Transcription of Jamie Goduti for the show Sugarloaf #169
Dr. Belisle: Many of the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour listeners are skiers. We know this for sure. We know that many of them are skiers at Sugarloaf. This is a mountain that I have spent myself some time at, and spent some time with the ski patrol recently for an article which I’ve written for Maine Magazine. Today we have with us Jamie Gadooty who is a president of Gadooty Builders and has been skiing at Sugarloaf since he was a teenager, and has himself some experience with the ski patrol. Come on in and tell us all about what you’ve been doing for the last few years Jamie.
Jamie: This year will be year 10 at Sugarloaf Ski Patrol. First got involved with this, we’ve been Sugarloafers all our life and have spent a lot of time on the hill. Our children started going to the Bubble Cuffer programs, which is a teaching program for the kids where they join a group and you’re with that group the entire winter. We’re very engaged in the hill. At the same time, this was back probably around 2000 or so, I myself was going to be doing some construction at Sugarloaf as well. We started spending a lot of time there summer and winter.
Got to know a lot of the local people and kind of experience more of the mountain scene and just skiing everyday. At the same time I got to know some patrollers, I had some that were friends, and I got to know the patrol director. Always had an interest in first responding et cetera. I was skiing one spring and I had heard, it was a very quiet day, beautiful day, but had heard about a fatality on the hill. It was just kind of a sad thing to see happen on such a gorgeous day in such a gorgeous place.
Later that day I stopped by the site where it happened. There happen to be a few patrollers there so I spoke with them and told them thanks a lot, and said sorry you really had to deal with this. I cycled back up on the mountain and I went by Bullwinkle’s near some local people kind of hanging out there. There was a guy on the porch who had brought, another local, and he brought his bagpipes up and was playing “Amazing Grace”. This is all pretty amazing. That propelled me into wanting to join the force.
That summer I took a basic EMT class and that fall was signed up to go through patrol and its training.
Dr. Belisle: You’ve been doing this for 10 years.
Jamie: This will be year 10.
Dr. Belisle: Year 10. You’ve been skiing since you were a teenager.
Jamie: Probably set foot on Sugarloaf in 1964. Back and forth since then. It was time to give back to the mountain that had given so much to our family. Wanted to make a contribution and get involved with something I thought I’d be interested in.
Dr. Belisle: Have you always lived in Cape Elizabeth?
Jamie: I grew up in Falmouth. Haven’t gone far, across the bridge.
Dr. Belisle: Gone across the bridge. What was it about Sugarloaf in particular that caused your family to want to spend so much time there?
Jamie: I think there was a lot of people from Falmouth that had some of the original A-frames et cetera at Sugarloaf, and a lot of their kids were our friends. My dad was an avid skier. He took us all around, but Sugarloaf was kind of the Mecca for all of us as kids. We never owned a place but all my friends did, so it was a good thing. Had a place to go.
Dr. Belisle: How many brothers and sisters did you have?
Jamie: I had two older brothers.
Dr. Belisle: They also skied.
Jamie: Yes.
Dr. Belisle: When you decided that you were going to join the ski patrol did it seem intimidating in any way? You are a contractor and you own your own company. Did you have experience in any sort of emergency medical services?
Jamie: I had been a member of the Falmouth Fire Department a long time ago, when I was in high school. Had some experience at that end of emergency response but not really on a medical basis. As far as ski patrol goes, no worries about the skiing end of it. The ability there. I had taken the EMTB class that summer. Had somewhat of a comfort level with the medical end of it. Had friends that were involved, so it was a bit of a support network. Not too nervous about it.
Dr. Belisle: Not too nervous. What were some of the things that you experienced on the ski patrol that were different from what you experienced skiing at Sugarloaf just as a supporter of the mountain?
Jamie: Now you’re part of the system and you’re not an end-user. It’s kind of really fun to be part of that system. It’s incredible what goes into that mountain operation to get the whole place going on a daily basis. You sort of observe all the activities going on from that end of it. You’re not just out there skiing away with a bunch of friends. Your eyes and ears are open, you’re watching for what you’re supposed to be looking for with your job. Kind of keeping tabs on things.
