Every Day Is Epic
Patrolling The Mountain With Keaghan Dunn-Rhodes
Story and photos by N. Reid Neureiter
For the GPHN
Colorado skiers have seriously lamented the lack of early-season snow, but 27-year old Keaghan Dunn-Rhodes is skiing nearly every workday.
Dunn-Rhodes is a professional ski patroller at Loveland Ski Area, straddling the Continental Divide 57 miles west of Denver. A son of a longtime Park Hill family (his grandparents lived at 17th and Glencoe for decades) Dunn-Rhodes is a 2013 graduate of East High, where the 6’6” athlete played power forward on the varsity basketball squad and was an important contributor to the school’s renowned rugby team.
He went on to graduate with a BA in cultural and regional studies from Prescott College in Arizona. During the off season, he works as a behavioral health specialist in the Inpatient Psych Unit at Children’s Hospital in Aurora.
But his first and greatest athletic love is skiing, and winter finds him patrolling the runs. Dunn-Rhodes says he feels incredibly lucky that his mother, Dr. Bridgette Dunn, and father, Brady Rhodes, put him on skis “basically as soon as I could walk, at age two.”
Hundreds of thousands of skiers hit the slopes every year in Colorado, but there are risks. According to a KUNC news report earlier this year, there were more than 5,600 skier and snowboarder emergency room visits in Colorado in 2017, which was the most recent information available. Most of those involved falls and collisions. In Colorado, an average of 12.45 skier deaths occurred every season between 2006 and 2017.
In mid-December, the Greater Park Hill News shadowed Dunn-Rhodes for the day as he patrolled Loveland’s steep slopes.
GPHN: What made you want to become a ski patroller?
KDR: Skiing is easily my favorite thing to do, and getting the chance to combine that love with first responder skills and snow science skills is a dream come true.
GPHN: Why did you pick Loveland Ski Area to patrol?
KDR: Loveland is known as a “local’s mountain,” and I love working at a place where I often see the same customers every day. In addition, our ski patrol is a very tight-knit and welcoming group, where there are countless patrollers with an immense amount of experience who love to share it.
GPHN: What is the selection process for joining the ski patrol?
KDR: You need to pass a ski test, and go through an interview process. You need to have a very strong skill level as a skier. In terms of medical qualifications, you need to be either an EMT (Emergency Medical Technician) or have your OEC (Outdoor Emergency Care) certification for the medical aspect of things. I am an EMT. Once hired, you go through an intensive two-week training period where you learn much more about the skills necessary to be an effective patroller. In addition, there are lots of other certifications and training that are necessary to perform your job well, such as OET (Outdoor Emergency Transport), which is the certification that deals with transporting patients via toboggan.
GPHN: Describe the day in the life of a ski patroller.
KDR:
7:45 a.m. – Arrive at work.
8 a.m. – Morning meeting.
8:20 a.m. – Morning trail checks and setup.
9 a.m. to 4 p.m. – The mountain is open to customers. Patrol your assigned lift, responding to any injured customers on your lift. Participate in work projects, which could mean roping new terrain, sidestepping the steeps, disposing of fallen trees, etc. Participate in training scenarios, such as medical training or toboggan training.
4:15 p.m. – Sweep every run to ensure no customers remain on mountain. Take down certain markers/signs/fencing so that snow cats can groom terrain.
4:45 p.m. – Leave for home.
GPHN: What are the best and worst parts of being a professional ski patroller?
KDR: I love my job. I would say some of the best parts are getting the chance to have a measurable impact on the health of injured patients, and the innately fun environment that our patrol leaders have fostered over the years. The worst parts are the commute from south Denver (my choice to live there) and days when it’s especially cold and windy.
GPHN: Along with its terrain and “old-school” vibe, Loveland is also known for the sometimes brutal winter conditions as the snow and wind whip over the Continental Divide. How you stay warm and motivated on those especially frigid days?
KDR: Layers, layers, layers. On days like that, it’s important to stay busy and moving so that you can stay warm.
GPHN: What have been some of your most memorable experiences as a ski patroller?
KDR: Oftentimes when we have a seriously injured customer, the hospital that we end up sending them to will follow up with us about how the patient is doing and how the medical interventions that we performed helped. I have gotten the chance to be on scene for some relatively seriously injured patients, and it is always incredibly gratifying not only to find out that the patient is doing well, but that the choices that we made as patrollers were instrumental in their recovery.
GPHN: If a skier or rider is involved in an accident or collision on the slopes resulting in an injury, what should they do?
KDR: They should flag someone down and ask them to tell someone who works here where they are and what happened. They can also call the main ski area number and let them know what happened. In the event of a collision, the Colorado Ski Safety Act requires that both parties involved stay at the scene of the accident until ski patrol arrives, so that information can be exchanged.
GPHN: Do you have any advice for skiers and riders who want to stay safe while enjoying Colorado’s mountains?
KDR: Wearing a helmet is incredibly important, because head injuries can become serious very fast and they are often hard to diagnose without advanced medical equipment.
GPHN: What steps do you take to ensure the safety of customers from avalanches?
KDR: Our ski patrol has an entire subsection of patrollers that are involved in the Snow Safety Program. These patrollers are incredibly well-trained and do a variety of things to mitigate avalanche danger inbounds, such as avalanche blasting, ski cutting, snowpack analysis, and much more.
GPHN: Have you ever been involved in any backcountry rescues and do you have any advice for skiers or riders who are tempted to find untracked powder in the backcountry?
KDR: I have not been involved in any backcountry rescues, though there are many patrollers on our patrol who have. My advice is to take an [avalanche awareness] course and learn as much as you can about how to be safe in the backcountry. Never go alone, read [the Colorado Avalanche Information Center’s] avalanche advisory before traveling in the backcountry, bring a beacon, shovel and probe (and know how to use them), and when in doubt, ski on terrain that is at a steepness of 20 degrees or less (a green run in a resort).
GPHN: Why is it important that skiers in the resort not duck under ropes to find fresh snow?
KDR: Those runs are closed for a reason. They may look fun, but there might be rocks or other hazards that are barely covered by the snow. There may be avalanche danger that hasn’t been mitigated yet and you could trigger. There might be exposed equipment in the middle of the run. Or it could be a combination of all the above.
GPHN: Do you have any advice or suggestions to someone who might be interested in pursuing ski patrolling as a career?
KDR: Loveland has a volunteer ski patrol that works on weekends, and within that volunteer patrol there are Young Adult Patrollers (YAPs). YAPs get the chance to learn how to be a patroller from a young age, and get exposed to a lot of cool training opportunities.