sideways in an instant, ski patrollers work as the steady presence behind every open and safe run.

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