Dr. Belisle: When I was there with the ski patrol I was struck by, first of all how early you get out on the mountain. You’re up there before the lifts really open to the crowds. Also that there really is this sense of, despite the early morning, and it was pretty dark when we first all got there. It was pretty cold because that was a day there ended up being a wind hold. People were happy to be there. They were very excited to be putting on their gear and heading up to the mountain. There was a sense of camraderie. There was a sense that there was a job to be done but everybody wanted to do it.
Jamie: There’s never any hesitation about that in the locker room. It’s a great group. Everybody knows what they need to do, so off you go. You can’t always control the weather in Maine as we know. Prepare for the worst and hope for the best.
Dr. Belisle: A lot of what you do, people think about ski patrol as OK, somebody breaks a leg and need to be taken down the mountain, or maybe there’s somebody runs into a tree or gets lost, and these types of things. The ski patrol really serves to help keep the mountain safe in lots of different ways. Tell me some of the things, some of the tasks, the responsibilities that ski patrol is involved in?
Jamie: It starts in the morning. We do a morning trail check. Pretty much try to send a patroller down every trail that’s open. Put eyes on the grooming. Make sure equipment’s out of the way, check on ropes, where they’re supposed to be up, where they’re supposed to be down. Report back if there’s any issues and they’ll send someone down, if some signs need to be put up. From that point forward once that is done and the mountain’s open to public we will cycle in and out of our top holding spot and keep eyes on how things are flowing for the day. We have certain trails that do have slow family skiing only trails, and we really make a point to get on those and impress upon people that we don’t think are kind of going with the flow as we call it to respect those signs, because there’s a lot of people that are trying to learn or they have little kids out.
A lot of people come up to me when I’m standing by those signs, they say thanks a lot. We appreciate having a sanctuary while we’re taking our kids out and getting them learning and all. Those kinds of things go on all day. Just try to keep it all as a safe environment so everybody can enjoy the skiing experience.
Dr. Belisle: Sometimes just by your very presence you’re able to create a sense of calm and try to, people who are maybe going a little too fast or being a little too erratic, they might see a ski patroller and slow down and realize they need to be more mindful.
Jamie: That definitely happens, yeah. If we’re out there, and especially on those marked trails, you’ll see those people who want to be clipping along. They know where those signs are, some of those people, and they’ll look up and all of the sudden they’ll slow down a little bit. Those that don’t go have a nice pleasant talk with them and give them a fair warning and say just please respect what I’m saying and what these signs are saying, enjoy your day, go from there. Most are really good, they respond well to that.
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Dr. Belisle: You also act as an ambassador. The way that you just described it wasn’t you’re not coming in trying to be the heavy, you’re trying to foster some understanding that we’re all trying to ski down the mountain together. You are representing Sugarloaf.
Jamie: Absolutely, yeah. I have a lot of fine conversations going up lifts with people. They tend to start to talk to you and ask about patrolling and all of that. I ask them about their experience at Sugarloaf and hoping they’re having a good time, and if they have any questions. A lot of good conversations happen.
Dr. Belisle: There’s also, on the good days when you’re just making sure everybody’s safe and all the trails are well-marked and everything is in a good place, things can be fairly calm. It’s just like being on a rescue squad or being on the fire department. Some days there are things that happen that maybe you couldn’t of even foreseen. I remember several years back that there was actually a lift that came down. I’m sure that nobody thought that that would ever happen. It hasn’t happened since, and it’s not really … Sugarloaf is a very safe place as are most ski mountains. What happens when something big like that, something big and unforeseen, how do you deal with that?
Jamie: Coincidentally we had had a training that fall, three months before this lift came down, specifically for lift derailment. It started from the top of the mountain, and the training went through the entire triage, evacuation, getting people into ambulances. They actually took these people all the way to the hospitals. It was an A to Z training mission for something, a mass casualty thing, just something like this.
I don’t know if we jinxed ourself but three months later it happened and from our end of it it went off like clockwork. Thankfully no one was, there were no fatalities. There were some injuries for sure, and those people that had the greatest injuries were moved the quickest and the first, and I think we had everybody off the hill within probably 35, 40 minutes. The whole line was cleared within an hour. Everybody that had to be somewhere was gone. It really went very, very well from our end as a response.
