All Kinds of Excitement

The last couple of days have been quite exciting.

Saturday night the smoke alarm went off at 10pm because someone was cooking, but apparently they lacked skill in the cooking department, so everyone got to go outside. Now, the fire alarm going off at 10pm on a weekend might not seem that bad, but I had been asleep for an hour and a half because I didn't feel the greatest, so the smoke alarm was not exactly appreciated.

Sunday I worked the Leadville Loppet which was a lot of fun. However, I discovered that SPF 60 does not last for 4 hours. As a result, my face was slightly redder than I would have liked, but it is beginning to return to a normal skin color now. After the Leadville Loppet I hung out with Justin and Marea in my room. After dinner, several of us watched The Strangers (It is probably the scariest movie ever... Marea and I love scary movies and we do not get scared by them. However, we were clinging to each other for dear life within about the first 15 minutes).

Monday I had Ropeway Operations lecture, Events Management class, a Student Government meeting, and my Public Speaking class. We were supposed to give speeches on our career 5 years from now, luckily we didn't though because none of us really understood what it was that we were doing. So, after an hour of having our assignment explained to us and then seeing a few demonstration speeches (the people that missed last week's class did their demo speeches this week), we got out of class. Randi, one of the RA's, did a tobacco awareness program. For every 10 cigarette butts that you picked up, you received a slice of pizza. It was more popular than I expected it would be, but I suppose when you offer college students pizza, most anything can be accomplished.

Yesterday (Tuesday), was a rather uneventful day until approximately 5pm when I checked my mailbox. My mailbox contained an OEC certification card (I'd already been given one in class so it wasn't too exciting), a paycheck (money is always exciting), and a letter informing me that I had qualified for NASTAR Nationals which are in Steamboat at the end of March. Now that was exciting! It was especially exciting because I was pretty sure that I hadn't qualified because I didn't feel like I did such a great job of racing that day. The next half an hour or so consisted of me excitedly texting people and telling people on Facebook that I had qualified for nationals. Yesterday was also Mardi Gras and Randi's birthday, but by the time that they had figured out what we were doing, I had decided that I was tired and was going to bed.


Today I had Trail Grooming lecture and Ski Patrol lecture. In Ski Patrol lecture, Cascade the avalanche dog (better known as Cade) came to visit. Cade is an adorable 3 year old Golden Retriever who spent the entire class period wandering around the room getting lots and lots of pets. Cade (along with his handler Chris) is based out of Chicago Ridge Snowcat tours which is associated with Ski Cooper. This is his first season working at Chicago Ridge. Prior to this season, he spent two seasons at Copper Mountain. After watching a powerpoint about avalanche dogs, Brian went outside and got buried, and Cade had located him within 37 seconds of being released. Cade's training involves
-Having pots and pans banged above his head while he was eating as a puppy. Occasionally he still gets pots banged above his head. (I have a French Broque at home and if you banged pots and pans over her head while she was eating she would spend the next several days afraid to go near her food bowl).
-Riding on snowmobiles as a puppy. The dog rides on the seat in front of the snowmobile driver. Last year Cade was involved in an incident on a snowmobile, so now Chris and his wife have had to work with Cade to get him to willingly ride on a snowmobile again.
-Visiting helipads as a puppy to get used to the noise. While the flight crew was inside with the patient, Cade would get to jump in and out of the helicopter.
-Visiting lots of different environments.
-Having a special toy that he gets to play tug-o-war with when he finds an avalanche victim. He only gets this toy and gets to play tug-o-war after finding a victim. This way, finding avalanche victims is all fun and games for him.
-Searching for live victims. When he finds a live victim he will bark. Apparently avalanche dogs haven't always barked when they found a victim- they used to be trained to just start digging. Cade will also search for articles (gloves, hats, etc.) but he won't bark when he finds them. In the system that Utah uses (which is a Canadian system), the dogs are trained to search for articles rather than live victims.
-Cade rides on chairlifts. He turns around and jumps onto the chair as it comes around. Then he lays on the chair while someone holds onto his harness. He is not a big fan of long, cold, windy chairlift rides. I don't think that anyone is a fan of those chairlift rides.

Other interesting facts about avalanche dogs
-Cade weighs 61 pounds. Apparently this is heavy for an avalanche dog. The heavier the dog is, the harder it is on them.
-Cade can search avalaches without a handler or being commanded to. Last year he was attached to an alternate handler's belt loop and he took off to search an avalanche, pulling their belt loop off in the process. We were also told that he's been let out of a helicopter and he ran a search of avalanche debris before anyone had to tell him too.
-Depending on who you talk to, the average working career for an avalanche dog is 6-8 years or 7-10 years.
-Dogs have to take a test with their handler before they are considered avalanche dogs.
-Colorado is the only state where the Flight For Life crew gets out of the plane at a ski area, the avalanche rescue team gets in, and the helicopter takes off. Flight For Life travels to an avalanche with the pilot, the technician, a handler, and a dog. In other states, a Flight For Life nurse also travels with the group and makes sure that the doors are shut properly and that everyone is wearing safety belts.
-You shouldn't pet dogs while they are working because it distracts them. Contaminating an avalanche site will also distract them.

I forgot to bring my camera to class today, but I will try to find someone who did take pictures so that you can see a picture of Cade, because who doesn't love seeing pictures of cute animals. :)


Well, I should probably get back to my homework now. I'll try to write again tomorrow or Friday.