Monday, February 28, 2011

SPYteam Weekend

This weekend was the annual SPYteam (Ski Patrol Youth Jr. ski patrol) overnight. Several inches of new powder and temperature between 0 and 10 degrees made for great skiing on Saturday. Skiing continued into the night along with a potluck dinner and rides in the Mt. groomer. That night we bunked at the awesome log cabin built by Sarah (builder of my BrownStone Chinooks whelping box) and her husband.
We awoke to another beautiful, cold morning.
Sunday's task was for the SPYteam to create a final exam "avalanche" for the avalanche training class. We used an unofficial run aptly named SDN (steep, deep and narrow). The kids and I completely trampled over 300' down a very steep, virgin powder slope to make it look like an avalanche path. We also buried 5 dummy victims and one SPYteam member for the searchers to find.
The view of Diamond Peak from the top of SDN was spectacular.
the SPYteam Then it was time for the class members to find our "victims"
For the kids, perhaps the most fun of the day was pelting the searchers from above and watching them try to scramble out of the way of our snowy secondary "avalanche".