You train for those things. We do training in the fall to warm up, it’s a refresher weekend. We all go up for a weekend in usually October. Then we do refreshing all season long. If we have quiet days we’ll go out and practice scenarios on the hill, and simple things like splinting et cetera.
Dr. Belisle: When I was up there with the ski patrol somebody described that lift going down, that particular lift derailment, as being you’re 9/11. The 9/11 piece, that was so interesting, is for you as an organization was that it wasn’t as big a disaster because you knew about it. You knew how you to do this. Three months earlier you had had some training. As much as you can you’re trying to train for things that, they might be unforeseen but they’re not impossible. They have been seen before.
Jamie: Absolutely. You have lifts, the potential of something like that is there. You always try to, I guess, learn your potential calamities I’ll call them, and prepare as best you can for them. We do a good job with that up there. There’s some great talent on the hill for that. Our leaders that train us for all that.
Dr. Belisle: You have to be good at things like knowing how to deal with equipment and equipment failures. You have to know first aid. You have to, is the EMT course is that a requirement in order to be a ski patroller?
Jamie: For NSP and for PSPA, at least at Sugerloaf it’s called outdoor emergency care. It kind of parallels a basic EMT course with a wilderness twist to it. It’s like a thousand page book, and it covers an awful lot of first responder care.
Dr. Belisle: This prepares you to do anything from splinting an ankle to dealing with somebody who stops breathing on the hill.
Jamie: Correct.
Dr. Belisle: You have that piece and you also need to be able to ski. There’s some basic level of skiing that is required for anybody who’s on ski patrol because you need to be able to get to all the terrain all the way around the mountain.
Jamie: Yeah. Don’t forget riders. We do have snowboard patrol people, and equally as controlled as the skiers are. You don’t have to be a big fancy, showy skier. You just have to be strong on your skies and be able to handle the terrain. Yeah, there is a requirement for that. They will check out your skiing or riding ability before inviting you to train.
Dr. Belisle: This is in part because not only do you have to be able to ski around the mountain on your own, or ride around the mountain on your own, but you also have to be able to pull a tobaggan behind you potentially.
Jamie: Correct. Toboggans are, once you get them figured out they actually can control you’re skiing. They can act as a gas pedal and a break. Once you get used to it they’re pretty easy to get around with. You do have to have a certain level of skiing or riding competence for sure.
Dr. Belisle: What are some of the things that you’ve seen as an individual that have impressed you the most? Whether they be situations that you’ve been in or friendships that you’ve formed. What are some of the things that have remained with you as lasting and important as part of your relationship with the ski patrol?
Jamie: I think probably the group as a whole, and the dedication to the entire process. Care of the hill, care of all the customers. When you have that crisis and you see all of that training come together in someone who needs to be somewhere very quickly is packaged and off that mountain within 10 minutes and in an ambulance is probably the thing that impresses me the most. That’s what it’s, we really do it all for. When you see that all gel and come together it’s pretty incredible.
Dr. Belisle: One of the ways that you stay connected with your colleagues and also up on your skills is there are a certain number of required days of skiing every year, and a certain commitment to being a volunteer with the ski patrol.
Jamie: There are. There’s a few levels. There’s an individual level, and then there is a couple level, and then a family level. The family level requires 26 days. These are full days, you can’t come and do a part day. It’s dawn to dusk. If you do the math over the season it takes a big chunk out of the season for sure.
Dr. Belisle: When you say individual versus family level, these are the levels in which you would be able to get seasons passes?
Jamie: Correct, yeah.
Dr. Belisle: That would be the actual, that would be another benefit of being on the ski patrol, is being able to ski additional days on top of the ski patrol time.
Jamie: Yep, you do get your passes. You have your free days. Yeah, that’s a benefit. You usually try to check in with ski patrol and make sure they don’t need you on those days, or that you know that you’ve done a good job spreading your time out over the season, so that when you do go on those free days you know everything’s good with the group.
