Ski patrolling, like so many other blue collar jobs, is a true meritocracy, if the merit of measure is a physical necessity and if you are at the bottom rank. It is not a meritocracy of advancement. It is a meritocracy of accountability. When the stakes are tangible and real, such as providing first aid in an inhospitable environment, or clearing a clogged shitter if you’re a plumber, you either can and want to do the job, or you can not, or do not want to.

There’s a natural entry and exit threshold

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The kid suddenly appears out of nowhere in the dense fog, exactly on the approximately 1x1 meter spot where the angle is just right to turn the skidoo off the steep pitch into the cat-track. If I go too high, it becomes too steep to turn and I’m stuck uphill, if I turn too early I’m in such a weird angle on the mini ridge below the flat cat-track, the skidoo will tilt over it’s side, if I keep going I’ll plow over the kid with a 220kg 90hp machine with no impact crumple zone.

There’s a split second of panic, in which I come to an almost stop, the kid does a sudden tight turn ending up below me, and as I pull the gas lever again, I have made the wrong decision, gotten too low for the turn, and too slow to white knuckle over the ridge, and I can feel the skidoo tilt and gain air on it’s left, so I jump off sideways as it starts to roll in on itself down the hill. I whip around to see if the kid is in its path, but it’s so foggy I can’t see anything. All I hear is the piercing sound of clunking metal, the stalling engine and what I assume are parts flying off it.

I slide downhill and somewhat poetically, see black smoke mixing with the white fog. It’s quiet now, and I hear no screaming, which is either really good, or really really bad. I make my way even further down, clear the fog line and see - no kid. I breathe for the first time in what feels like hours.

Now, the absolute yard-sale I’ve produced becomes apparent. All the tools from under the seats’ storage are splattered across the slope, the machine is upside down, black smoke coming from the engine, the back metal cage is bent, the front left plexiglass windshield is broken and it’s dug itself a little snow hole, with a black line of gas in the snow behind it. It’s as if the skidoo has sacrificed itself before it could roll any further, because somehow it managed to stop on the steepest section of the run. I’m shaking as I start to gather some of the tools and bits and pieces that are thrown across the slope, and make the call.

“Stefan, I’ve flipped the skidoo. No one’s hurt, but I need help.”

As I wait for my colleague I am mortified. This is my first season in this resort, a town I have just moved to, laying all my eggs in one basket. I was tired of moving around every season. Even though it’s already April, I’ve only been here for two weeks, because earlier that season, on my very first day at work on ski patrol, I had torn my ACL, had to get surgery and rehab my knee. Which I now feel thumping furiously in pain. Unsurprisingly, my doctor and physical therapists had strongly advised against working ski patrol already but I was miles away from actually getting on skis anyway. I figured I can still do patrol, because at this particular resort we do most rescues on skidoos anyway. We’re basically a glorified taxi. This is not a great start. First, I tear my ACL and go MIA for the season, then I flip a skidoo and can’t even fix it myself.

I am definitely getting fired.

When Stefan shows up, I stumble over a confused apology, and he surprises me by saying: “It’s only a machine. Main thing is nobody’s hurt”. He then proceeds to dig out the left front ski and single handedly pushes the skidoo upright, instructing me to get ready to jump on it and pull the brakes in case it starts to slide. Once flipped, he checked the engine and concluded the gas pouring over the hot engine is creating the black smoke but it should be fine to ride to the garage. He was adamant I should ride it there myself, since if I don’t get on again right away, I will never get on it again.

I had fallen off and gotten back on plenty of horses in my day (both literal and metaphorical), so that wasn’t an issue, but as we were convoying down to the garage, all determination to do this job slowly left my body, as I silently cursed and cried on the inside, because it has never been more obvious that physically, I could never do what Stefan just did. I simply am not strong enough and never will be.

Only in my head

“Maybe some jobs really aren’t for women...”, “What the feck is a Frenchie? Is it a tool? Is it a sandwich? What is he asking me for? Why do all men seem to know the names of all tools?” ...were just some of the thoughts that went through my head as he fixed the skidoo in the garage (Stefan is also a mechanic). I was embarrassed. I was watching my colleague fix a problem I had created. The next day I braced myself for the conversation with my boss. I assumed they would let me finish the season, but not ask me back next winter. When I saw him, he laughed and said “It happens to everybody.” I was both surprised and relieved.

