At the moment, I’m in Oregon loving every minute of being in Brett’s world.  He and Molly have gone to great lengths to set up a space for me and make me feel welcome, cosy and warm.  Although this is considered a “warm winter” on the mountain, Timberline – is encased in ice. Two other resorts are barely open, one making its own snow. From the crackling, fragrant comfort of  a fire in the three story hand-built fireplace in the lodge  I’m looking out at a mountain side sporting trees bent under the weight of foot-long icicles.  As most of you know by now, Brett is Director of Ski Patrol and as such is tasked with keeping errant skiers and snowboarders from killing themselves on the slopes.  This means – among other things – going out every morning, re-setting boundaries and breaking rime-ice off boundary markers.  Yesterday the ice accumulation on ropes and poles was one foot in diameter and will be worse today.  

Interesting to be here on the mountain to see what goes on.  The second day I was here Brett and another patroller happened to be on a ridge when they discovered a gaggle of young (and stoned) snowboarders out-of-bounds.  Going over to give them the out-of-bounds lecture, it was discovered that one of their motley crew had lept over a berm to rescue his gloves and proceeded to body surf to within six feet of a crevasse that would have taken his life had he not stopped.   They were able to rescue him with ropes, ice axes and cramp-ons, but it was treacherous as the lowering of temps has caused deep fissures in the ice between them and him. The snow-bridge on which he rested was fragile at best and heightened the risk, but thre was no time to spare.  Had they not been there at the time they were and been able to execute a rope rescue, this no-doubt would have ended a different way.