The president birthday holiday, in February, has always been the busiest day, in California, for skiing.
From Sonora, California, to Oakdale, California, on Sundays, cars were bumper to bumper on the highway. It usually started around 10:30 in the morning and continued to 11:00 at night. When you arrived in Manteca, California, on the way to the Bay Area, it was bumper to bumper all the way to Hayward or Oakland. This would happen on weekends, holidays, and vacations--people start to return to the Bay Area early to miss the traffic.
The ski slopes were crowded too. It would start around 9:00 am. and stay crowded until about 11:30 am, where the skiers would invade the lodge's cafeteria. At this time there would be no more then 200 people on the ski slopes, so it seemed. Around 1;00 pm the slopes, again, were crowded, and about an hour later the first aid room started to become crowded, too.
It would seemed that most skier's injuries occur at this time of the day because the skier was exhausted and took chances, that they would not take, if they were not exhausted. Most of the injured skiers walked out of the first aid room on their own because once they have rested they were ready to go, again.
The ski patrol would use a rotating procedure, for the day, on the slopes. Every hour a patrolman would change to a new ski slope. It would start at the rope tows and go all the way through the chairs and back to the rope tows. By doing it this way, the ski patrolman would not get bored and would have energy to last the day.
When you were assigned the rope tow or T-bar, you would stay at the first aid room and watch the rope tows or T-bars. This way you could see a person who fell and started to wonder around like he is in a daze. When their turn comes to patrol the chairs, the ski patrolman would ride them and then ski down the chair's slope looking for injured skiers.
Oh, by the way ,women were not allowed on the ski patrol, as patrollers, until the late 70s. They could be on the ski patrols, but must work in the first aid room. The theory was that they were not strong enough to put a large male or female into a toboggan and bring it to the first aid room.
Things have change since then. The female patrolwoman must show, just like the male patrolman, that they can put a person on a toboggan and bring them down to the first aid room, if she wants to be a ski patroller.
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