Mark DelVecchio's Blog

Skinning

2009-02-03T20:33:00.002-07:00

So in preparation for our Rookie Warrior Test, I decided to skin up the mountain today. Since it was the first time skinning for the year, I only went up to mid-vail, and it took me about an hour and 35 minutes.

The Rookie Warrior Test, is an all day hike/skin up a mountain that Billy chooses. It should be a really good time and a really good day of exercise. It should be a good day. It will be fun to also do something as a group and good team building. More to come about the Rookie Warrior Test!

Tib/Fib

2009-02-02T16:04:00.005-07:00

So the other day, I had one of my toughest wrecks of the year. We were out in blue sky, on skree field (open snow field towards the top center), one of the black diamond runs. A guy jumped off a rock, landed on another and got his ski stuck in the snow, twisted around and fractured this tibia and fibula. He was in a lot of pain. Shortly there after, John came down with a toboggan, we got him splinted up and on our way. The hardest part, was the run out, to skree field. The run out is through the trees, with moguls and on top of it all very narrow. So finally we made it through the trees and down to the lift.

At vail we have a front and a back side, and in order to get patients out of the back side, we have to put them on what is called a jake table. It is basically a table that sits on the chair, and the toboggan lays on top of it. This is a picture of what it looks like, from behind.

After we got our patient to the top of the lift, we had to come down the front side of the mountain. Thankfully one of the doctors met us at the top to talk with out patient and to see if he wanted pain medication. His pain level was going down, so we didn't put him on any medication. About 20 minutes later, an hour and half from when I first got there, he was in the back of the transport vehicle and on his way to the hospital to get checked out.

It was a tough wreck from the beginning but, very satisfying once it was all over and we knew that our guy was shortly going to be in a lot less pain. So for now, that would be the longest/toughest wreck I've encountered. More fun things to come!!

Emergency Room

2009-01-28T21:06:00.002-07:00

So, as part of my rookie year training for Vail Ski Patrol, I got to work in the Vail Valley Medical Center Emergency room for the day. I was really nervous all morning about going in there and totally not knowing what to expect at all. So the morning was really slow and I felt incredibly out of place and in the way. But once things started getting busy, and more and more people came in, the craziness of it all calmed me down and everything fell right into place. I started to help out, and got to look at some X-rays and dislocated shoulders. I removed a lot of peoples boots, and took shirts off to expose injuries.

The two that stick out, was a severely deformed Tibia and Fibula fracture as well as an 82 year old women with a dislocated shoulder (I hope I'm still skiing at 82). The man with the fractures actually went into surgery and the women just got her shoulder reduced. I got to feel the man's leg and feel the deformity in his leg, help to remove the boot on his injured leg (with the help of lots of pain medication), as well as hold his leg while they wrapped him up.

All in all it was a really cool day. Im glad that I got to go in there and it was nearly as bad as I imagined it would have been. And now if I were to get hurt (knock on wood), I know a lot people over there in the Emergency Room.

Avalanche Simulator

2009-01-22T20:56:00.002-07:00

So this is a video of the Vail Ski Patrol "avi simulator." The simulator consists of a tower pad and some blankets. How it works is, you lay on the tower pad and get covered with the blankets and some snow. Then two people push the tower pad down the hill, which is attached to a rope. So the pad comes to a stop once the rope is fully out and you continue to slide down the hill, until you come to a stop. The next part of the simulation is to go and find two buried beacons, using your own beacon. The idea behind this is to try to find a beacon (your friends), who are buried after being caught in a slide yourself. After you find the two beacons that are buried, you have to go and dig a hole big enough to fit one of those brute trash barrels in.

All in all its a great experience a lot of fun. Also my partner and I, took home second place in the challenge.

14 Inch Powder Day

2009-01-16T06:29:00.002-07:00

So December brought great snow and lots of it. 100+ inches to be exact. The skiing was awesome. Then over Christmas week we got some sun and a little snow. But mother nature, started off the new year with a 14 inch dump of snow. The Christmas crowd had just left, so there was no one on else on the mountain, so first tracks, were an all day occurrence. As was the constant choking, due to snow flying over your head and into your mouth (faceshots)!

It was my brother's last day of his Christmas vacation out here in CO as well. So it was a good last ski day.

Take a look!!

10 - 50

2008-12-16T20:09:00.000-07:00

So I got my first 10 - 50 out of the way for the season. It was an fairly easy. We were a little more than half way down the mountain, and this woman hurt her knee. So we put her in a toboggan and took her down to the bottom where a vehicle picked her up and took her to the hospital. I was pretty nervous the whole, time since it was my first real patient in a toboggan. But everything went fine.

The following day I also got my first head injury of the season. Some guy fell off the side of the

trail in Blue Sky and ended up in a tree well. It was fairly interesting getting him out of his precarious position, but we managed. 2 hours later and a lot of catwalks and skating he was finally brought down to the ambulance.

So it was a fun two days. Got my first one over and done with, something that I will surely remember. I hope that they all go that easy, but I know they wont.

Just some mountain scenery.

Snowmobile Training

2008-12-10T21:03:00.000-07:00

So far, training has been awesome. Learning a lot about everything, and this week was no different. We did some more toboggan training with both crystals (which are used mainly for deep powder), and the regular cascade. But this week, we got to throw in some snowmobile training. While the main use on the job will be for towing other patrollers and transporting other skiers around the mountain. But in order to show us what they are capable of we got to them out on some side hills and some powder.

