Wintergreen ski patrol members work hard to keep the slopes safe

Suddenly I’m a little ashamed to be worrying about how to cram my meager journalistic trappings — notebook, pens — into my coat.

I waddle out of the office behind Henyon and Ebling. This is going to be interesting.

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Groomed to perfection

We begin our rounds as I get my ski legs back. After a brief run down one of the slopes, we take a lift to the top of the mountain. Wisps of snow scattered by a biting wind filter the morning sunlight into a dull glare.

There isn’t a lot of time to stand around and admire the scenery. Soon, people will start skiing and snowboarding. It’s approaching 8 a.m.

“Mountain life starts early,” Ebling observes, “but it’s very beautiful.”

Below us, a ski patroller wields a drill with about a foot-long bit that swirls its way into the snow. Into the holes go bright orange and black ’boos, a nickname for the bamboo poles used to mark hazards. In this case, the danger is a snow gun protruding from the snow.

Crolius arrives on a snowmobile to further mitigate the risk. With his vehicle facing uphill, he maneuvers it forward and back in quick spurts to flatten the chunky snow that has accumulated in front of the gun.

With Ebling leading the way and Henyon bringing up the rear, we descend over the freshly groomed powder, which has the look of a ridged potato chip. As we approach the bottom, I catch up to Ebling, who emphatically gestures me to move to the side of the slope, out of the path of the groomer crawling its way up the hill. Some years back, a high school student collided with one of the tanklike machines. She managed to graduate on time, Henyon later tells me, but no longer do skiers and groomers occupy the same space.

Satisfied that they’re on their way to a smooth opening, Ebling summons Henyon on her radio: Time for breakfast.

Back at headquarters

The ski patrol headquarters sits atop the mountain at Wintergreen, along with the rest of the main facilities. Crolius calls it an “upside-down mountain,” the opposite of many ski resorts, which are centered around a village at the bottom of the hill. Working against gravity makes transporting patients trickier and means that snowmobiles are an important part of the Wintergreen arsenal. Sometimes it also means that patrollers must take injured visitors down the hill on a toboggan before they can be taken back up by a motorized vehicle.

The patrol occupies a few rooms that flow into one another. There’s the treatment area, equipped with beds for patients. A shoe box of a space has just enough room for the person on dispatch duty. Adjacent is a slip of an office with a computer.

A lot of activity centers on the locker room. It overflows with equipment — ski boots lined up on top of the lockers, gloves and boots hung on a tree-shaped warmer, seating that doubles as storage. A “pray for snow” sign hangs over cubbies stuffed with more gear. A constant stream of on- and off-duty patrollers and their kids cycles through. A Shih Tzu puppy makes a cameo appearance with one child.

Sit around long enough, and you find yourself melting into the background as the banter flies.