He informed me of the spare windshield he’d already ordered and reminded me that speed was my friend: “Never go too slow uphill, you can’t steer anymore”. And that was it. No fuss, no drama. Certainly no mention of my inability to lift the skidoo by myself... Off to morning checks I was sent.

For the rest of the season, sure, there were some jokes about me breaking the skidoo but all in good humor, and when the spring snow got even mushier and tougher to break on, my colleagues would periodically ask me if I was still OK riding all the steep and tricky sections. I would say yes, it’s fine, even though I was absolutely shitting myself on the black runs with the skidoo. It is now two winters later and I still get a bit scared sometimes, but my biggest worry these days is that the control levers are too far from the handle bar for smaller hands. All my colleagues are big strong burly mountain men with bear claws as hands so they can reach easily, whereas I have to stretch and reach, which sometimes makes me feel like a little kid playing with grown-up toys. Those smaller hands come in handy though when having to reach into a snow machine hydrant gully to fiddle with a lodged rope knot.

It seems to me that it never even crosses my male colleagues’ minds that I happen to be a woman. And if it is, they hide it well. Now…higher up the ranks, it’s another story. And I’m not talking about my boss, who is more like a team leader in the hierarchy of the company I work for.

The trouble starts, where the low paying jobs end.

If you care to read on, read: “No sexism in dirty jobs”

“Ski patrol to station F please, there’s someone here with a dislocated thumb”

“On my way”

A pause

“Ski patrol to K., helicopter coming in soon, make sure to shut down the lift.”

A dislocated thumb is not something that warrants a helicopter. But a suspected pneumothorax is. This is when due to an injury or crash to your chest, air leaks into the space between the lung and the chest wall. Since ski resorts still don’t supply us with mobile xray machines, ultrasounds and MRI’s, unfortunately we still have to perform good old fashioned patient assessments with no fancy technical medical equipment. By the time I got to my man with the (twice!) dislocated thumb, the thumb itself had started to turn white, which is not a great sign and after a few rounds of circular DC-ABCDE patient assessment, I had determined the thumb wasn’t his biggest problem.

It was his chest, his breathing and thus his circulatory system. When he crashed he had landed on a tree stump with his chest and as he answered my questions and endured my physical examination his breathing apparatus showed all the signs of a respiratory problem. There’s a rule in first aid treatment that comes in real handy in the decision making process.

The rule is: “Treat first what kills first.” And since an inability to breathe would kill him before a dislocated thumb would, I made the call.

Now mind you, “determined” is a strong word here. I was as unsure of myself as I imagine a deer in the headlights is when it chooses, against its own instincts, to hop away from the light, not towards it.

Patients are often puzzles that are hard to figure out. It’s a perfect storm of a difficult environment and symptoms which need hospital environments to diagnose. All we can do is try and get people to that hospital environment as safely and as quickly as possible, all whilst:

- not creating further harm to the patient

- not creating further incidents / injuries to ourselves or others

- being mindful of resources.

Sometimes I get briefly overwhelmed with the guess work, and the choices I have to make on the spot, which in any given situation could have all kinds of chaotic consequences.

If I were to pick a singular goal and make that my measurement of success, I would be pretty lost.

For example:

If my chosen performance goal was: “Get all patients to hospital as quickly as possible” -> I would call helicopters for non-serious injuries, taking up resources needed elsewhere and racking up insurance costs for patients.

If my chosen performance goal was: “Always adhere to the patient’s wishes” ...let’s not go there, but let’s just say I’d be in jail by now. So I go back to what I call:

Ben’s Circle of Winning.

(Ben is one of my favorite ever EMT instructors).

When working on a problem you ask yourself:

What do I see? What does it mean? What can I do?

Then you see, listen and think -> then you do something (or don’t), and as you go on, patterns will emerge. You are now recalibrating your process to the only metric necessary: Will this improve things?

This ensures you can go to bed at night knowing you have done the best you can, and it loosens the mental grip on obsessing over a specific outcome whilst carrying you over in the general direction of your goal. Specific outcomes are a false friend, because in almost all situations in life, much of their achievement is out of our hands anyway. However, if we focus on a winning performance, we become less tense, which makes us able to come up with more playful and joyful solutions, and paradoxically, makes us more likely to reach that imagined specific outcome.