Im not sure if you have ever driven a snowmobile before, but they are 1000 plus pound machines and seemingly have a mind of their own. You really have to muscle them around and not be very lax with them, otherwise if your not careful things will go bad faster than you would believe. Luckily during training no one got hurt and no snowmobiles were broken.

So during out training, we did happen to get a

few stuck, but since there was 8 of us around, they were pretty easy to extricate.

This was truly a fun and exciting day!!

Ski Patrol Training

2008-12-05T09:30:00.000-07:00

So one week of Ski Patrol Training down and two more to go. So far, it has been a lot of fun, and also a lot of hard work. I have a much greater appreciation for the guys that have been doing this for years. And on top of it all, its been snowing!!

The last five days we have been doing some toboggan training and to this point it hasn't been bad. It is really weird how even skiing almost my whole life, how tiring this really is. Mainly because your not used to side-slipping or snowplowing from the top to the bottom of the mountain, while holding onto a toboggan holding a 200 pound person.

So after a few days of toboggan training, they had us climbing some lift towers. On the mountain we have detachable and fixed grip chairs. Personally I like the detachable ones better, because there is a place to walk when you get up top, and you don't constantly feel like you are going to be falling off at any moment.

You are still 50+ feet above the ground which can be scary, but also, fun. And after we climbed the towers, we did a practice lift evacuation. Just incase something was ever to happen and the chairlift broke down. Its actually really fun, to be lowered from a chair.

Then we finished off the week, by doing Prima and Pronto, top to bottom, then skating out the catwalks. This was by far the hardest and most tiring day. Especially after we got a couple inches of snow, and the catwalks weren't running to fast, and there was a lot of skating to be done.

One week down, two more weeks of training to go and five more months of skiing!

Ski Season 08 - 09

2008-11-20T12:24:00.000-07:00

Well the start of a new ski season is upon us. Opening day for Vail is tomorrow the 21st. I'm particularly excited for this year because its the start of a new job and a new journey. One that will probably be filled with more excitement and more pain, but a great time. Unfortunately there will only be a minimal amounts of trails open for the first day.

But luckily, I still don't start work until December 1st. Which on that day we begin the process of toboggan, training. And from talking to the guys that in the past they have all lost 15 or more pounds during the training.

And just for the fun of it and some exercise I decided to put on my skins and hike up the mountain for about an hour or so, then skied down. The skiing actually wasn't half bad. It was definitely a little firm, but considering the conditions, it was pretty decent snow.

So hoping and wishing for some big snow storms and lots of powder days!! Ski season 08 - 09 here we go.

Melting Snow Creates Mud

2008-10-25T18:43:00.001-06:00

So today I decided that I would hike up to Mid-Vail. So I took the cat road up and it took me about an hour and 45 mins. It was a nice peaceful walk, and just taking in all the sites and sounds around me. There are countless little streams running down the mountain. Many of which are running a little faster due to the melting snow, which also created quite a bit of mud.

There is a lot of construction on the mountain as well a

nd there are heavy machinery all over the place, its kinda cool and since I've been a big fan of trucks since I was a kid they are also fun to climb on.

Its amazing how beautiful nature can be and all the things that you can see just by walking around and spending a few hours in it. And also how cool you can make it look just with a camera and taking pictures in different ways. Nature is a wonderful thing and walking around in it makes you appreciate it, and I can't wait for winter to come and all the scenery to be changing again.

First Snow

2008-10-22T15:29:00.001-06:00

So this may all melt in the next couple of days fora ll I know, but It was the first real snow fall since I arrived here in Vail almost 2 weeks ago. Its pretty exciting because that means that winter is just around the corner and with winter come ski season. So needless to say when it starting coming down last night I was pretty excited and even more excited to see that we got a couple inches of accumulation.

Today was also a day for fire wood. I bought myself some wood for the winter. Fires are awesome and they are fun as well. So they delivered a 1/2 cord this afternoon and I spent a

couple hours stacking it, and getting it ready. So all in all today was nice and also productive.

Come on mother winter!!!

Snowy Hike

2008-10-20T16:21:00.000-06:00

So, I decided to go for a little hike today, for the first time since I got back to Vail. It started off rather nice and the scenery was gorgeous, as it always is out here in Vail.

I was getting further and further up the mountain, and further from home, and I heard a little thunder off into the distance. I didn't think much of it, just thought it was a storm over the mountains a little ways.

Well it turned out that it was heading right for me, and as I was getting to near the top, about 45 mins from where I started it started to rain/sleet/snow, needless to say it was pretty cold, and I wasn't getting any closer to home. So I started to run, which turned out to be a rather nice little workout. So finally I made it back home in a little under a half hour and was soaked and cold, but it made for an interesting afternoon.

Living Alone

2008-10-18T20:28:00.000-06:00

So for the first time in my 23 years of living, I am living alone. Its actually really nice and peaceful. I never knew how nice it would be to be able to have things the way that you like them and put things were you want, and not have anyone tell you to clean up after yourself.

So far, this living alone thing, I am really enjoying. It will be really nice when my family comes out to visit for Christmas. Unfortunately I dont have much else other than that.

My First Blog

2008-10-12T16:20:00.000-06:00

A lot of people are into Blogs now, so I thought I would give it a try and start one and see where it goes.