The snow never stopped falling on a volunteer patroller's four-decade adventure. (Part 1:2)

What happens when a 17-year-old joins ski patrol in 1967 and stays for more than four decades? Steve Rolfe's journey through 42 years of Pacific Northwest ski patrol reveals not just his personal story, but the fascinating evolution of mountain safety, leadership, and ski area management.              (Part 1 of 2; Friend Shirley Cummings in audience)

The PNWD History Project:  Shirley Cummings, the official history project coordinator, (& all around fabulous lady), has been on a mission: Collect and assemble an archive of stories and pictures from the different ski patrols within the Pacific Northwest Division. Hence, Patroller Chats was born! 

Transcript

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Murphy 0:59

Today with us we have Steve Rolfe , who , like I said , I have never met before , and we also have the lovely Shirley Cummings .

Jodie 1:09

The amazing Shirley .

Murphy 1:10

Cummings , yeah , who's been around and runs the History Project , and our podcast is an offshoot of the History Project , because we're trying to capture some of the history of longtime patrollers that have been in the Pacific Northwest Division for ages , and we have had some great interviews . We already have interviewed Shirley , who was really nice , and we do these from time to time . So today we've got Steve Rolfe . So , steve , introduce yourself , tell the listeners a little bit about yourself . What's your NSP number ? Do you have a national number ? Where did you patrol ? Because

Meeting Steve Rolfe (Friend Shirley Cummings in Audience too)

Murphy 1:51

I don't think you're currently patrolling , but where did you patrol ? How long did you patrol ? Give us some background .

Steve Rolfe 2:00

So started in 1967 , I think it was , and I was 67 . I must have been by the time I think I got involved I was 17 . So but then my first year , and I remember meeting Shirley Cummings . I think she was also a candidate at the same time . Is that right , shirley ?

Shirley Cummings 2:28

In 60 what .

Steve Rolfe 2:30

Well , I think my first year actual patrolling was 68 , but I started training in 60 , getting all my first aid stuff before I even started . And I was a junior in high school when I got started the first aid stuff and a senior in high school when I got started the first-aid stuff and a senior in high school when I joined the patrol .

Shirley Cummings 2:48

I think I joined in 67 , but I don't know what I was .

Steve Rolfe 2:53

I don't remember I'm pretty sure we were in the same class and there were 30 candidates , which is a very large number for a small patrol like Hayek Yep . I was quite sure , being the stupid , stupid kid , that there was only going to be . Oh , and they had to vote to the entire patrol that voted on who was to become a member .

Murphy 3:15

So you're saying it was like Survivor you ?

Steve Rolfe 3:17

know Survivor .

Murphy 3:18

Ski Patrol .

Steve Rolfe 3:20

I never thought of it that way . We were much more democratic in those days . The patrol ran itself quasi independent of the area . We elected our own directors and all those things . I was quite sure there was going to be 29 patrollers and I wasn't going to make it , but somehow I did . And in fact and I've told Gary Burke this Gary was the director of the patrol at the time and Gary pulled me aside one day and he said Steve and I can't remember precisely what it was , but it was he says someone has mentioned something about you and I said oh , what is it ?

Steve Rolfe 4:04

Can I you know ? What can I do ? He says oh , don't you know . And I said well , just do a good job . Well , who is it ? Can I apologize to him ? No , I'm not going to say any of that . He said well , what do I do ? Just do a good job in control . Well , I just about fell out of the chair when he told me this , and he doesn't remember it because I mentioned it to him before , but I later figured out who it must have been . There was one person who never really liked me , but in any event , I somehow got on the patrol and that was the beginning of 42 years of patrol is one of the most important part of my life , as I'm sure it is for thousands and thousands of others Even today . Some of my closest friends are people that I met , some of them at H and many at Crystal Mountain , where I was a patroller for many years .

Murphy 4:57

Anyway , yeah , so when did you move or migrate to Crystal ? So when did you move or migrate to Crystal ?

Steve Rolfe 5:03

So it was a kind of a multi-step process . I got a job as a ski instructor which is itself at WH Ski School , which is legendary for being pretty crazy and so I did that . I would patrol at Hayek and then I would go over to Crystal . Then the next year , I believe I did that for a year . So I think in the beginning of my fourth year as a patroller , I got a job as a pro patroller at Crystal . So I rather foolishly took a quarter off a winter quarter off from school and I was studying atmospheric sciences at the time . I thought , oh , this is great practical stuff . But it required me to take an extra two quarters , so I didn't graduate until spring of the following year . If I had been smarter and taken the next year off , it would have been a lot better . But in any event , there's always these serendipitous things that occur as a result of that .

