HOLIMONT SKI PATROL
Welcome to the Holimont Ski Patrol website. The Ski Patrol is a volunteer organization of approximately 80 members of the community from all walks of life and is an affiliate of the National Ski Patrol. Our members support and participate in the ski, snowboarding and outdoor recreation community by providing emergency care and rescue services. Our members participate in annual Skills and CPR Refreshers to keep up our first aid and chairlift evacuation skills. This site is not affiliated with the view of Holimont Ski Club, the largest private ski club in North America.
LINKS
The links page has a number of hotel, motel, chambers of commerce, restaurant, local park information, travel and merchant contacts. Please, c'mon in and look around! The bulletin board is intended for ALL provided you sign in as directed.
BECOMING A MEMBER OF THE HOLIMONT SKI PATROL
To join the Patrol there are prerequisites a candidate must pass as outlined in the link above named CANDIDATE. Please go there to get detailed information regarding your interest in becoming a patroller.
HOLIMONT SKI PATROL HISTORY
Ski Patrol History
Our first organization within HoliMont was as a Ski Patrol. Many of its original volunteers are still with us: some were members of HoliMont, some became members, and some have spent their ski lives as untiring, perennial volunteers.
The earliest members of HoliMont's Ski Patrol came, as a group, from Blue Mountain (later Blue Mont) which had gone bankrupt in 1963.
Notable among those who helped the Patrol get started was our first Patrol Leader, Bob Kreitner, who, for a short period of time, became HoliMont's Manager. He and his wife, Carol, later were associated with Blue Mont.
Early HoliMont members Gary and Olga Richards and Jerry Hilger have spent most of their ski time in patrol uniform. Gary was Assistant Patrol Leader the first year and Patrol Leader for several years.
At the outset, in 1963-64, our HoliMont Patrol was also responsible for covering Poverty Hill. Doing double coverage was difficult, especially after HoliMont's chairlift went in (most of the patrol members wanted to stay at HoliMont), so the Patrol split up. Gary Richards took over the leadership here and worked hard to recruit would-be patrollers from his home in Lockport. They needed only to be enthusiastic skiers with compatible personalities; HoliMont's patrol members took them on and trained them in skiing and injury-handling techniques.
Among those who served HoliMont well was the late Bob Hayden who was a conscientious, devoted member of our Patrol, continuing with it well past his retirement years.
At a time when HoliMont had no money to provide the patrol with equipment, they provided their own. They used hickory toboggans that they had built themselves, and later made some of corrugated aluminum. The cooperative effort of building has, in part, accounted for the strong camaraderie among patrol members.
They built the original Patrol Room at the base of Exhibition Lift. When that became far too small to handle three injuries at a time - an event which occasionally happened - the Patrol built the hut at the bottom of the slope. HoliMont paid for the materials, but the Patrol supplied the labor. In fact, until the Patrol Hut was built in the Sunset area, the Patrol had always built its own facilities.
The cohesiveness and camaraderie of our Ski patrol is no accident. It must be cultivated to enable the group to function well as a team. "Running" an accident on Ski Patrol is likened to running a line on a football team.
Members must work as a well-oiled machine. They have to know each other and know what to expect in order to handle injuries most effectively.
Ski Patrol members are out in the poorest weather. There is nothing quite like removing your gloves at -10 degrees (Fahrenheit) to feel for an injury in order to treat it correctly. Tying a bandage when your fingers are numb is ever a challenge.
The importance of teamwork carries over into training sessions where our candidates have been so well prepared that when they get to the tests for their Senior rating, they almost invariably win the award for placing at the top of the class in competition with Patrollers from other areas.
We get good feedback too from hospitals and doctors on how injuries are handled here. Patrollers work under difficult conditions, handling situations beyond the training of normal rescue squads.
Sometimes the Patrol gives out awards. Is there a HoliHutter who doesn't have a button that says,
"I was talking and ended up walking."?
That's what happens when a hill-dweller tries to take one run too many and ends up at the bottom of the lift after the patrol has gone up.
Once there was a "Most Rides on a Toboggan" prize awarded to Michael Pepall. It's always necessary to remind our children, our guests, and their children of the safety rules. We deplore schussing on our slopes, building jumps on ski trail, skiing on hills beyond one's ability, and, in general reckless skiing.
While the Ski Patrol is there to help us when we get into trouble, the Ski School is there to keep us out of it .
John B. Stanistreet-former Patrol Director
