Bombing Avalanches with Samantha Haberman
The role of a ski patroller is crucial in controlling and managing avalanches on the mountain. These professionals are responsible for monitoring snowpack and weather conditions, taking preventive measures to reduce the risk of avalanches, and responding to emergencies on the mountain. This may involve the use of explosives to trigger controlled avalanches in areas of unstable snowpack, closing off certain areas of the mountain, rescuing skiers caught in an avalanche, and providing medical assistance to anyone who is injured.
Samantha Haberman is one such seasoned ski patroller and avalanche expert who has spent many years working in the ski industry. Haberman, who hails from Aspen, initially had little interest in a career in the mountains. However, after college and a cross-country bike trip, Haberman found herself without a job and decided to explore other opportunities abroad. Eventually, she returned to Aspen and began working as a ski patroller and has now risen to the position of Assistant Director of Ski Patrol on Aspen Mountain. Haberman has a wealth of experience and knowledge when it comes to managing avalanches and keeping ski slopes safe which she shares here today.
She notes that, in the field of avalanche control, there are several tools that ski patrollers use to keep themselves and others safe. Airbag packs, also known as avalanche airbags, are backpacks equipped with inflatable pillows that can be deployed in the event of an avalanche. These pillows help keep the wearer near the surface of the avalanche and more visible to rescuers. Beacons, or transceivers, are devices carried by ski patrollers that emit a frequency that can be detected by other beacons. These devices are used to locate skiers caught in an avalanche. Shovels are also an essential tool for avalanche control, as they can be used to dig out someone who has been caught in an avalanche. Probes, or long, thin poles, can be used to search for a buried person in the snow.
Samantha also reveals that, in order to reduce the risk of natural avalanches, ski patrollers may intentionally set off avalanches through the use of explosives or ski power. Ski power refers to the force generated by skiing down a slope. Explosives, such as dynamite, may be used to create a controlled avalanche. Trigger points, or areas with thin snowpack or features like rock piles that may initiate an avalanche, are often targeted for avalanche control efforts. When using explosives, ski patrollers must take care to use the correct type of explosive, such as Pentolite, and ensure the use of proper fuses and igniters to prevent misfires. It is also important for ski patrollers to have a safe spot to retreat to after setting off the explosives, as the fuse has a life of about two minutes.
As Samanthe knows only too well, rescue and medical situations can present numerous risks and challenges for ski patrollers. These may include extracting injured individuals from difficult locations, such as when they have fallen off the bottom of a run and become stuck in a tree. Ski patrollers may use rope techniques and medical knowledge to gently and efficiently extract and transport injured individuals without causing further harm. They may also need to navigate hazardous conditions, such as unstable snowpack or extreme weather, in order to reach and assist those in need.
Overall, the role of a ski patroller is crucial in maintaining the safety of skiers and snowboarders on the mountain. From monitoring snowpack and weather conditions, to controlling avalanches and responding to emergencies, ski patrollers play a vital role in keeping ski slopes safe for all. Samantha Haberman, as you will hear today, is a leading example in this noble profession, regularly putting herself at the center of heart pounding, adrenaline filled situations to selflessly ensure the continued well being of all those around her.
Resources:
If you enjoyed this episode of The Adrenaline Zone, hit the subscribe button so you never miss another thrilling conversation, and be sure to leave a review to help get the word out to fellow adrenaline junkies.
Transcript:
Dr. Sandra Magnus: It lies somewhere between the pit of your stomach, your racing heart, and your brain; somehow, trying to keep it all together. It's an area we call The Adrenaline Zone.
I'm retired astronaut, Dr. Sandra Magnus.
Sandy Winnefeld: And I'm retired Navy fighter pilot, Admiral Sandy Winnefeld.
We're two adrenaline junkies who love spending time with people who are really passionate about pushing their boundaries as far as possible.
Have you ever wondered as you're enjoying a nice day on a ski mountain, what it takes to keep a sport safe, that involves lots of people moving at high speed, in areas that are subject to numerous hazards, like avalanches?
Dr. Sandra Magnus: Today, we talk with veteran ski patroller, avalanche expert, and Assistant Director of Ski Patrol on Aspen Mountain, Samantha Haberman.
Sandy Winnefeld: We're going to ask her what it's like to stand on top of a mountain ridge, in howling winds, throwing bombs to dislodge a potential avalanche, in order to protect mere mortal skiers like me-
Dr. Sandra Magnus: -And much more.
But first, many thanks to our sponsor for this episode - Culligan Water. With Culligan's drinking water systems, you can get the ultra-filtered water you need to feel your high-performance lifestyle, right on tap. Learn more at: culligan.com.
