Please excuse the length of this letter, but there is a saying that gratitude unexpressed is like a gift not given. In every town there are the people who make your life better. They live behind the scenes and you haven’t a clue.
The Blackcomb Avalanche Safety Program has been led by Tony Sittlinger at the helm and Nigel Stewart as his first mate for the 25 years I have been a Blackcomb ski patroller. It is now time to bid them farewell and I will not let them slink off into the sunset without a proper goodbye. They will hate it, but they also know that I don’t give a rat’s ass and I can only be me—the me who knows that I speak for the whole patrol when I give my thanks.
When I arrived in Whistler 30 years ago, I had no idea the turn my one wild and wonderful life would take. I got a job on the ski patrol and I never looked back. I loved living in service, the challenge, the physical nature of it, but mostly the people.
Not many people know of Tony; he doesn’t like attention. I think it is super important to shed light on what Tony and Nigel do, so we can all be truly thankful, and maybe learn a little bit.
Nobody knows the mountain like Tony: every rock, every slope, every subtle nuance, how every weather pattern affects the snowpack and our plan of attack. He is constantly striving, adapting, learning, growing, educating and contributing to the whole industry—a true critical thinking professional with unwavering dedication to his craft. He is an A-list snow whisperer who has given his full attention to a single endeavour for a lifetime.
To be great you need a great team. Tony mentored Nigel to be exceptional at his job, but that is still not an army. To our benefit, Tony came up with a plan. “If Nigel and I were gone tomorrow, we need to have a handful of people that can confidently and safely step into our boots,” he said.
The avalanche forecasting mentorship program was born. I have grown under this program to the point where I can be given the keys. Once that responsibility rests on your shoulders, the monumental task that they have made look so easy for 25 years becomes so much more apparent.
You get up every morning at 4:30 a.m.
You are responsible for thousands and thousands of people who want to be 100-per-cent safe, yet at the same time do what they want, when they want (news flash: there is inherent risk in skiing. No matter what we do there will always be residual risk and Mother Nature will always have the last say).
It can be very stressful.
People now ski everywhere, skiing behaviour has changed, and slopes historically not skied are now skied by 10-year-olds.
Glaciers are receding, and the topography is constantly changing, creating new avalanche paths each year while others go extinct.
The pressure to open and stay open, not only for the skiers but for the skier compaction, so we can continue to open, is immense.
You must have a strong team that you have to develop, because you can’t be everywhere at the same time—and you have to trust them.
You are always moving.
Weather is never static, so conditions are always changing.
Several times a day you have to go places you don’t want to in heinous conditions.
You have so much paperwork in dealing with the Workers Compensation Board, record keeping and the use of explosives.
There is so much training to oversee.
It will always be your fault if something goes wrong.
At the end of the day, you are so tired that you just need to go to bed at the same time as your young children so you can do it all over again tomorrow. It takes stamina, dedication, a love of the job, and skiing in your soul. You also understand the deep desire for others to do it, and you want to deliver.
I would personally like to thank Tony and Nigel on behalf of all women. Their example has set the standard for how the Blackcomb Ski Patrol conducts itself in that regard. If every man in our male-dominated world treated women like they do, we’d have equality, ladies.
The saying is that behind every great man is a great woman. I would argue it goes both ways. They have nurtured the women on patrol to recognize all our individual strengths, not asked us to be men in women’s bodies. They strived to push us further than what we may have thought possible. They allowed us to challenge them, and did not take it personally. The door was truly always open, and there was no ceiling.
I will wrap this up by saying you are family, you are irreplaceable in so many ways, and we will all miss working with you, more than we can express. You were the rudders.
If you can only say one prayer for the rest of your life, let it be “thank you.”
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
