13609986:Chinchi said:
Haha I know homie it just feels good to get out of the park mindset for a while and work on other tings
that's cool, I understand where you're coming from. But I guess my point is just that there's no "park mentality" vs. "all mountain mentality". They feed off of each other, and being a park skier colors all of your skiing. Skiing park 100% improves your skiing outside of it, and skiing the rest of the mountain aggressively and with a creative out of the box approach will make your park skiing better.
**Before some square jumps all over me, I'm not saying all park rats are good skiers everywhere, I'm saying that the balance, coordination, edge control, confidence, etc. involved with park skiing lends itself to transferring elsewhere.
I just don't want to see people feed into the "patrol is anti-park" stuff, and when you said you were turning away from it to patrol, it bummed me out.
I feel like so much of the negative perception people have of patrol comes from people skiing at tiny little hills where the patrol is exclusively volunteer based, largely lower intermediate skiers, have weird power trip complexes, are maybe on average 55 years old, and have a general aversion to young people.
Anywhere out west, and I'd imagine in Europe and other places, patrol is made up of ski bums trying to find a way to meek out a living and ski as much as possible. I know some patrollers who are sendy heros, in and out of the park.
You'd be hard pressed to find many patrollers at western ski areas who have a problem with park skiers, tell people to slow down, etc. For the most part, it's the opposite. All the patrollers I know are fucking psyched when they see people just crushing, because they themselves love to ski.
Patrol rant over, I know I took what you said and ran with it, so don't feel defensive or anything I didn't mean it to sound like an attack towards you. I hope the OEC class goes well for you and you learn a lot, and remember to take it all with a grain of salt. The way it goes down in reality is pretty different than the context of an oec class.
Just keep in mind that for the most part, your only job is to recognize serious/life/limb threatening injuries when you come upon one, that you get a bus/chopper headed that way ASAP, and that you get the person the fuck off the hill. You can't do much for someone beyond that, but a lot of patrollers want to play ER doc out there. Don't be that guy. Just get the person to someone else that can actually fix them. Do what they ask in the class of course, but in practice, don't spend a half hour in the freezing cold getting vitals and constructing elaborate splints when you can have the person sit in a sled, possibly self-splint, and get em the hell out of there.
Yeah. Have fun, you'll love it, and try and educate the old crotchety fucks you may encounter on the patrol about how cool the park actually is. It's your responsibility as a NEWSCHOOLER to be an ambassador for us to the older generation who doesn't get it. Maybe that person next time won't bat an eye at a kid carving switch turns in control instead of "pulling them over" and lecturing them.