Sandy Winnefeld: We caught up with Samantha, she was just getting into the '22-'23 Ski Season.
So, Samantha Haberman, welcome to The Adrenaline Zone.
Samantha Haberman: Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be here.
Sandy Winnefeld: Look, we've wanted to talk to a ski patroller, and somebody who knows a lot about controlling avalanches and the overall business - you know, the people who work so hard every day to make skiing safe for the rest of us, and we're so happy to have you with us today, and it looks like this is going to be a fantastic ski season, the way it looks so far.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: Yeah, I know you guys like it when it snows. I'm the lizard, so I'm not so happy when it snows. But hey, if we're going to talk about your work, and I can't wait to learn more about how you manage avalanches and control that risk, and there must be a huge amount of adrenaline involved in that. But we usually like to start so that our listeners learn a little bit more about you.
So, how did you grow up? When did you decide to become a ski patroller, in the first place? And was it something you've always wanted to do?
Samantha Haberman: I was thinking about this, actually, when I got asked on this podcast, about how I did become a ski patroller, and I was thinking it was actually by chance. And then when I thought about it more, I may actually have been kind of directed that way a little bit. So, I grew up in Aspen, and I grew up in the mountains. If you asked me if I wanted to be a ski patroller, I would say, no. I was actually extremely bookish, and I loved reading and sitting by the fire. And then I went to college, and when I graduated, all of my classmates seemed to have plans - they were going to grad school, or they had pre-made jobs already, and I did not. And I panicked a little, and I decided that instead of focusing on my career, I was going to bike halfway across the country because that seemed normal.
So, I went on a big bike trip, and I did it by myself, so half of my family was talking to me at the time and the other half was like, "No wait, we're like cutting you off because that's super dangerous." And then I came back to Aspen and I didn't have a job. And you know what I was thinking about I was like, “Maybe this isn't normal.”
Sandy Winnefeld: You and Sandra have more in common than you might think.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: But keep going, yeah.
Samantha Haberman: And I had a friend who had gotten a Fulbright in Mongolia, and I had another friend who was teaching in Japan, and I was like, "Hey, I don't have a job. I'm going to go to Mongolia, and then Japan." And my family is like, "You're killing us." So, I went off there, and when I came back home, I still didn't have a job, and so, I got a job at a rental ski shop at the bottom of Highlands, and they were short on patrollers that year, and I had my Wilderness First Responder, and they're like, "You're hired." But I didn't want to leave the shop because it was Christmas, and I was like, "You can have me in like a week or two." And while I was working at the shop, they hired somebody else. But I think that kind of got it into my blood a little bit.
And my sister was actually on patrol at Buttermilk at the time, and she seemed to make it seem awesome-- And I'm not going to lie, the patrol in a ski town has a little bit of prestige. Like, they're the ones that decide where you can ski, and when the trails are open and shut, and help you out when you need it. And so, it seemed like a really cool job. And so, the next year I applied and got in. I wasn't intending to be there for very long, but the job is super fun, and a little bit addictive.
Sandy Winnefeld: Yeah. And to say nothing of getting those first tracks, but we don't talk about that. Is there anything, do you think, Samantha, that was special about your upbringing that kind of made you ideally suited for this kind of work?
Samantha Haberman: I think growing up in the mountains for sure - like, it wasn't a big stretch, and I grew up skiing. I wasn't an awesome skier, but I definitely could do it well enough and get down anything. Also, just constantly being like, you step outside where-- I live in nature, so you know that the risks of like going out into the cold, and you know what to bring with you, so you're pretty prepared. I think I had a pretty awesome upbringing; I would say the location was just phenomenal because I'm right next to National Forest. But growing up in Aspen, and telling people, I learned really quickly to not tell people I grew up in Aspen, because interestingly, they look at you differently - they're like, "You must be extremely wealthy”, and it seems a little odd.
But there are regular people in Aspen; my parents were a carpenter, and my mom was a nurse and an HR Director of the school for a while. So, we were just a basic upbringing, but the nature was a really big part of growing up, which I think a lot of people don't have. And our school system actually has a program where they take a week out of the school year, and they bring all of the kids of the class out into nature. Like, you start in second grade and you go out for-- maybe in second grade it's like two days, but it grows into a week, and you go out and do different things like canoeing, or hut tripping, or something out in nature, so you are more connected, which I think is wonderful.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: So, you mentioned that you applied and then you got accepted; Is it competitive? Is there a specific process? And then, I'm sure there's a training program after that. So, how does that all work?