So don’t worry so much if you’ve made the right decision in the pursuit of your goal.

Worry if you’re delivering a winning performance on the way there.

After his ABC’s (Airways, Breathing and Circulation, etc.) and a swift splinting of the arm, he swoops under him, propping him up on his shoulder and tells him: “Now, Stuart, I know ‘ya may have a broken arm, but I need y’er help walking to ‘yer man over there by the 4x4 to get y’a back to your ma’”. (Sorry Ben, that’s what the Irish sound like in my head.)

So, off they stumble towards the imaginary rescue vehicle.

Ben’s entire patient assessment, including getting him into the safety of a vehicle, took him all but 7 minutes, whereas us trainees all faffed about for easily double the time. You see, by making Stuart walk, he could check for secondary injuries, possible circulation issues, neurological issues all in one go. Most importantly, he gave the patient a sense of agency and something to focus on, other than his excruciating pain.

Counterintuitively, it is often very useful to tell an injured person (only if they are conscious - dhu...) that you, their rescuer, needs their help.

In less extreme situations, the same principle applies:

If you want to help someone, don’t try and prop up their ego. Give them the opportunity to operate within their applicable competence. Ask them for advice, a helping hand, an opinion. Coddling someone, or feeling sorry for them ultimately helps no one. Empathy-yes, pity - no. If you’re helping someone remember that they do need help, but they are not helpless.

Vice versa, a good way to make yourself feel better, is to do something that makes you feel useful, either helping someone else, or yourself.

Now, some people, in some situations can not hold any level of self responsibility (very young children; impaired people) and some do not want it (very young children; social martyrs) but the mere act of assuming someone has self agency and at least basic life competency, is the foundation of being treated with dignity.

When confidence meets competence

I was on duty to guard the roped off area behind which my colleagues were running avalanche explosions. Sometimes this feels like the most redundant place in the world to be, because snow mitigation works are done in the wee hours of the morning, well before any tourists are on the slopes. You are more likely to be run over by a stray mountain goat merrily fart-hopping along its morning route (yes, they fart a lot. Must be all that fibre) than a skier. But there’s always a slight chance of a lone ski tourer trudging towards early morning peak glory, which is who we stand on guard for.

We had already done 2 blasts, when my colleague F. was prepping the third, when sure enough, there he was.

Now, for a bit of context: there are generally three types of ski tourers: the naturalist connoisseur who likes the solitude of the mountains, the athlete who’s a semi professional on some local “Berglauf” league, and the third, and most dangerous:

The “I-need-to-escape-the-daily-power-point-hell-I’ve-maneuvered-myself-into” manager type. They usually do triathlons in summer, drive an SUV that’s all tires and no trunk space, and did one avalanche course, 6 years ago, making them with the most dangerous kind of expert of them all: the armchair expert.

Now, this particular specimen heading towards me and my security rope, was definitely the third type. Head down, sweating profusely and decked out in gear looking like he either was a pro, or training to become one. He did not appreciate me stopping him. When he didn’t believe me that I wasn’t just roping off the way to the peak at seven in the morning as a personal hobby of mine and that he would be walking straight into the blast zone, I pointed towards the ‘Warning! Explosives!’ sign with the big scary death’s head insignia, which also failed to impress him. After his mini tirade assuring me that he knew what he was doing, because he had gone up here a thousand times, he lifted his chin, took a determined breath, pushed past me, ducked under the rope and continued on his merry way.

I took a photo of him so we knew who the rescue dogs may be looking for and radioed F., told him to hold the shot.

F. said no-can-do, the fuse was already lit (it takes two minutes for the fuse to burn down to and detonate the load.)

At this point all I can do is huck and pray. Literally.

The blast went off, moving barely any snow because the snow pack was stable and I could see our friend in the distance had cleared the section, barely even flinching at the detonation. Now this particular fella didn’t seem to have any issues with confidence and assumed he was bullet proof (well in this case, 2.5 kilos of explosives proof) to personal disaster. It made me wonder...

Confidence comes from the latin words ‘com’ - *with* and ‘fidere’ - *to trust*, so it literally means ‘with trust’. So if you enter a situation “with trust”, you better make sure you control most of its variables. However, in the real world control is mostly a temporary solution and thus trust is extremely fragile. Anyone who’s ever dated a snowboard instructor knows this.

