Bike Patrol at Pajarito Mountain
Pajarito Mountain Ski Area has a long history of volunteerism. The ski area itself was developed in the 1950’s by a group of people from Los Alamos that wanted to ski and took it upon themselves to form a ski club. They explored the surrounding mountains to locate just the right place and then pitched in to cut slopes, build lifts, and form a volunteer ski patrol. In a similar fashion, local mountain bike enthusiasts approached the PM ski club in the early 2000’s about developing mountain biking trails on Pajarito Mountain. They formed an informal group to cut trails and build features. And to this day they play a significant role in developing and maintaining our bike trails. In 2005 the mountain operations staff began summer lift operations a few week-ends each summer for hiking and biking and recruited ski patrollers to form a bike patrol. The Pajarito Mountain Bike patrol was formed that year and affiliated itself with the International Mountain Biking Association’s (IMBA) National Mountain Bike Patrol
Several years ago Pajarito Mountain changed hands from the original non profit ski club to the current private company, Pajarito Recreation LLC. As the years have gone by, the area has steadily expanded summer operations. Volunteers have established more trails and mountain staff have continued to increase week-end operations and special mountain biking events. The mountain is now open for lift served biking and hiking most week-ends May through September.
In 2018 the IMBA transferred the Bike Patrol to the National Ski Patrol (NSP). The roster of Pajarito Mountain bike patrollers is a mix of ski patrollers and local mountain biking enthusiasts. The NSP provides a framework for training and certification that insures a basic level of competency for bike patrollers as outdoor first responders. Bike patrollers that are qualified ski patrollers adhere to a rigorous Outdoor Emergency Care certification (OEC) and on-going refreshers administered through the NSP. The typical non-ski patroller is trained through a similar but less comprehensive basic outdoor first aid program (OFC). They are called Bike hosts.
The patrol maintains a presence on the mountain on all week-end , lift served hike and bike days as well as other outdoor special events on the mountain (as requested by mountain management). The primary focus of the bike patrol is to respond to medical incidents on the mountain during summer operations, with the intent of stabilizing life threatening injuries and getting injured people off the mountain and transferred to advanced medical care resources as quickly as possible. Patrollers also act as ambassadors for the area, helping guests with questions, trail orientation, assistance with minor bike equipment repair/adjustments, and directing them to on mountain resources.
Ski patrollers generally can ski a toboggan to virtually anywhere on the mountain, and then down to advanced support. This is not the case in summer time. When we get a call for assistance we first have to review our trail maps to determine how close we can approach by ATV or other vehicle and then determine response from there. Will we hike to/from the incident scene by foot, with a stokes litter, backboard, etc? Summer thunderstorms, with lightning, hail, and possible hypothermia for ill prepared bikers inject another hazard into the response equation. The rewards are the same as in ski patrolling. Seeing the relief in guest’s eyes when you arrive to help, working as a team to help people in distress, and acting as ambassadors for our area leave patrollers with a warm feeling of accomplishment at the end of the day. And of course it includes actively patrolling the mountain on bikes, the activity that attracts patrollers to begin with.
The patrol maintains a presence on the mountain on all week-end , lift served hike and bike days as well as other outdoor special events on the mountain (as requested by mountain management). The bike patrol is always on the look out for new people to join the patrol, competent mountain bikers with a motivation to work as a team to serve the public.