Dr. Belisle: People who are on ski patrol are of all ages, of all backgrounds. I met with some younger women and some older men and some older women, people that have been there for a couple years, or they’ve been their for their 10th year like you, or even longer. What is it that keeps people coming back?
Jamie: There are patrollers that have been there for 20, 30 years. It’s kind of a captivating job, I’ll call it. If you like being out in that environment, which most of us do, and having that responsibility of keeping the whole place safe, and then having people that you’re working with that have all those same sentiments it just kind of keeps you coming back. It’s an interesting job. It’s just another twist on the skiing or riding adventure. You know you’re not just skiing the trails over and over every single day, you’re actually going out and being part of the process and being part of the mountain. It’s fun.
Dr. Belisle: You have two sons. Will and Nick. Did they have any interest in joining the ski patrol after having seen their dad do this?
Jamie: They both went through the Bubble Cuffer programs as kids, which is an every weekend group skiing training thing. There’s an instructor, usually a younger college person or something, that will take a group of 5 or 7 kids and they’ll have them all year. They break them into various age ranges. My kids went through that program. Nicholas went on and got his first level of teaching, and then he ended up being a Bubble Cuffer coach. Before he left Sugarloaf he actually did one year of patrol.
My other son became a Bubble Cuffer coach until he went off to college. They stayed involved but stayed mostly with the teaching. They were going to be off to college and they were going to be away so they wouldn’t be able to continue on in the patrol work.
Dr. Belisle: How does this compare to your day job? You build buildings. This is what you do. How is this alike and different?
Jamie: It’s alike because it’s another full day of work. As I tell some of the paid patrollers I am now working, this will be 21 days straight of work. If I do patrol for a couple of weekends and work three weeks as well. It’s like another day of work. At the same time it takes my mind completely off of work. When you go to do this your head’s got to be in it totally. It’s kind of a vacation from my daily job.
Dr. Belisle: How has this changed your relationship with people who are in the Sugerloaf community and in the community at large? How is this caused you to feel closer to people, or changed the way you look at them as individuals?
Jamie: I think it’s drawn me into the close knit Sugarloaf community for sure and really gives me an admiration for the dedication of all of the departments of the mountain to pull the whole thing off. A lot of hard working people there. It’s fun to be a part of that. Some days I’ll be riding up a lift, and it’s a nice day, and I see the races going on over here, and I see teaching groups going on over there, and there’s kids doing flips into the airbag at the jump. The mountain’s just buzzing with people. You just sit back and smile and say this is great. When the whole place is clicking it’s really fun to be a part of it.
Dr. Belisle: It sounds like you would encourage people who might have an interest in ski patrolling to look into that possibility.
Jamie: Sure. It’s a big time commitment. You want to make sure that you’re ready for that. Otherwise you can always check in with patrol directors and see if they’re looking for people.
Dr. Belisle: Jamie I know you’re a very busy individual and I really appreciate your coming in and speaking with us today about the ski patrol. I encourage people who are listening who might have an interest in the patrol to maybe talk with you or one of the other patrollers about your experience. We’ve been speaking with Jamie Gadooty who is the president of Gadooty Builders and has been skiing at Sugarloaf since he was a teenager, and can be found on the mountain as a ski patroller. Thank you so much for the work that you do.
Jamie: Thanks for having us in and just a little safety pitch. Anybody that’s listening can always go to NSP.org and they have a safety page. You can read up about just good on-mountain management for safety, heads up stuff. It’s a great thing for parents to look at and impress upon your kids. There is a skiing code. I’m all for helmets.
Dr. Belisle: I think that’s a great reminder. I second that encouragement. I hope listeners who are out there who ski or who have children that ski take the time to go to that website. Thanks so much Jamie.
Jamie: Thanks for having us. All right.
Dr. Belisle: You have been listening to Love Maine Radio, show #169, “Sugarloaf”. Our guests have included Jamie Gadooty and Kip Viles. For more information on our guests and extended interviews visit lovemaineradio.com, or read about them in the December issue of Maine Magazine.
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This is Dr. Lisa Belisle. I hope that you have enjoyed our Sugarloaf show. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your day. May you have a bountiful life.
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