Ruby Mtn Heli Ski

I went out to Elko and Lamoille in Northeastern Nevada this week where I gave a noon lecture at the Northeastern Nevada Regional Hospital to doctors and nurses (on the pharmaceutical industry and physicians) and then headed out to Lamoille to do some wilderness medicine training with the guides. When I got there on Wednesday afternoon they were out checking out the terrain and the helicopter, which had just arrived. The snowpack was thin, but was fun recrystallized powder. I joined the guides for their "guides meeting" where they discuss snow safety and operations and over pizza we discussed some medical conditions and some scenarios that they might want to be prepared for.

A good friend of the Ruby Mtn team, Colin, came in Wednesday night to spend a few days as a consultant (snow safety, operations) and he and I shared the beautiful lodge that evening (with some other guys coming in late). Thursday morning dawned warm and wet and at the 6am guides meeting there was a lot of discussion about where the best skiing would be and whether or not we'd get to fly (doubtful). But after breakfast in town (the tiny town that it is), the decision was made to fly and we loaded the helicopter.

We skied three runs before conditions really deteriorated, so while the three guests took one more run, I went with Colin and the guides for some avalanche training which was fantastic. Not only did it review material I've heard (and hopefully learned) before, but Colin presented it in a new fashion and taught a test (propagation saw test) that I hadn't seen before.

We had an interesting ski down to the Yurt where we piled in to Joe's pickup truck for the drive back to the Ranch.

After the guides meeting and another dinner of pizza and beer, I did some more wilderness medicine work.

After some discussion about the conditions and helicopter loads (a new crew of guests came in), we decided that I wouldn't go out skiing today. I was a bit bummed that I didn't get great skiing in, but it was fun to work with the guides and the snow safety training was phenomenal.