Training at Ferguson Ridge last year are Eagle Cap Ski Patrol members, left to right, Damian Suess, Michelle Chapin, Mac Huff and instructor Dave Yost. A class of eight completed the training in March. Submitted photo by Alan Klages

A rare Christmas vacation just passed in Wallowa County without enough snow to open the Ferguson Ridge ski area, and a lot of local skiers and snowboarders can’t wait to see the slope finally open for the season.

There’s probably s no group more eager to hit the slopes this year than the Eagle Cap Ski Patrol, which has doubled in size since last season thanks to a locally-instructed ski patrol class. The National Ski Patrol-affiliated group is now 14 members strong, and is supported by an auxiliary patrol with another eight members.

The patrol was formed about two years after the Eagle Cap Ski Club moved 20 years ago from the old site on Ski Run Road and expanded its operation on Ferguson Ridge off Tucker Down Road east of Joseph.

“There didn’t used to be anything formal, no regular patrols,” remembers Jim Russell about the old slope. An emergency medical technician, he was one of seven charter members of the patrol and taught patrol classes for several years. “We decided we wanted to do a better job of giving medical care.”

Although he retired from the patrol about four years ago, Russell and his wife Terri still skis at Fergi on occasion and he is happy to see the group expand. “There will be a need for the patrol as long as humans are softer than trees,” he said.

“We aren’t the Fergi police; we are there to help people,” said patrol director Dave Yost, who was a member of Russell’s last patrol class.

He became a patrol instructor himself for last year’s class. To become a certified ski patrol member, a skier must take 90 hours of instruction, plus an additional 40-50 hours of on-hill training.

Other ski patrol members include assistant director Michelle Chapin, secretary-treasurer Roger Averbeck, Alan Klages, Mac Huff, Larry Nall, Ken Bronec, Daarla Klages, Jim Nave, Damian Suess, Timm Turrentine and Kaare Tingelstad, Nathan Locke, Willy Locke and Brian Rahn. In the auxiliary are Sharon Nall, Charlie Kissinger, Charla Whiting, Sue Juve, Dana Orrick, Nancy Fiegel, Paul Arentsen and Penny Arentsen. Tingelstad is a physician and a welcome addition to the patrol.

“We are strictly a volunteer organization,” Yost said, though he admitted ski patrollers and their families get to enjoy free skiing at Fergi.

The patrol exists to give Fergi-goers first response medical attention to injuries, which sometimes means hauling them off the hill by means of a patrol-pulled toboggan.

Yost said that it isn’t the patrol’s job to monitor behavior on the slope, though members will intercede if they see something dangerous going on. A minimum of two ski patrollers – one regular and one auxiliary – are on duty whenever Fergi is open, and a last sweep of the slope is always conducted to make sure no one is left behind.

The nature of snowboarding – which now is by far the sport of choice by most of Fergi’s customers – and skiing means that injuries, ranging from bruises to sprains and fractures are common. Yost said that patrol has been lucky so far, with no life-threatening injuries while it’s been on duty. Though Fergi is less dangerous than many areas because of lack of vertical drop and relative lack of ski boarder/skier density, “We have to be ready for the bad ones,” Yost said.

The Eagle Cap Ski Patrol is trying to improve its efficiency this year by buying a new toboggan that can be pulled by a snowmobile rather than a skier.

The benefit dinner planned Thursday at Joseph Community Center will raise money for that purpose.

A snowmobile to pull it? Yost said that a “two-person work horse-type” model, rather than a high-performance snowmobile, is needed, and the patrol is scouting the county for one that might be donated or loaned for the purpose.

“Our big push is faster response time,” Yost said. “We’re looking to improve our speed to injuries.”