Alyeska takes part in NSAA's (National Ski Area Association's) annual National Safety Awareness Week... an event highlighting resort safety education efforts while increasing slope safety. For Alyeska, this meant a lot of cool things, my favorite of which was an avalanche dog demonstration. Our ski patrollers and dog handlers are fantastic at what they do!
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| beautiful bluebird day - look at those mountains! The two pups are Yuki (right) and Fundy (left). |
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| Yuki and his handler, Tim, playing catch with snowballs. |
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| Yuki playing in the snow |
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| Yuki again... beautiful pup! |
The demonstration involved 3 of the dogs digging out buried patrollers; it was so cool to see them in action. Each demonstration got more difficult... the youngest dog watched a patroller run and dive in a hole (where he was buried by another patroller), then the dog was released to run and dig him out. The second dog also witnessed the person being buried, but had so much more snow to dig through. The third dog had to locate a person who had been buried before the demonstration began, and then dig him out. It was awesome getting to see the different stages of training, as well as meet the dogs and the ski patrollers. It is comforting to know that in the
UNLIKELY event of an avalanche, there's a team of well trained, intelligent, motivated, and hard working individuals (and dogs) to see to everyone's safety. You can read a little more about the Avalanche Dog Program at Alyeska
here!
