The HoliMont Ski Patrol is a member of the National Ski Patrol and an important part of the HoliMont Safety Team. The Patrol is a highly-skilled, trained and dedicated group of volunteers that provides prompt emergency medical care and support to all members and guests of HoliMont. The HoliMont Ski Patrol seeks to enhance HoliMont’s snow sports experience by working collaboratively to ensure that the resort remains a safe environment and, when called upon, provides timely and effective emergency care.
The earliest members of HoliMont’s Ski Patrol came as a group from Blue Mountain (later Blue Mont) which had gone bankrupt in 1963.
Notable among those who helped the Patrol get started was our first Patrol Leader, Bob Kreitner, who, for a short period of time, became HoliMont’s Manager. He and his wife, Carol, later were associated with Blue Mont.
Early HoliMont members Gary and Olga Richards and Jerry Hilger spent most of their ski time in patrol uniform. Gary was Assistant Patrol Leader the first year and Patrol Leader for several years after that.
At the outset, in 1963-64, the HoliMont Patrol was also responsible for covering Poverty Hill. Doing double coverage was difficult, especially after HoliMont’s chairlift went in (most of the patrol members wanted to stay at HoliMont), so the Patrol split up. Gary Richards took over the leadership here and worked hard to recruit would-be patrollers from his home in Lockport. They needed only to be enthusiastic skiers with compatible personalities; HoliMont’s patrol members took them on and trained them in skiing and injury-handling techniques.
Among those who served HoliMont was the late Bob Hayden who was a conscientious, devoted member of our Patrol, continuing with it well past his retirement years.
At a time when HoliMont had no money to provide the patrol with equipment, they provided their own. They used hickory toboggans that they had built themselves and later made some out of corrugated aluminum. The cooperative effort of the building has, in part, accounted for the strong camaraderie among HoliMont patrol members.
The HoliMont patrol built the original Patrol Room at the base of the Exhibition Lift. When that became far too small to handle three injuries at a time – an event which occasionally happened – the Patrol built the hut at the bottom of the slope. HoliMont paid for the materials, but the Patrol supplied the labor. In fact, until the Patrol Hut was built in the Sunset area, the Patrol had always built its own facilities.
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