Sustain a serious injury skiing and you’ll want to get off the hill quick and into the care of medical specialists. That’s where the Ski Patrol Olympics come in hand, training the men and women in red with the skills needed to rapidly extract a victim from the accident scene…
Ok, not exactly… But the Ski Patrol Olympics are certainly good for entertainment and some good-spirited competition. This year Mammoth Mountain played host to this one-of-a-kind event. Competitions include a randonée race, beacon search, big mountain GS race, toboggan race, bamboo throw, simulated bomb throw, Recco search, and an avalanche rescue dog search competition.
Whether well publicized or not I was not aware that the 2012 Ski Patrol Olympics were to be held at Mammoth Mountain – the past two years the event has been hosted by Squaw Valley. Either way, I was fortunate enough to stumble upon the running of yesterday’s Toboggan Race (if there’s one competition to catch perhaps this is the one), thus the presentation of the above video.
All I have to say is, “that looks like onehelluva good time!” Fortunately no one was injured (that’s the whole idea, right?), and good times were had by all. Next time around it would be great to see the Ski Patrol Olympics properly publicized – this is a really fun event and a great opportunity for ski and snowboard enthusiasts to come out and cheer on the men and women that serve.