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The pay's not great, but view is terrific Photo by Jim Craven Mount Ashland Ski Patrol members -- from left, Steve Walters, Dan Thorpe, Chris Robinson, Al Brookofsky and Bernie Peters -- insert 15-foot probes into the snow to search for make-believe avalanche victims Saturday. The five men and 125 other Ski Ashland employees spent Saturday training in preparation for the ski area's annual season. The opening date, of course, depends on the weather. Workers spend a day learning Mt. Ashland By ALBERTO ENRIQUEZ For Jacksonville Realtor Shane Elsdon, waiting inside a sealed snow cave Saturday on Mount Ashland gave a whole new meaning to being buried in his work. "I knew I was safe," Elsdon said Saturday. "It's kind of different, though. You can hear them walking, but you don't know how close they are to you, or if they're going to walk right over you." Elsdon's under-the-snow ordeal ended in about 20 minutes when a hard-working golden Labrador retriever named "Kaya" located him under 2 feet of snow and Ski Ashland workers promptly dug him out. The mock avalanche search was just one drill in a weekend of pre-opening training that included a ski lift evacuation and other activities. Ski Ashland general manager Glenn Menzie said Elsdon was among 150 seasonal workers -- fewer than half of them full-time -- who participated in the annual rite of passage for would-be ski patrollers, lift operators, rental cashiers and other ski area employees. Most trainees are hired at a minimum wage of $6.50 an hour with higher pay for more experienced or technical classifications such as Sno-Cat operators. There's a 25 cents-per-hour bonus for those who stay on throughout the season, but that's not what brings workers back season after season, many with over a decade on the mountain. "It's not the pay," Menzie says. "We're a service industry. But if you love the outdoors and you love people, it's a great job." It was just those attractions that made free ski rentals and a free lift ticket so appealing when Menzie himself signed on as a lift operator in 1977. Today, workers pay $15 for a lift ticket and get free rentals on weekdays -- and weekends too, as available. That's a steep discount from what others pay ($275 student/$375 general), and it brings out the ski- and snowboard-inclined. "We don't hire, nor can we interview, everybody who applies," Menzie says. Most workers are Rogue Valley residents. Cashier experience and a friendly manner counts for more than specific training. Youngsters seeking to get a foot in the door will find there are even a few lodge jobs for those under 18. "For most of our jobs, we provide the training," he adds. "People may say, `I'm no hotshot, I could never be a ski instructor.' But a good instructor for beginning skiing isn't necessarily a hotshot but a good teacher. Some hotshots can't teach, they just want to ski." Persistence made the difference Saturday for Central Point resident Jarrod Brown, 19, who moved here from California last year, applied at the beginning of the season, and finally got hired on the second attempt this year. "I'll be doing lift operations," Brown said. "I enjoy the sport, and I like to help people out." A seasonal landscape worker, he also manufactures and sells "Get Some," his own brand of skate wax for skateboarders, during the off-season. Patsie Passero, a 12-year Ski Ashland veteran and Southern Oregon University student, gave much the same reason for pursuing a chancy part-time job that comes and goes with the snow. "I get to ski!" she exclaimed. "It's a great office. I love to ski, and I'm a professional ski patroller on skis all day." Passero and other ski patrollers are certified both nationally and regionally in 14 areas of expertise, including first aid, ropes, mountain knowledge, skiing and sled operations. But she displayed none of those skills Saturday as she played the role of a distraught and disoriented skier leading rescuers to the scene of the mock avalanche which had engulfed Elsdon. "I was here with my buddies," she told the rescuers, not very helpfully. "I don't know what happened, it was so loud, it was just so fast. How many? I don't know, there were three or four of them. I don't know." The search was on with a radio beacon detector operator, a hasty search crew, and a long line of slow searchers plunging 15-foot probes into the snow, one step at a time. In a pinch, man's best friend still proved superior to technology. "Kaya" had sniffed out the first of three human targets before the radio crew had located the buried beacon. She went on to uncover the other two within 25 minutes of the original dispatch call. Not bad for a dog working alone on a slope crowded with other humans. "It's important to get them out quickly," Passero said. "After the first half-hour under the snow, 50 percent are lost." With ample snow caves, insulated pads, warm clothes and radios to protect the victims, all of Kaya's rescues Saturday proved tail-wagging ones. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1998, Medford, Oregon USA