Samantha Haberman: It's pretty competitive. I think it depends on the year, but it's hard to get a job. One thing I remember is that it was hard to get the people I reached out to, to call me back, for a long time because there's so many patrollers or people who want to be patrollers applying. And you have to have your medicals - you have to have at least your Outdoor Emergency Care, or an EMT. So, everybody is trained in basic emergency medical care up there. And then after that, you do a lot of hands-on training on the mountain. It's helpful if you have your Avy 1 or 2, which is now the Pro 1, or Recreational Avalanche Education - that's helpful, but not required to be hired as a patroller; we can teach you that on the job, or send you away for training just to see what the snowpack is doing and what you should look out for on the hill.
And then, we also get training in ropes and technical rescue, just in case we have like a lift evacuation, or we have to extract somebody from off of a cliffy area, or out of a tree. So, there's a lot of hands-on training, and a little bit of going away to classwork to learn more about the conditions around you.
Sandy Winnefeld: Especially for our listeners who are not skiers. You know, Ski Patrol has a lot of diverse work that they have to do, right? You have to open the mountain, you have to do mundane tasks like putting boundaries, and make sure everybody is off the mountain at the end of the day. And as you mentioned, you have to assist people who might have been injured and make sure the mountain is safe from avalanches and a whole lot of other stuff. And you have to do it even when the weather is keeping most of us in the bar, and off the slopes. And you're the assistant director of Aspen's Ski Patrol, how are you all organized to get all of those things done, that just must be done before people can ski safely?
Samantha Haberman: Yeah. So, we actually are divided up - we have separate departments within the patrol, and I think most patrols are like this. We have an avalanche department, we have an evacuation department, we have a medical department, and then we have like accident investigation department, which is kind of our legal thing if anything needs to be recorded, or photos being taken, or anything if something happens. But there's usually one or two people within those departments, and their job is to educate the entire patrol on what to do in those scenarios. So, every patroller should be able to do any task that is set forward for them. Like, if it's avalanche control, if it's evacuation, you should have the tools in your training to be able to do anything that's asked of you on the hill.
So, it's kind of a constantly learning, and a constant training every day, and every day is different. Like, you get different scenarios that you've never seen before that you're like, "Okay, how am I going to manage this?"
Sandy Winnefeld: So, if I'm in the avalanche department, I get up in the early morning, and I, you know, do that sort of control work, that doesn't mean that the rest of the day I don't spend doing, you know, your basic ski patrol work, right? Or is it just, you know, you're in the avalanche department and you just do avalanches all day?
Samantha Haberman: Our particular mountain tries to stay away from that because that kind of splits us up in that it's a little bit less of a community feeling, that way. So, if it's an avalanche morning, all of the patrollers are called in - we're all called in, we need all hands on deck. Everybody is doing a route, or if they're standing by for other patrollers doing a route. And then after that is done, we all do the medical, if there's an incident that occurs, and we all do anything that's asked of us. Essentially, we try to keep everybody together. There are areas like some people might know a little bit more about the snowpack. You usually might go to one person in the avalanche department and be like, "Hey, I saw this. Can we work on this?" Or, "What did you see out there?" And they might have more information about it, but generally, everybody does-- we try to make everybody do everything.
[Advertisement]
Sandy Winnefeld: You live to embrace risk in the air, on the slopes, and anywhere your determination takes you. But when it comes to the drinking water that fuels your adventures, you're not looking to take chances.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: With cutting-edge filtration that can target contaminants as small as a single atom, Culligan's reverse osmosis filtration systems deliver the next-level hydration you need to keep working at peak performance, whatever the day brings.
Sandy Winnefeld: Get started by scheduling your free water test at: culligan.com.
[End of Advertisement]
Dr. Sandra Magnus: Let's dive into the avalanche management, because that is fascinating to me, and of course, this podcast is about risk. And I know it's been a problem in recent winters in Colorado, and avalanche accidents can happen in the backcountry, not inside necessarily the places where, you know, ski patrollers are managing, like Aspen. How does this work? I mean, you'd go on a patrol? I mean, if I'm skiing and I hear an avalanche bomb going off, what exactly is going on? Can you take us to a ridge, and after a big snowstorm and you guys are out patrolling, it might be cold, might be windy. How are you actually managing the avalanches or managing the snowpack?
Samantha Haberman: I could take you through like a normal avalanche morning. So, we get up there early.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: Yeah, perfect.