Steve Rolfe 6:05

But I did avalanche control , which is what I really wanted to do , and it taught me a very powerful lesson . The year that

Early Ski Patrol Days at Hayek

Steve Rolfe 6:15

I worked was a near record year . I don't have the records for snow for crystal , but I do remember it was probably over 200 , 220 inches of snow on the ground , so it was probably at least 600 , 700 inches of snow and Paradise had about 960 inches of snow . So I did avalanche control every week , sometimes several times a week , and we had to be ITD OBD that's . And I can remember that 53 years later , in the boots out the door at six in the morning and I'm not a morning person , so this was hell . Anyway , it taught me to get back to the lesson . I did not want to work physically that hard for a living . I knew I needed to get back to school and get my degree and find some job where I didn't have to be totally exhausted all day long .

Murphy 7:07

Anyway . All right , so I'm going to interrupt you here . So what's your NSP number ? Do you still remember what that is ?

Steve Rolfe 7:14

I don't know my number but I can tell you my national number is 5450 .

Murphy 7:20

Oh dang , I get no beer out of that one . All right , when did you get that national appointment ? Remember what year ?

Steve Rolfe 7:30

Probably in the late , probably somewhere between 76 and 78 . Yeah .

Murphy 7:37

All right , so we'll have to look up your number and see where you are . I'm always amazed because my number's in the 25 and I see these people that have like four digit numbers .

Steve Rolfe 7:46

I'm like , oh man yeah , well , I , I have friends that have much lower numbers than me , uh , and uh , some of them are even still upright , but , um , I was chairman , you know . So my connection to hay , to Hyak , didn't end when I moved to Crystal . I still was very involved because of Gary Burke and because of Bill Brockway and others . But in Roger Gregory I was very involved with Ski Patrol Rescue Team and when Roger got himself promoted to the division director , he had been the chair of the Ski Patrol rescue team . He appointed me and I think at that time I was 28 years old , so I was , I guess .

Steve Rolfe 8:33

I worked hard , didn't know what I couldn't do , and they promoted me to a job that I you know who knows . Anyway , I think I did a good job , but it was an awesome position because I was not a rescuiter . At that point there was about eight or nine guys that were 10 to 15 years older than me who were really the guys that ran the place , and what impressed me is they let me be the director . They had the grace and the confidence in me to let me run the place and I also had the good sense not to interfere with them when they actually ran a rescue . It taught me immense about leadership and how followership and leadership and how the transitions can work in the field and whatever . I even had a lecture on this subject once when I was still doing search and rescue stuff . Now that's .

Jodie 9:33

SPART , spart , yes .

Steve Rolfe 9:39

And that stood for First . It was called Calamity Pass Area Rescue Team and it had been started by oh I can't think of the guy in the mid-60s , because there was a lot of rescues and some of the guys on ski patrol were also members of Mountain Rescue Council at the time . I guess it's Seattle SMR now . And so when a rescue would happen outside the ski area , a bunch of ski patrollers who might also be mountain rescue types would go off and handle the rescue . So we organized as a specialized team and Gary Burke was very instrumental . He never was a director , but he was the guy that he pushed . He pushed several people up to the front to be the director .

Murphy 10:29

So he didn't have to do it .

Steve Rolfe 10:32

A rather sharp guy , as we like to say . Gary has many qualities . That was definitely one of his best .

Murphy 10:39

Yes , so why did you join the ski patrol so ?

Steve Rolfe 10:44

you said you were 17 when you started . Yes , so I started skiing when I was 10 and it became a family thing and that's a whole long story . But I can't remember if I was 14 or if I was 16 . My parents moved , or we all moved to Huntsville , Alabama for three years , from the time I was 14 to 16 . So 14 , 15 , and 16 . And we actually came back in the winter and I actually skied at least during Christmas in those years , so I never missed a year skiing .

Jodie 11:16

And when I came , back .

