STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK

When Victoria Rossin showed up with the Sun Valley Ski Patrol’s rescue toboggan, she found no shortage of youngsters who were eager to ride down Bald Mountain in it.

And they all did so with a smile.

The 30 girls, between the ages of 8 and 16, were taking part in a pilot SheJumps Wild Skills Junior Ski Patrol program designed to acquaint girls with what ski patrollers do and show them that they, too, can one day become a ski patroller if they choose.

Their logo was a giraffe with a unicorn horn, denoting the idea of a magical creature with its feet on the ground and head in the clouds. Their motto: “What would you dare to accomplish if you knew the only possible outcome was success?”

“We hope this empowers the girls as they see women doing things they can aspire to. And at the end of the day, we hope they have a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment,” said Stacey Hopstad, the regional coordinator for SheJumps.

Wild Skills Director Christy Pelland organized the first Junior Ski Patrol program at Crystal Mountain in December after her 7-year-old daughter expressed an interest in ski patrolling. Her pilot program was embraced by SheJumps, a national program founded by Sun Valley’s Big Mountain skier Lyndsey Dyer and her friends to offer females the tools they need to be comfortable recreating outdoors.

They hope to expand the program next winter after this year’s pilot programs at Sun Valley, Park City and Crystal Mountain.

“If we had had something like this when I was a girl, the workshop would have been led by all men,” said Deb Robertson, an emergency room doctor for St. Luke’s Wood River. “Now, Sun Valley has 14 female patrollers. I think this is a fantastic opportunity for my 11-year-old daughter--Lucy Lamoureux--to get to know what patrollers do, to learn about safety. Doing things with women role models has more impact than anything else.”

Led by the ski patrollers and SheJumps volunteers dressed in giraffe and unicorn outfits, the girls got to try everything from immobilizing legs in splints to helping dig out girls who had been buried in a mock avalanche.

Sun Valley Ski Patroller Sara Gress told them how Sun Valley’s rescue toboggans had been invented by one of the patrollers and their parts made in Bellevue. She showed them how to brake the toboggans by dropping chains in front.

Then she showed them how to wrap each other “like burritos” in Pendleton blanket and a yellow tarp with a special foot flap to keep snow from splashing the victim while being hauled down the mountain.

“Oh I’m dying!” feigned Elle Shaughnessy as she sprawled on the snow waiting to be rescued.

Not everyone who goes down in a toboggan is using it as an ambulance,” Gress told the girls.

“We offer a lot of courtesy rides for skiers and boarders who find themselves on a part of the mountain that is more than they can handle.”

Patroller Ashley Brown told the girls that the first thing they need to do when attending to an accident victim is make sure the scene is safe—that there’s no risk of avalanche danger or from a lot of people skiing in the area.

“Introduce yourself. If they respond, you know they’re breathing,” she added.

Brown and fellow patroller Sandy Gregorak let the youngsters try on their jackets, weighted down by shin splints, CRP masks, gauze, triangular bandages, blood stoppers, gloves and scissors.

At 60, Gregorak became the oldest female patroller ever hired at Sun Valley when she received her ski patrol badge this year.

“I finally realized I was meant to do this—that I just got sidetracked by other careers,” said Gregorak, an art gallery owner who worked with the Yellow Jackets courtesy patrol last year. “I have a knack for medical things and I really like helping people. I got a lot of touches this year on Dollar Mountain, tending to broken arms, broken legs and just interacting with the kids. And I found I love driving the toboggan through the bumps.”

Under Brown and Gregorak’s tutelage, the youngsters had a heyday bandaging up one another with the enthusiasm of an ancient Egyptian wrapping a mummy.

“If your leg hurts, we immobilize, no questions asked. We let the doctor figure out if it’s sprained or something more serious,” Patroller Mollie McLam told them.

After a chance practicing with avalanche beacons, the girls got an opportunity to be buried in big piles of snow to see Sun Valley’s five avalanche dogs at work.

Sun Valley’savalanche dogs, like all dogs, have a sense of smell 10,000 times greater than that of humans, McLam told them.

“This dog can smell one molecule of coffee in an Olympic sized swimming pool, she said.

They have slits in their noses so outgoing air does not dilute the scented air streaming into the nostrils, she added. They breathe faster, widening their nostrils, when trying to pinpoint a certain smell.

 “We call them search dogs because they don’t do any saving,” she added. “That’s our job. It’s our job as handlers to put them in a place with the highest probability they’re going to find someone who’s buried.”

Following a treasure hunt in which they found items using their newly learned skills with avalanche beacons, the youngsters received certificates certifying them as junior patrollers.

“My favorite part was riding the toboggan,” said Taylor Rundell, who had initially been reluctant to ride in a toboggan. “It felt like riding my bike—but I was lying down.”

“I learned all about how they wrap you to keep you warm,” added Lucy Lamoureaux. “And I learned it takes many hands to keep the mountain safe.”