Samantha Haberman: We get up there early, we're all together, and we do usually have a brief debriefing about where we're all going to go, what trails we're going to cover, and the trails that might be risky for starting avalanches. And our job is essentially to set off avalanches before the public might get caught in them. So, we are essentially putting our bodies in there to make the avalanches go off, or at least like, it's either us or maybe, an explosive charge that we'll toss in there, that will hopefully set off an avalanche before we do, and make it safe so that avalanches don't go off on our public.
So, we get up there early, we get debriefed about where we want to go, we grab our gear, which essentially, we have an avalanche backpack; it's an airbag pack - they are backpacks that you wear on your back, so looks like a normal pack, but it has a pillow inside of it, that if you pull a trigger, it will inflate really fast, like in a matter of seconds, and become a really firm pillow that kind of goes up behind your head. It's fairly large, and the purpose of that is to keep you-- if you were to get caught in an avalanche, is to keep you to the top of the avalanche, and visible. Usually, the airbag itself, or the pillow, is bright red or orange. So, if you get caught in an avalanche, your partner can see where you are as you're traveling down, and hopefully, you're floating on top of the avalanche itself - scary situation. Hopefully, you never have to use it, but it's there for you if you need it.
We also travel with beacons, also called transceivers - you have them on your person, and they're omitting a frequency that can be found with another beacon. So, you and your partner will go out-- you always have a partner, we're groups of two. But you'll go out with a partner, and if you happen to get caught, they will try to see where you were last seen, and then they can locate your exact position using a beacon above the snow, and then start shoveling you out. So, we travel with airbag pack, a beacon, a shovel, and then a probe, which is if we're really deep and you want to find the person, you actually stick probe this, which is just a pole-- it's about a 2-meter pole that you stick into the snow and try to find where that person might be, which actually is my least favorite part - I don't want to be poked, but we travel with those, too. So, you have all of that.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: But it's good to be found.
Samantha Haberman: Oh yeah, for sure. I mean, better to be found - I won't find the poking then. But I'm like if you can see where I am and just start shoveling-- So, we have that, we have our backpack, we have our beacon shovel probe, we go out the door, you get to the top of-- Generally, depending on how much snow it is, it's a little bit of a slog to get to where you're going, because the snow can be really heavy and deep, and to get to your location, you may have to break trail for a while.
So, you get to the top of where you're going, and while you're there, you can kind of see off of road cuts and banks, whether there's avalanche activity, like natural avalanche activity going off these small little terrain features. They'll let off little avalanches, and you're like, "Oh, it might be kind of tender out there." You get to the top of the trail that you're going to control and make an initial cut across the top of the trail, and your skis may have enough power to actually create an avalanche, and like make the run go below you. If it doesn't, a lot of times we'll have explosives and so we will pass an explosive into normal trigger points, and a trigger point is generally a convexity of the slope, or like a rock pile or something where the snowpack is a little bit more thin, and it might actually initiate a crack within the snowpack and have it propagate and create an avalanche.
Sandy Winnefeld: I'm just thinking I would rather start one of these with an explosive rather than starting it with my skis, because if I started with my skis, I may go with it. So, tell me about that.
Samantha Haberman: Oh, absolutely. "I'm like, I'm super happy if my explosive sets off an avalanche. I'm like, "Yes, now I have somewhere safe to go," but like I have the bed surface that's already slid, I can stand on the bed surface and be in kind of a safe location. The scary part sometimes with our routes is if you throw explosives and nothing goes, and you're like, but I know it's tender still. So, you start doing-- ski cutting is our next technique. So, we'll actually crisscross the path in kind of big Zs, like long snow cuts, and you do them one at a time. You're always in visual contact with your partner so they can see you at all times, and you can always hear them. So, you'll make one cut across the slope and then find a safe place to stop, turn around, make sure you can see them, and they will make a cut; you want to make them cut. The cuts really fast because if it does break, you want to be able to get to your safe spot fast. You don't want to be like augered down in the snow, and essentially pushed over by the avalanche. And then you also hope that they go off up higher, rather than down low.
So, you essentially want to make these ski cuts fast, and into safe locations, which is generally the trees, which is a little bit of a misconception because trees can also obviously have avalanches go by them. But at least you have something to hold onto if in an avalanche were to break.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: So, you're basically just clearing all of the areas where the trails and things are, and you're just trying to create avalanches in those areas. Is that how it works?
Samantha Haberman: That is a big concern on my mountain - on Aspen Mountain. It's interesting because we have a lot of public that ski down two main runs underneath a lot of avalanche terrain above them. So, we want to make sure that no avalanches come down on them even if the train is closed. We want to make sure that-- Well, the avalanche train might be closed, but the general public is going on open trails below it, so we want to make sure that nothing comes down on them while they're skiing underneath it. We may be doing these ski cuts just to make sure that nothing comes down on them, and we may be doing it right before we open, to make sure that it gets skier compaction in there because that's really good too. If we can get skiers in there in compacting the snow, it helps us for the next cycle.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: You can see externally, the difference between a more or less dangerous patch of snow, so you kind of know where the avalanches are maybe prone to happen, or not?
