Cadet ski patrollers oversee the well-being of West Point skiers

Courtesy Photo | Members of the Cadet Ski Patrol take part in training for emergencies that happen on the Victor Constant Ski Slope at West Point.  

WEST POINT, NY, UNITED STATES

01.22.2020

Story by Brandon OConnor  

United States Military Academy at West Point

At the beginning of each academic year, the U.S. Military Academy hosts a Club Night to introduce cadets to all the extracurricular activities available to them.

Each club has a table where members set up a demonstration introducing their club and then wait for interested cadets to come by and ask questions.

One club has taken that conventional process and thrown it out the window in favor of a high energy, in your face recruiting effort that puts the personality of its members on full display. Decked out in their bright red vests with white crosses, with ski goggles on their heads and skis or snowboards in hand, the members of the Cadet Ski Patrol are everywhere on Club Night.

Interested in learning about the debate? As soon as you finish talking to them, you’ll turn around to find a ski patrol member right next to you ready to convince you they are best club to join at the academy.

The full-court press recruiting tactics worked this year as the club had more than 300 cadets sign up and conducted more than 200 interviews for only 25 spots.

“Usually it gets pretty crazy, but that’s just our very interesting personalities being projected onto Club Night, which is always a great opportunity to demonstrate part of what we’re about,” Class of 2021 Cadet Colin Reichman, the cadet in charge of ski patrol, said. “You’ll see someone spinning their skis around in their hands, and then someone comes up to them and they’re like, what is this? Who are you? Then boom, you have an interaction right there and start the conversation about what we are, who we are and why you’d want to be a part of this club.”

Their recruiting tactics at Club Night give ski patrol a large pool of interested cadets, but in order to become a member you must make it through an extensive interview process. You have to show you meet the qualifications in terms of skiing and/or medical experience and also are someone the current members of the club think they can “sit in a van with for eight hours,” during a ski trip, Class of Class of 2021 Cadet Kelley Ericson, the club’s head of medical training, said.

Cadets who express interest on Club Night initially have to fill out an application. From there, a pool is selected for small group interviews before the finalists are invited to take part in an interview in front of the entire club. While prior skiing experience isn’t required, it is preferred because being proficient on skis or a snowboard becomes important when you are pulling a toboggan carrying an injured person back down a ski slope.

“We try to look for a broad mix. If they can ski, obviously that is a huge priority for us,” Ericson said. “We look for someone who is really passionate about what our mission is, really wants to be part of the team and is going to put forth the effort and stick with it all four years. We have a lot of prior service medics or prior EMTs.”

After the new candidates are chosen, the fall semester is spent doing classroom medical training. Cadets spend five hours on Sundays and two to three hours Tuesday evenings learning the skills necessary to be a ski patroller. The spring semester is spent doing field training with candidates and will culminate with them being certified as outdoor emergency technicians and as a national ski patroller.

Typically, the club works shifts as ski patrollers on West Point’s Victor Constant Ski Slope and also uses the hill to conduct training. Because snow conditions have not allowed the hill to open yet this year, the club has had to adjust, but they have still been able to conduct training during weekend trips to ski resorts throughout Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts and Vermont.

“Just before spring break, we do our final trip,” Reichman said. “We’re going to Bromley (in Vermont) this year to conduct our final trip and that’s when they’ll run through their final tests and then they’ll get handed their red vest with the big white cross on it to certify them as patrollers.”

The trips to other resorts allow the members of the club to work with professional ski patrollers from throughout the region while also training on more challenging hills than those present at West Point.

“Victor Constant is not a very steep hill,” Ericson said. “Trying to teach someone how to take a sled down on the VC is a lot different than taking it down on basically any other mountain, which is why we try and travel around and get them exposed to as many different types of terrain as possible.”

While the main purpose of the club is to patrol the Victor Constant Ski Slope when it is open and the crux of their training centers around skills required for that work, the members of the ski patrol are able to use their medical training throughout the year at West Point.

During pass and review parades, the ski patrol members assist the Keller Community Hospital medics as emergency responders. The members also work events such as Special Olympics, the annual Boy Scout Camporee and race events at West Point. Additionally, they assist other clubs such as scuba and the parachute team when they have a need for medics to be on hand.

While the nature of the club sometimes requires members to be in serious situations where their medical training is necessary, the trips and time spent together also allow for ample time for the fun personalities that come out at Club Night to be on full display.

“We’ll take van rides to the places we go to on the weekend,” Reichman said. “It’s like being stuck in a van for four hours with 14 of your best friends. It’s not too bad of a gig.”

• Date Taken: 01.22.2020
• Date Posted: 01.22.2020 15:34
• Story ID: 359944
• Location: WEST POINT, NY, US