The first combined EMARI-NH Region Senior Ski and Toboggan (S&T) Clinic on the 2014 Calendar took to Ragged Mountain in Danbury, NH on Sunday January 12, 2014.  Sixteen candidates braved the cold snap and came out to discover the performance criteria required for becoming a Senior Alpine Patroller.

S&T Trainers setting up toboggans for the clinic

S&T Trainers setting up toboggans for the clinic

The entire New England region had been suffering a warm weather thaw with several days of rain.  Just prior to the clinic date, a polar cold snap blew in and froze the slopes to a durable white hard-pack.  The Candidates got a glimpse of New England’s constantly changing snow conditions, a common occurrence that sometimes afflicts the annual Senior exam day in early March.

These events are staffed by both NH and EMARI Trainer/Evaluators (TE’s).  The Trainer to Candidate ratio is typically less then three. This allows the participants to get plenty of individualized attention.  Not only are these clinics a great place to see the expected performance criteria needed to pass the exam, but techniques usable for attaining success are introduced.  The students get to try out these approaches and practice under the guidance of their instructors.

One of the S&T program goals is to provide Senior Candidates with enough information, technique development, guidance and practice, so that they can continue practicing on their own.  With three more Senior S&T Clinics schedules for the season, most candidates seem to attend two more before taking the test.

At Ragged Mountain, the participants were broken up into three groups and rotated between enhancing their skiing skills, toboggan handling and patroller skills.  I caught up with Michelle Goldsmith’s (TE wearing the green jacket)  group in the afternoon and found her introducing side-slipping on a steep boilerplate slope. She stepped the group through a series of progressive exercises that helped them discover and tune into balancing on the icy terrain while using edging/braking, whole ski pressuring and even rotational movement when practicing the “falling leaf” style side-slip.  The brief video shows a short snippet of her group putting it all together on the ice.

The Senior program is made up of three components:  Ski & Toboggan handling, OEC First Aid Management and patroller electives.  Most Senior Candidates choose to train over two winter seasons.  It is typical to work on Senior OEC first aid management one year, then the next year train for the S&T exam.  During both seasons, the Candidates typically take NSP educational electives.  The S&T Program offers Toboggan Enhancement Seminars which everyone takes for their first elective.  NH Region also offers the an official “Skier Enhancement Seminar” at Waterville Valley on the last Sunday of January.  These are the easiest two electives that most add to their Senior program checklist.  After that, Candidates need to find one additional elective to choose from:  Avalanche, Mountain   Travel Rescue , and Instructor Development are the most common that patrollers choose.

Along the way, Ski Patrollers training in the Senior program develop friendships among colleagues from neighboring mountains.  NH trains with EMARI, which is the Eastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island Region, so friendships often extend over the border.  They find themselves meeting each other at multiple events and supporting each other on test day.

The NH and EMARI  S&T Senior Program gets excellent reviews from participants because the TE’s encourage all participants to anonymously fill out a “Program Improvement Questionnaire.”  The questionnaire is located on a separate section of this  website. It collects ratings from the students and gives them a chance to vent their frustrations with the events and exams.  The S&T staffs of both regions pour over the results, carefully review the comments and use the information to make improvements to the Senior Candidate experience.  Every year we collect over 50 submissions, the data is collated and the program is tuned and tweaked to continually deliver the best possible candidate training experience possible.

I touched base with Rick Rockwood, the NH Region S&T Instructor of Record for the event and asked him for a few of the anonymous comments.  He sent me the following:

 What did you like most about this program?: 
     Meeting other patrollers, skiing with instructors.
What did you like most about this program?:
    The instructors really cared about whether we were learning.  
    They checked for comprehension and restated concepts in 
    different ways to make sure we understood.  There was a nice 
    blend of encouragement and suggestions for improvement.
What did you like least about this program?: 
    Never enough time or moguls.
What did you like least about this program?: 
    Mother Nature -- can't dictate the terrain (eg bumps)
What is the ONE thing that you would most like to see changed in 
this program?: 
    Nothing that you can do.  We needed more snow!!
Please feel free to make any additional comments: 
    Enjoyable class, and I learned a lot!

Ragged Mountain was the first big mountain Senior Ski and Toboggan clinic of the season.  The next event is two weeks later at Sunday River in Bethel, ME.  This is a two day event with a pot luck dinner and it includes Senior Candidates from all over the Maine Region.  In early February, the Senior Clinic moves to Waterville Valley where the moguls begin to loom tall.

Rick Rockwood and Cal Goldsmith bring up a few  Senior Candidates for sweep at the end of the day

Rick Rockwood and Cal Goldsmith bring up a couple of  Senior Candidates for sweep at the end of the day

After that clinic, everybody returns to their own mountain because the school holiday weeks require patrollers to do double duty at their own resorts.  Although early March brings the annual Senior exam at Cannon Mountain, EMARI and NH S&T Staff’s do squeeze in a pre-test day at Loon Mountain.  Its like a dress-rehearsal where the Candidates come to one last clinic for feedback, tweaking and practice before the big day at Cannon.

Watch this S&T News page for another installment of the 2014 Senior S&T Training experience.  If you participated in past seasons, or are currently training for the exam, we would like to hear your comments below. . .