The Wild Skills Junior Ski Patrol Clinic brought about 20 young participants to Snowmass Ski Area last month for on-mountain safety lessons and encouragement from local female patrollers.
A nonprofit called SheJumps helped organize the event, which was specifically for girls and nonbinary kids in middle and high school.
Patroller Whitney Wickens, also known as “Ginger Biscuit,” came over from Buttermilk Mountain to help out with the event.
“I would love to have been a part of something like this when I was a kid, so it's pretty cool,” she said during a ride up the Elk Camp Gondola with some participants and volunteers. “I came out here as a liftie, a snowboarder, and the first day I met ski patrol, I was like, that's what I have to do.”
Wickens has been a patroller for about two years and said she might have pursued the career earlier if she had an opportunity like this one to engage with role models in the profession.
“I think it would have shaped my life a little bit differently,” she said.
You can hear more about the clinic next week in a feature on Aspen Public Radio.