Competence however...competence is the solid base made up by failure, knowledge and experience we can always fall back on, no matter our current emotional state. If Speedy McSpeederson had had competence, he would have stopped and waited to see if the snowpack moves, maybe even an extra five minutes or so after the initial detonation. Furious as he may be, he would have known that the mountain won’t match your imaginary timeline, no matter how hard you will it to.

Never attribute to malice what can be attributed to incompetence.

That’s a fancy way of saying: “They didn’t mean bad, they just stupid.” Now, let’s give Mr. Manager the benefit of the doubt and assume that he wasn’t proactively suicidal, but attempting to outrun his problems. We have all been there. What could Inspector Gadget have done to hone his competence instead of attempting to bolster his most likely short lived confidence?

He could have simply stopped and talked to me. We would have had a chat about what actually happens to the snowpack when you drop explosives on it, and why even crossing in a perceived safe distance isn’t necessarily safe. He was so sure of himself that instead of taking this opportunity to gain some competence, he saw me as an obstacle, not as an opportunity. As a badly fitted uniformed, under-caffeinated (yes), overpaid (absolutely not) ski bum who stood in the way of his early morning peak glory.

Conversely, I was forced to acknowledge his agency when he refused to let me stop him, even for his own safety. When he ignored me and blasted past (pun intended), it was an awful feeling in the no-failures-allowed world of snow mitigation.

We both lost that morning.

He lost an opportunity to gain competence and ego-check his confidence, and I lost faith in my ability to make people see me.

But that story is for another time.

There’s an oversized design book on my non-existent coffee table called “Outsiders”. It’s gorgeously inspirational with it’s hyper edite

d calligraphed text, double-spread nature scenery imagery and tactucally addictive thick recycled paper. Not to become too ‘meta’ but the book exists in a paradoxically dualist state. The justification for its existence, a decorative domestic item, is, by definition, the opposite of what its content advocates.

I feel like that book. Often.
Not, thick and recycled, but in opposition to myself.

A different kind of seasonal depression - Momentum lost

I have lived a season to season, exploratory road trip to adventure, remote project to project - life for almost 20 years now. Much of my physical setting, social system, professional demands, where my cat lives changes every 3 to 5 months or so. (Obviously featuring some returning scenery and starring cast members.)

Not to worry, this is not a “the grass is always greener” sermon. The benefits and pitfalls of a life defined by stability and consistency vs one tending heavier on the side of creative reinvention and exploration are well discussed. Some form of balance between order and chaos is obviously key, albeit, exactly where on the scale we live comfortably, is not only forever a moving target but a matter of highly individual predisposition, personal history and circumstance. At any given point I can only wish for anyone to bravely stumble towards just the right, momentary balancing point of their lives with the confidence of a four year old in a batman costume.

Personally, I relish the fact that my friends often euphorically greet me on the phone with the words: “daaaaarling, where in the world are you right now?” ...proceeded by general life updates and reassurances of wanting to see each other again soon. I marvel at the progress they make within their relatively steady lives and careers and couldn’t be more invested in my friends ingenious ways to find adventure within that very life. I particularly enjoy re-appearing in places and gently being lowered into the latest pool of local gossip. It makes me feel included and the time I’ve spent investing into places and people well reciprocated.

However, with this high volume of circumstantial change I find myself, once again, in the grips of a different kind of seasonal depression. The constant loss of momentum. Imagine working on a highly complex and notoriously difficult project on your computer, but you find no flow, because you’re interrupted by updating software or an overheating hard-drive. Or you’re working from home and your toddler keeps waltzing in demanding tacos. Now extend that timeframe to trying to focus over the course of a year, and you get the idea.

Unless you’re some kind of tunnel vision savant who’s immune to external matter, you can’t, I certainly can’t, build incrementally progressive, sustainable momentum. The bedrock to a lot of big life projects. Instead, it’s stop-and-go, hurry-up-and-wait, same- sh**-different-...everything:

All seasonaires, remote project workers, cruise ship employees, military, film crew members, oil rig engineers, hell, even college students, know the feeling:

The post season crash

The big re-set.
The absolute mess that is the time “in-between”.
The doing of the very opposite of what should be rest and recovery.

