Selfless efforts sustain Mt. Spokane Ski Patrol

The Mt. Spokane Ski Patrol’s chalet-style headquarters and first-aid building is a handsome monument to the group’s dedication to public safety and the success of the annual Ski Swap.

An immense amount of volunteer time and public support completed the building on the mountain next to Lodge 2 in 1992. The structure, with a drive-up ramp for ambulance pickup, brought the patrol out of the cellar of service to the downhill skiing operation within Mount Spokane State Park.

“It would cost $1.5 to $2 million to replace that building today,” said Craig Lee, a former patrol director and the structural engineer who donated services to the project.

“The patrol had been looking ahead for more than 25 years, saving money from the Ski Swap, and we had about $130,000 to get started,” Lee said.

Planning began in the early 1980s as the old ski patrol building was deemed structurally unsound and had to be demolished.

The ski patrol seemed on the verge of a name change to Rat Patrol as members operated out of basement rooms in Lodges 1 and 2, where they had to clean up the rodent droppings and dodge leaks from the ceilings.

Founded in 1938, the nonprofit group serving Mt. Spokane Ski and Snowboard Park is among the oldest all-volunteer ski patrols in the country, as well as one of the largest. 

“Our patrollers are trained to the highest standards set by the National Ski Patrol system,” said John Nelson, the patrols’ director-elect. “Each patroller must undergo more than 120 hours of classroom, hands-on and on-the-hill training for initial certification, plus annual refresher training sessions throughout the season.”

But a polished image was hard to maintain while tobogganing patients with blown out knees to dungeon-like facilities.

Fundraising has always been an issue for the nonprofit patrol.

In 1975, a decade after the Ski Swap was founded to begin providing dependable annual revenue, the patrol appealed to the public for basic equipment after two searches during the winter were hampered by lack of communication on the mountain.

“Some of the search teams combing the northwest side of Mt. Spokane were severely handicapped by the lack of radios,” John Scrivner, patrol spokesman, told The Spokesman-Review.

The group was scratching even for used walkie-talkies that could be reconditioned.

“Every team should have one,” Scrivner said in the newspaper report. “If we had had the equipment earlier in the winter, we believe we could have found the lost skiers earlier.”

Scrivner said proceeds of the 1974 Ski Swap, which set records with the sale of 3,172 items and 4,500 in attendance, would be used for radios and first aid supplies.

The Ski Swap has grown to put more than 22,000 items on the shelves for sale to closer to 7,000 expected at the Swap that opens this weekend at the Spokane County Fair and Expo Center.

“The money we raise is used to pay the costs of maintaining our facilities, replacing sleds and radios and all bandages and first aid equipment, which has been highly upgraded,” Nelson said.

The patrol has purchased four defibrillators plus trauma packs geared up for severe injuries and to be stored around the mountain.

“Kids are skiing through the trees and doing flips off terrain features,” Nelson said. “We have three different cervical collars to help protect them from paralysis if we have to get them on a toboggan and down the hill to first-aid facilities and the ambulance or a Med Star helicopter.

“We pay for the V-Vacs for suction to clear a victim’s airway and the full oxygen packs that are at the top of every lift,” Nelson said. “Oxygen is something we use regularly to fight shock and generally make the patient feel better. We treat asthmatics who might be affected by the cold and altitude, or if they forgot their inhaler. On a busy weekend, we’ll go through a half-dozen bottles of O-2.”

The five beds and one private treatment room are ready in the patrol building at the bottom of the ski hill.

“Our building might be the nicest publicly owned facility in the country,” Nelson said. After devoting nearly 16,000 volunteer hours to the facility, including 7,000 hours in the construction, the patrol gave the building to Washington State Parks.

“We knew the state didn’t have the money,” Lee said. “But it took two passes through the Parks and Recreation Commission before they’d agree to let us build it for them.”

“We maintain it at our own expense,” Nelson said. “Replacing the roof cost $50,000. This year we’ll spend more than that on windows and siding.”

The building totals 5,800-square feet with the 2,350-square-foot daylight basement devoted to first-aid treatment and supplies. The main floor has a locker room for patrollers and bathrooms, kitchen, eating/congregating area for meetings, training exercises.

“Our people come from all walks of life – doctors and car mechanics, lawyers and firemen, nurses and airline baggage managers, teachers, you name it,” Nelson said. “Two things we all have in common: we all love to ski or board and we’re all willing to take time out of our lives to help other people.”

“We essentially had only one paid worker overseeing the building project,” Lee said. Materials were donated or purchased at deep discounts and the 90 patrol members at the time dug into the construction “every day, even weekdays after work until midnight for three months straight.

“Sometimes people remark that our medical training seems like overkill,” said Gloria Fletcher, who volunteers for the auxiliary group that supports the patrol.

“But something big seems to happen every year, and after that everybody agrees that they’re sure glad they were well prepared.”