Samantha Haberman: Yes. That comes a little bit with experience, and also working in the same place and having seen avalanches happen there before. And also, kind of knowing like the shape of the hill. Sometimes, the shape of the hill is pretty evident, you can be like, "Hey, I could see, or if that got wind loaded, or that got a lot of snow on it, it might initiate from this one point because of the shape of the hill a little bit." But it is a lot of learned experience, and there's also that-- I don't know how other people might describe it, but like, there's a little bit of intuition when you go out there and your gut is just like, "I'm unhappy." Like, the snow may feel hollow, or something underneath you, and there's another little bit of a sixth sense there, that's like, "I'm uncomfortable here, something might happen." And that does come with experience in being out there.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: Yeah. Wow.
Sandy Winnefeld: The power of experience.
So, Sam, you mentioned explosives; so, I visualize you, you know, you're going up with your backpack with a few hunks of these things in there. Tell us about them, you know, how big are they? Tell us about the fusing. I assume you're just kind of throwing them down there and waiting for them to go off, but how does that part of this science or art work?
Samantha Haberman: Yeah, explosives are a great part of our job. On our mountain. I know, that's so funny to say.
Sandy Winnefeld: Everybody likes to play with explosives, you know? Come on.
Samantha Haberman: I mean, it really is kind of the best part of the job. But other mountains have different types of explosives, and it so varies from mountain to mountain. We have Pentolite which essentially looks like a can of soup. It's about the size and shape of a can of soup, they are two pounds each, and you put a fuse into them. On our hill, we put two fuses into them just to make sure that we don't have any misfires. So, if one of the fuses, we get like a kink in the fuse train and it doesn't go all the way to the explosive, we have a backup fuse that we also light so we ensure that they go. Fuses are fairly inexpensive, and misfires are scary; so, we double fuse all of our explosives. And then you have an igniter that you put on the end of the fuse.
So, to walk you guys through it, when you get to the top of a trail, our explosives are put into anti-static bags in the backpacks, so that there's no unnecessary energy affecting the explosive while you're skiing with them.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: Important.
Samantha Haberman: Definitely. You're in contact with your partner the whole time - usually, your partner’s standing next to you, and you'll take an explosive out and put it-- we have little igniters, which are kind of these little cardboard igniters, that kind of fit on the end of the fuse. And when you pull them, they cause a spark, and then it ignites the fuse. Once you do that, you place it wherever you want in the snow, and then you have two minutes to get to a safe spot-- the fuse's life is about two minutes. And so, you will toss it and then you'll go to a safe spot.
Sandy Winnefeld: Are you tossing it down downhill, and then, you know, cover your ears, and?
Samantha Haberman: Yeah, that's exactly it. You toss it into this-- and then, you'll make sure that there's nothing above you, so the science behind the explosives is that they create kind of a pressure wave when they go off. So, they might like cause a little bit of a push down on the snowpack that might cause the avalanche to go off. They also cause fracturing within the snowpack itself. So, if there's a bit of a slab that's building up, that's getting a lot of energy within it, and all it needs is– like it's got a lot of tensile energy that's built up in there. And if you break that up, if you break up that slab, you can cause a lot of it to run off. It can kind of get that energy out of the snowpack. Does that make sense?
Sandy Winnefeld: Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. As you alluded to before, it must be such a cool feeling when you break off a particularly big one, and it just kind of like thunder. How does that feel?
Samantha Haberman: It is. It's a great feeling. You're like, "Yes, look at the damage I just did, and I cleaned that out, and now it's safer." And it's also a little bit like, "Oh, my gosh. I just did that." Yeah, it's a bit of a rush.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: You know, we spend a lot of time talking about avalanche and the risks you take there, but I imagine some of the rescues get risky, and you probably have other types of risks you're dealing with on a daily basis. Can you talk a little bit about those?
Samantha Haberman: Sometimes we get some really big medical incidents that take a lot of hands and a lot of personnel and equipment. So, like you could have people that actually fly off the bottom of a run and they hit a tree, and trying to get them out of where they are - their location, without causing more harm, like extraction and then like using rope techniques a little bit to get them up off onto a bank when the snow that’s tucked beneath you is sugary, and so you take a step and you step down like three steps. So like using, again, our tool bags and rope knowledge, like our medical, and how to move people in the most gentle way, so they're not caused more harm. Plus doing it extremely efficiently because if it's a bad injury, you need to be moving quickly and getting them to definitive care as fast as possible.
