New to the Blog: Day-in-the-life stories from Alyeska’s immensely hard-working ski patrollers

It’s 4:33 am and I’m wide awake. Maybe it’s the mate’, maybe it’s the full moon, maybe it’s the snow chunks bombing the roof. The phone call from Snow Safety is an hour away. “Morning Shane, three and a half inches of water overnight, we’re shooting both guns. I have you on Gun One, out the door at seven.”

We use 105mm Howitzers to make snow move in the starting zones above Chair Six. Without an artillery program, this mountain would rarely open on pow days and the condos just west of the Daylodge parking lot would be quite a bit less expensive because they would stand a good chance of getting smashed by avalanches on a regular basis.

Think how lucky you are that the worst thing that happens when you hear explosions is that the dog hides under the bed and the best thing that happens is that two or three feet of fresh to rip through.

Stay tuned for more from Alyeska Ski Patrol . . .