Ode to a Patroller

HERE IS AN EXCERPT OF A PIECE PUBLISHED AT WARREN MILLER ENTERTAINMENT. YOU CAN READ THE FULL PIECE HERE.

 It is still dark out and the winter cold is strongly suggesting that remaining under the covers would be extraordinarily prudent.

Nevertheless, my wife puts on so many layers of clothing it will take several minutes to peel them off at day's end. Then she heads out to work. At a job that pays her nothing. And never has for more than two decades.

Butternut is a small family owned mountain located in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. The vertical drop approximately 1000 feet. Moguls normally nowhere to be found. Powder days an anomaly. Just another dot on the ski industry's map. But not to us.

What do you do when your children no longer ski with you but have gone off to find their own adventures on the slopes? You become a ski patroller, or so my wife and I planned. But one chapter into the OEC (Outdoor Emergency Care) course I remembered just how much I hated both the rigors of learning and the sight of blood. And thus two suddenly became one.