And it varies every time, so you don't know exactly what you're going into. Like, sometimes you may be like stopping bleeding or splinting limbs, or like-- I've been in an incident where you're holding a blanket over a paramedic so that they can see the light and intubate somebody on the mountain. Sometimes it can get a little hectic, but I think that those incidents are really hard, but it's different every day, so you don't know exactly what's going to be happening.
Sandy Winnefeld: Yeah. Fortunately, those things are pretty rare. I mean, it's actually a safe sport as long as you sort of stay in control, and obey the rules, and that sort of thing. But of all the things that you do, Samantha, what would you point to as the one that gets your heart pumping the most? You know, that really gets you focused, concentrated, jazzed because, you know, it's so critically important and you know, your adrenaline's running?
Samantha Haberman: There's actually a lot of aspects of my job where that happens. Avalanche control is definitely one of them.
Sandy Winnefeld: Like trying to get a schedule written, right?
Samantha Haberman: Like, going out with explosives, definitely puts you on your game - you're focused and you're there. Also, lift evacuation puts me on my game a little bit, too. In my experience on the mountain, we have very few lift evacuations, but the training for them is a little intense, because you have to climb the tower, and then we actually have a machine that we hook over the cable and ride the cable, kind of like a zip line, down to the carrier. So, you're at that height with a lot of weight and a lot of ropes, and it's that you also have to be on your game, and that can actually be pretty adrenaline-releasing as well.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: Have you ever had to do that for real? Do a lift rescue? Because I imagine people might be a little hysterical and not so helpful.
Samantha Haberman: Great, and cold and unhappy. We've had one. This is my 17th year on the patrol, and we've had one in my memory.
Sandy Winnefeld: Any interesting anecdotes? What's the weirdest experience you've had as a ski patroller?
Samantha Haberman: Oh, my goodness. I've had some weird medical calls. I went on one, I think I was maybe my third or fourth year as a patroller, and I went. It was called in as a potential knee accident, and I couldn't find it. And I got called, I like went to the run and I could not find where this person was. And eventually, their friends flagged me down, and he was in the trees. And I went to go find him, and he had hit a branch straight on. And actually, I think he tore his bronchial a little bit, but he literally inflated. Like, I thought he was a big kid; like, I thought he was big, and kind of just a little bit heavy set. And we got him packaged up and sent off to the hospital, extracted. And then when he sent us a thank you and a photo, and he was this skinny little like 16-year-old kiddo. He actually had filled the interstitial space within his skin, with air, and he was just kind of inflating.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: Oh, my gosh.
Samantha Haberman: I know. Which was crazy. That one was really weird. It kind of sticks out in my mind too.
Sandy Winnefeld: I didn't know you could do that.
Samantha Haberman: I didn't, either. And I was like, "That actually happened."
[Advertisement]
Dr. Sandra Magnus: You're passionate about pushing yourself always to be better, Culligan's water experts feel the same.
Sandy Winnefeld: That's why their smart reverse osmosis filtration systems do more than deliver the ultra-refreshing, pure-tasting water you deserve. Their app also lets you set drinking water goals, see water quality information, and get filter change alerts.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: And with cleaner, safer, great-tasting water available right from the tap, you can also feel good about all those single-use plastic bottles you're saving from landfills.
Sandy Winnefeld: Get started today by scheduling your free water test at: culligan.com.
[End of Advertisement]
Dr. Sandra Magnus: So, let's go a little introspective for a moment because risk is a very personal thing, and people handle it differently. So, can you talk a little bit about how you handle the risk that you face in your job? Just internally, or mentally?
Samantha Haberman: For sure. And when I got asked on this podcast, I think I alluded to it earlier, about how I got on patrol. I think I might have a high-risk tolerance in general, with going out into areas. But like over the years, I have developed like a limit where I'm like, "Okay, I can take this amount of risk; this needs to be done." It'll be like a task; I'll start out with a task that needs to be done and I will focus on doing it. But if it gets to a point where I'm like, "I am actually really at an uncomfortable situation right now," I actually now know that I can pull back and be like, "No, I'm not going to do that. I don't want to go out onto that slope without an explosive, or I don't want to push that.” I think some of the hard things that I have to come back and remind myself of where I am personally that day - like if I'm overly tired, or if I have some sort of something else going on that's distracting me from the task at hand, I may want to reel back myself too and be like, my ability to assess my own risk tolerance might not be as reliable as I want it to be. And also, I depend on my coworkers a lot, too. To be like, "Hey, you made a decision there that's a little suspect, and I'm wondering if maybe we should reel back.” I do depend on my coworkers a lot.