Whilst in the throws of a season, a project, or a journey I imagine the time off ahead like the messiah is coming, picturing myself peacefully and joyfully hacking away at all the things I had to put on the back burner. From getting my financial affairs in order, to cooking healthy meals, to starting a stretchy yoga routine on dewy early mornings...

Miserably though, after the “end-of- season party” hangover subsides and the promised land of extended free time lays before me, depression, and a vicious come-down from a permanent adrenaline high that’s akin to rehab detox, awaits.

Here are (some of) the things to be dealt with when no-one’s looking:

• unpacking and packing, settling into a new/old/yet another apartment or accommodation. Not one bag or two, but instead a full mini household move every time.

• cleaning and putting away last seasons gear • cleaning and setting up the new seasons gear • cleaning things in general, if unlucky, previous tenants dirt, which is the grossest of all dirts. other people’s.

• relentless laundry cycles and more (un)packing and (re)setting everyday essentials.

• if home, talking extensively to the cacti, thanking them for not dying and over- fertilising them in a frenzy.

• removing actual, literal cobwebs from corners and telling Steve the spider to go make himself comfortable elsewhere.

• domestic decorations whether it be Christmas lights, easter dried flowers, or autumn harvest leafs notoriously being out of season (at home), or non-existent (dorm rooms, shared houses, rental vans). No nest building here.

• staring down the business end of a persistently overstretched budget due to delayed payments, unforeseen travel costs, bureaucracy not being fully digitised and worst of all: the limited availability before getting back on the road, expedites repair/maintenance deadlines, making everything reliably more expensive. (It’s a running joke in my family that my existence is held together by duct tape and good graces..from ripped down jackets, to ceiling lights.)

Once the initial dust has settled of departure and/or arrival, phase 2, hits...badly:

• abrupt loss of social environment and acute loneliness.

• all consuming restlessness, thanks to the addictive qualities of heightened adrenaline, seratonine, dopamine, all the -ine’s. Physically, mentally, emotionally I feel equally exhausted and unable to rest.

• for women: hormonal cycle mayhem

• pimples and digestive issues from the sudden change of diet

• the difficulty of settling into a new, or any daily rhythm whatsoever.

• simmering self hatred over the fact that I should know better by now.

• an existential questioning of life choices

• wanting to be left alone and around people at the same time.

• feeling equally uninspired and overwhelmed by opportunity

• a constant nagging inner voice that whatever I am currently doing is wrong, and I should be doing something else

• deep sadness on all that I miss out on, such as friends, siblings, or even a steady working relationship with the local gym.

Sidebar: The singular thing I seem to be able to adjust seamlessly to is hanging out with my cat (if she was staying with someone else), which once more speaks to the truly magical powers of animals, but that’s for another piece.

The joy

The post season paradox of needing to recharge but also reorganise is genuinely one of the shittiest phases of non-permanent employment/location life. It’s part of the dirty work keeping the dream propped up on legs about as steady as that of a new born foal. It’s the time I set aside to “sort myself out”, to “really focus this time”, to “get it together already”...Yet somehow I end up in a mud puddle by the river, digging a damn like I used to when I was a kid. There is also the sheer joy of making this the time to write down all the craziest dreams and goals, to over-plan and overthink, to daydream of far-flung places and wild work options, and often setting those ideas in motion.

Whilst play time is vital, especially for a relentless thinker and feeler like myself, it is soundtracked by a highly negative, judgemental, nagging inner voice for every minute not spent in deep, focused work. In “What I talk about when I talk about running” Haruki Murakami writes about the grindstone like character of living a life in creation. How the dedication to being a creative, whilst often not being a choice, but an innate necessity in the creative herself, should be taxing physically as well as mentally, because a steady rhythm of hard work is the only way to create more than we consume, which in turn, is the key to a good life.

The post season paradox of not being able to use time efficiently when you have the most of it, is the same as the paradox of discipline being the key to mental liberation, hard work the key to freedom of choice or, having to let yourself sink first, before softly floating to the surface during the drown-proofing drill of the Marines.

Sometimes I make it work, sometimes I don’t. Each time, without fail, even though I know it’s coming, even though I have scheduled down time, work time and play time... I never seem to be able to rest&recover when I need it the most.

It continues to take me by surprise.
Maybe because that, in essence, is the joy of adventure life.

You never see it coming.