Steve Rolfe 11:17

I knew that I wanted to be on ski patrol . Ski patrol and the image I have in my head that created my desire was seeing some guy who was probably several years older than me but still in high school , wearing a vest , going up one of the rope toes at ski acres , sideways pushing the snow out of the way and looking really cool . Sideways pushing the snow out of the way and looking really cool . I just thought that was really cool and I knew I could do that . And so I went over to that same motel and pushed the snow out of the way and I thought I can do this , I want to get on it . And also by that time I was a water safety instructor . I'd had many years of swimming . I worked at the YM's . No , I'd worked for the Red Cross as a volunteer doing stuff in the summer . So it was not much of a reach to finish the Red Cross classes and become a ski patroller .

Murphy 12:16

So did you go all right back in the day ? I'm going to ask , did they have OEC ? What was it called

Moving to Crystal Mountain

Murphy 12:21

back then ?

Steve Rolfe 12:22

Long before OEC .

Murphy 12:23

So wasn't it like Winter Rescue ?

Steve Rolfe 12:27

No , no , no , no , no . The Red Cross taught two classes , basic and advanced Red Cross , and I can't remember if it was the green book or the gray book , but when we were young it was always well .

Steve Rolfe 12:40

I learned with the gray book or whatever it was meaning you were really old . You were young , it was always well , I learned with the gray book or whatever it was meaning you were really old . But I think it was like a 15 hour class and a 35 hour class , you know , and surely I had to have gone through the exact same thing . So she may remember better . But I remember I went to the old Bellevue City Hall Somehow . I I don't even know how I found out about a free internet , but I went to the old Bellevue City Hall a couple of nights a week and there that's where I met George Whitman , who was assistant chief of police , who would later become the division , region and division director , and he taught some of the classes .

Steve Rolfe 13:25

And here's an aside I'm this naive kid in high school and George , who looks who was a cop , but a nice , genial cop officer , friendly , okay , nice guy . But he pulls me aside one day . He says , steve , would you like to see some illegal drugs ? And we're sitting in the chamber of this Bellevue City Hall . Okay , so would you like to see some ? And I go . And I'm going like , is this a trick , you know ? And I go , okay , you know , and I'm the youngest guy in this class . Everybody else is an adult . So he goes to his office , pulls out a briefcase and he opens it up and there is a cornucopia of drugs and he's showing me all this stuff totally out of character for him . It was only later that I discovered that he had been an undercover cop for a number of years and had specialized in illegal drugs . So that's why he was an expert . And you know , it's funny . I'm sure he would never remember that , but it's funny how those little things come to mind .

Murphy 14:33

Make an impression on a young man .

Steve Rolfe 14:35

Yeah , he also told me not that time but later that when he was undercover he had a big party at his house with a bunch of FBI agents and others and he was growing a pot plant on his deck . So he had this . There was dozens of police people there and this would have been in the mid-60s , I think mid to late 60s . He's got this big pot , plant this , you know , standing head tall , and not a single one of them recognized it .

Murphy 15:05

That's a rather large tomato plant you have there um , yeah , and george and I had a .

Steve Rolfe 15:12

He taught emt classes for many years and I was uh the ski patrol rescue team . Uh , uh , did all the um evaluating his stuff . We had a contract with him , so for two decades I was involved as an EMT as well .

Murphy 15:30

Okay , so what , I guess your positions with the patrol ? Let's start out at Hyak . What did you do there ? Were you patrol director Start out ? I mean , where'd you ?

Steve Rolfe 15:42

I was a 17-year-old kid .

Murphy 15:45

Right .

Steve Rolfe 15:47

Tried not to get himself thrown off the patrol by doing dumb things that I didn't even know were dumb . And I succeeded . I just succeeded in not doing the dumbest things that would get you thrown off . But and , and you know , I made some very long friends , good friends , and so I didn't . I had no leadership positions , I was the kid .

Shirley Cummings 16:13

You were my senior trainer , well , maybe .

Steve Rolfe 16:19

Well then , you must've got your seniors a year after me , but that could be . But at least the first two years was all I could do , just to figure out which end is up . Work really hard because I was totally motivated . Didn't know what it was about , but I just worked as hard as I could to be as best a patroller as I could .

Steve Rolfe 16:41

Tell them about the day you forgot your boot , as best a patroller , as I could Tell them about the day you forgot your boot . Oh , you know . So Sandy March . Every time he sees me , he pats me on the head . I didn't forget my boots , but this must have been 1970 , maybe 69 or 70 . And that whistle is my wife with the tea kettle .