Sandy Winnefeld: That is phenomenal, Samantha. I can't tell you how many of our other guests, the ones who are experienced at taking risks, you know, like a seasoned IndyCar driver, he said almost exactly the same thing you did. " As I've gotten older, I've given it a little bit more margin because, you know, the consequences of failure are so high." It’s just amazing.
So, let me ask you this. You know, any profession is about success and failure, right? I'm not going to ask you about failure, but I will ask you, is there any particular thing you've done over the last 17 years that you're particularly proud of? And don't be modest here, tell us, you know, "Hey, I had this one thing, this one incident.” Or “I trained to this one person who was really hard to train." You know, what is it that you really are most proud of?
Samantha Haberman: I do actually love my job, and I feel like every day I go out there-- And you're right, some days I don't do as well as I want to, but every day I come home I'm like, "Success. Another day went pretty well." I was the evacuation coordinator for a few years when I first got the job, I think it was in 2014. For our mountain, we hadn't done a full-scale evacuation of our gondola, which I also alluded to earlier-- it's really high and long and steep. One of our spams is actually 43 degrees, so it's a pretty scary endeavor, and they hadn't done like a full-scale one. So that spring, I coordinated and organized with the help of other patrols from the other three mountains across our area, and our own patrollers, I organized a full-scale evacuation scenario.
So, we had a lot of management on the lift. We had about 53 people on the gondola, and we managed to ride the entire gondola and open every door within three hours and get everybody on the ground and safe. It took a lot of logistics because not only do you have people actually riding the cable and lowering people, then you have to be able to get people from where they are. And they may be dropped into double black diamond and they might not be an expert skier, you have to like get them to where they can get off the mountain, and then you also have to transport the people who have done the cable driving back to a place where they can either warm, up, or rest, or start another span. And it's a lot of logistics, but we did it.
Sandy Winnefeld: Well, and, you know, it's an exercise, and the last thing you want to do is get somebody hurt during an exercise. So, there's another pucker factor there. It's like, "Hey, I have to make sure this is all done safely," right?
Samantha Haberman: Right.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: So, I have to ask, as a woman in STEM, I've worked in a male-dominated field my whole life, and I know there's a good number of female ski patrollers and many are in key pathfinders and leaders in the profession. But are there any lingering challenges for you as a woman in this business? Is it similar to like maybe the world that I've lived in, or is it different, or how would you evaluate?
Samantha Haberman: It might be similar to working in STEM, a little bit. Like, I also find myself drawn to male-dominated areas, and it's a little bit like, you have to be able to do your job, not just well, but you have to be able to do it like 150% to be keeping up with anybody else. So, like you have to be extremely good at your job in all areas. And I've had it come up a lot, where you have to have really thick skin. I'm like, "But I don't really want to have to have thick skin." But you do, and I don't think that's specific to our jobs, either. I think that's unfortunately maybe where the job industry is a lot of the time.
Sandy Winnefeld: Yeah. I sort of have a selfish attitude on that. I have a selfish attitude on that - that's why I like hiring women engineers because I look at them as equals. But if they're going to work twice as hard as the guys, hey, bring it on. And I really am serious about that. And it's unfortunate sometimes that you have to feel that way, but it's so impressive to see people do that.
So, let's talk about culture a little bit - culture is key to any profession. I know from my own experience, just observing ski patrol in the mountain, and knowing a few, that it's a very tightly-knit profession. Can you give us, from the inside view of the apple, you know, your view on what the culture is like in ski patrol, that you live every day on the mountain?
Samantha Haberman: It is a very tight-- it's a small group of tight-knit, cleave-knit people, and we're all very individual, and very-- Everybody has their own way of doing things, but we're all put together in one task. Even though people have different ways of doing things, we'll get the task done. And when it becomes in a high-risk or high-emergency situation, we all have to depend on each other to be able to do the job, and there's a lot of trust that goes into that. And also, after these high-pressure situations, there are these bonds that form. So, you're really pretty tightly knit with the people who work around you. I think maybe a little bit more so than other professions because some of the time, you're out there with one person, and you're trusting that person with your life, essentially.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: Do you do a lot of mentoring for aspiring ski patrollers? And what kind of advice do you give them? Especially young girls, or young women who are wanting to follow in your footsteps. Just out of curiosity.
