SENIOR ALPINE TOBOGGAN

    For those of you who like the idea of hurtling down a double black diamond hauling a toboggan behind you on the way to help an injured patient, this is all the training you’ll ever need. A word of warning before I start: I cannot emphasize enough how physically demanding our AT training was, I’ve never been as fit as I was the day of our final test. If you're going to do it, get yourself to the gym now!
    You can do the AT training before OEC if you want, in fact this is probably a better idea as it allows you to spread the course over 2 years, i.e. AT during the last half of one season and OEC during the early part of the next season, then come Christmas, you’re good to go. You’ll also get an idea of what life on patrol is like before you have to spend a small fortune putting yourself through OEC. 
    In order to take AT training you’ll have to pass a ski/snowboard test to ensure you are of a sufficient standard (no ski training is given during the course). At Loveland, tryouts are held twice a year although you can probably arrange for a separate test if you need to (beer always helps with this sort of thing). At present you can do the course on skis (alpine and teles) and snowboards. All three of these disciplines have differences with regard to techniques; however the basic principles are the same. 

    Since I am a snowboarder you can expect a slight snowboard bias in this article, especially as running toboggans on a snowboard is still relatively unusual. As far as I can tell, it seems to be easier on a board, due to the huge amount of edge pressure a snowboarder can apply while controlling a sled as opposed to a skier and there is no problem with snow getting caught between skis. More detail on the history of the use of snowboards to pull toboggans can be found here. 
    Our training started on 4th January 2003 and ran for 11 weekends. At the end of the course we had a mandatory one-day clinic, which was basically a run through of the final test that took place the following weekend. The final test is a two-day affair: One day for toboggan testing and the next for ski/snowboard skills. 

 

Basic Toboggan/Sled construction:        Pretty simple things really; one set of handles (called “the horns”) which can be locked in position if needed, one rope at the back (the “tail rope”) and a chain that slips down under the sled to slow it down.

    Like the OEC course, all of our instructors were Loveland patrollers, the main man in this case being Mark Vessely. Thanks Mark. Our first day of training consisted of some ski/board exercises (falling leaf etc) and we also did some freerunning down groomed blue terrain to get a feel for the toboggan. The term freerunning is used to describe the technique used to pull the sled when it is empty (i.e. without a person in it). The basic aim of freerunning is to get to where you need to go as quickly and as safely as possible. Everyone got the hang of this relatively quickly and throughout the course we moved up to black and double black terrain. Just aim straight down the fall line, turn a lot, ignore the bumps and DON’T FALL. And don’t turn too wide or the sled will end up in front of you and you’ll have to do a funky 3-point turn thing to get it where it should be. The key is to turn (A LOT) straight down the fall line. Often this will involve turning on top of a mogul, on the side of a mogul or pretty much anywhere, just hang onto the sled and keep yourself in contact with the ground. It sounds tricky, and a few people did struggle with it, but all told it’s pretty easy. I actually found steep mogul runs easier with a toboggan because you don’t have to balance, just hang on and go where it takes you. Obviously this won't work so well if you’re on skis! 

 

The two Marks: Mark Spragins (showing us how to fall over) and our main instructor Mark Vessely.

    Running loaded sleds (i.e. with a person in) is where we spent most of our time and effort. The majority of our training concentrated on running loaded sleds down steep moguled terrain. In our case this involved going up and down A-Bowl and Zoom day after day, week after week. Or at least that’s what it felt like anyway!
    There are two ways to run a loaded sled, single man and 2-man. Single man is usually done on terrain that is groomed, or on less steep moguled terrain whereas 2-man is used on steeper terrain where it isn’t possible to sufficiently control the sled on your own. In this case there will be one person in the horns and one providing extra control using the tail rope. The basic aims are the same whatever technique you use: firstly, to get your patient down to the bottom of the mountain in the same state you found them in. Also not putting yourself, or any other members of the public in danger is of paramount importance. This is relatively straightforward in principle, just a lot more difficult in reality! On groomed terrain, controlling your speed is about all you need to do. On moguls, speed is also a major factor along with route selection. Picking a sensible route through the bumps took all of us some time to master, because you have to involved position yourself so the sled is in the troughs between the moguls. This often involved us ending up in all sorts of different positions, but that was all part of the fun. In steeper terrain the tail rope is used to slow the toboggan at the command of the person in the horns. The tail rope is also used to help with traverses and to give a helping hand on flatter terrain. 

    During the course of our training, we also learnt the correct way to handoff the sled to another patroller, approach the patient and how to secure the sled on steeper terrain. Securing the sled is particularly difficult to learn on a board, as it involves unstrapping one foot and stomping out a platform while holding onto the sled. Getting off the chairlift holding a toboggan is also a lot easier on skis because you have much greater stability, whereas on a board you have only one point of contact with the ground and you can’t see your feet.
    Both the clinic and the test were fairly similar; you basically have to do everything you’ve done in training i.e. Freerunning, single-man loaded, 2-man loaded, hand-offs, approach and secures, traverses as well as a whole heap of ski/board exercises like long, medium and short radius turns, falling leaf etc… We were split into teams of 3 with 2 judges per team. At times, our judges would be in the toboggan, however during 2-man loaded they would sometimes take control of the horns or tail to see how much work each person was really doing. Out of our team, Dave and myself passed, but unfortunately Gary failed for reasons that I can’t remember. Come back Gary, we all miss you.

    Once we’d passed AT it was the middle of April so we had about 2 or 3 weeks to actually patrol before the season ended. At the time of writing this article I’d been patrolling at Loveland for 3 years including my training year. To find out what life on patrol is really like go to the “Life on Patrol” section. 

*Really* useful advice, Thanks Brian.