Samantha Haberman: Sometimes we have kids in school who come up and trail us for a little bit, but a lot of times my mentoring is just for the people who just got the job, on patrol. And I would say humility is kind of huge in our group - like, if you come in and you're like, "I know how to do this already," And we would be like, "No." You might not be able to know how-- Humility is very big. And also, being constantly able to learn, like wanting to learn more, because you are always learning new things at this job. And then also, patience, because you're going to be told how to do the same thing 30 ways by 30 different people. And there are-
Dr. Sandra Magnus: There's a lot of commonality between how you approach your job and we approach ours, actually. Huge.
Samantha Haberman: That's awesome. Also, being women, we're sometimes smaller in stature, like I'm 5'3", and I have to come up with different techniques of like running a toboggan, and I may have to go through the same exact areas that my coworker who is like 6-foot. 200 pounds does, but I need to have different techniques to do it, right? Because I'm shorter, and I have to scoop myself back in the handles. So, there's definitely different techniques.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: Yeah.
Sandy Winnefeld: So, I got a last question for you, Samantha. And this is kind of an off-the-wall question, but you know, puppies are a big hit on any show. So, you got to talk to us about avalanche dogs - are they the real deal? Do you really take them up there, or are they out there just for show?
Samantha Haberman: Oh, they're absolutely the real deal. Our Avy dogs are highly-trained. So, they go through a Colorado Rapid Avalanche Deployment, its C-RAD, in Colorado, which trains our Avy dogs, and they have to go through some seriously rigorous training in order to become certified as avalanche dogs. So, they can find people when they arrive on scene within minutes, buried in the snow. So, they are very well-trained.
Luckily, we don't use them that much. And so, they can be called upon if we need them; if it's like an unwitnessed avalanche in the backcountry, they'll get called back there to search the scene, and they do their job really well. But those are rare and so, we get to have-- their presence on the mountain is great. They're great for PR, and they are great for a pick me up at the end of the day, that they are for real.
Sandy Winnefeld: Yeah. But I would imagine that you know, in the wake of an avalanche, the snow is, you know, very jumbled, very broken up, very soft, and you've got a dog now, trying to run back and forth to, you know, smell a human or whatever. Are they able to stay on top of the snow with their little paws, or how do they navigate through that? Are they just kind of slogging through it like we would?
Samantha Haberman: That might be a misconception about an avalanche. Usually, when they're searching the debris, the debris is pretty hard. It's like super firm, and that's one of the scary things about an avalanche is that it seizes up, or it might even come down in hard slabs, but when it finally forms that debris at the bottom, it forms up really quickly, and that's why people get pretty stuck in there.
So, the dogs will be searching a pretty hard debris field, which may be uneven, but they can walk on top of it. The difficult part is getting them to the debris. So, sometimes they'll ride on their owner's shoulders, or sometimes they can ride on a snowmobile if it's far enough back, and sometimes we could take in a toboggan. But yeah, that's a good point - they might be wallowing in the snow getting there.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: In a total geek moment, that, of course, is a difference between potential energy, and kinetic energy.
Samantha Haberman: Yeah.
Sandy Winnefeld: There you go.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: And you have that hard snowpack at the bottom.
Sandy Winnefeld: There you go. All that potential turned into kinetic, that turned into rock-hard snow-
Dr. Sandra Magnus: Like a huge, dense, pack of stuff at the bottom.
Sandy Winnefeld: Well, look, Samantha, we're just about out of time, and as an avid skier, it's been really, really cool to talk to you and get some insights into the sort of inner workings of what is really an important profession that keeps people safe.
I know it's a lot of fun; you live it every day, but those of us who are out on the mountain, we really respect the people in the ski patrol suits, it's like, "Okay, I better behave myself." And these people are doing a really important job. So, thanks so much for spending time with us. And when I get to Aspen sometime-- I'm a Breckenridge skier, but when I get to Aspen, I would love to trail you, or just go out for a quick ski, and get to know you better.
So, it's really been cool, and thanks for spending time with us.
Samantha Haberman: Absolutely.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: Yeah. Thanks so much, I learned a lot. And there's so many similarities in how you guys work as a team, and we work as a team - it's just really amazing.
Samantha Haberman: Thank you guys both so much.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: That was Aspen Ski Patroller, Samantha Haberman. I'm Sandra Magnus.
Sandy Winnefeld: And I'm Sandy Winnefeld.
Thanks again, to Culligan Water, for sponsoring this episode. Your life may be about taking risks, but your water shouldn't be. Learn more at: culligan.com.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: And check us out on social media, including a video of our interview with Sam, on TikTok. Our handle is very simple: theadrenalinezone.