Murphy 17:03

Sure .

Steve Rolfe 17:04

John Mulholland . This is a lot of ancient history . John Mulholland invented the foam ski boots , okay . And so what he did is he bought these old Lang boots , but we took the liner out , put a wetsuit footy in it and then poured foam in , and then you had this custom foam fit boot , which was the name of his company . And so my brother and I went down to ONU on a probably Friday night . My parents let us do this .

Steve Rolfe 17:41

It's kind of bizarre , but we spent the night out on first Avenue in downtown Seattle , sleeping out , sleeping on first Avenue , with a couple hundred of our newest best friends . So we could get in the store at eight o'clock in the morning and ran in , bought these old , these Lang boots , and and then I took them over to John mulholland's place in bellevue and we had foam boots . Well , my brother and I ended up with the same size

Training and Professional Patrol Experience

Steve Rolfe 18:11

boots and they're black . And so one day I uh , picked up , on friday night , I picked up two left boots , and I didn't notice it till I got to hayek where my brother was teaching at Alpenthal . So somehow , through a series of phone calls , we figured this out and traded boots . I can't remember .

Jodie 18:38

Oh temporary pause while we get them back on the internet .

Steve Rolfe 18:44

Remember I had .

Jodie 18:45

Oh , we froze for just a minute , it's okay , we'll just have a backup , just a little bit .

Murphy 18:50

Okay , you're at the point where you had two left boots . Your brother had two right boots .

Jodie 18:58

Actually , I think we're going to have Steve . If you want to take off your video , it might help your bandwidth . It might I'm not quite sure 36 . We'll wait till he gets him back care so surely , while we're waiting , for what other funny stories do you have about Steve ?

Shirley Cummings 19:24

I , you know , there was no Queens chair when I was doing the senior training and Steve thought it'd be a good idea if we climbed that huge bowl . And so Wally Costello and , I think , ron Wu and Steve they start hiking up the mountain and I am behind them and I got to the top and all day long for the rest of the skiing we could see these lovely three sets of S's in the bowl and then we could see mine , s , s , s and a big G , and that was where I took the spill and they were oh , you can do it , shirley . I mean I was going through creeks trying to keep up with these three , my tongue hanging out , just chugging and chugging . Anyway , they were good taskmasters .

Murphy 20:59

Wow , ssg .

Jodie 21:07

Did Steve give an abbreviation All day long ?

Shirley Cummings 21:10

they looked at it and reminded me oh well , that must be you surely steve was talking about something about an abbreviation .

Jodie 21:21

Was there something about snow in boots out the door or something an abbreviation ? Or did I misunderstand that ?

Murphy 21:29

ITB .

Jodie 21:30

ITB what's that .

Murphy 21:31

Right in the boots .

Shirley Cummings 21:34

Yeah , out the door .

Murphy 21:35

And then out the door OTD .

Jodie 21:37

Oh , okay , hey , Steve's going to be coming back on . Just keep your video off . I think that will help you . Steve , you're muted right at the moment , but that will probably help your bandwidth . Just have to unmute yourself .

Steve Rolfe 21:58

What happened is my computer . This is the second time I bought a new computer and I haven't hooked it up yet . This is the second time during the Zoom meeting that this has happened in a month . I apologize , and it probably won't happen again , for— .

Jodie 22:13

Don't apologize , but if you need , to just take your video off .

Steve Rolfe 22:18

I don't think that—well , that might be it . No , that's all right , it's up to you . It's up to you , okay . So anyway , where was I at ? Anyway , so I— .

Murphy 22:27

You had two left boots . Your brother had two right boots . He was teaching at Alpintal .

Steve Rolfe 22:31

And so that story , you know , you can either be upset by it or embrace it , and so I've embraced that story .

Murphy 22:39

So is it true ? Did you actually ski with two left boots ? Oh , absolutely . I had two left boots and so somehow I had to get a ride from Hyak over to Alpental , where my brother was , and we swapped boots somehow . But I want to know did you actually ?

Steve Rolfe 22:59

do a run in two left boots . Oh , no , no , no , no , no , no . This was Friday night . We lived my brother's two years younger than me . We lived my brother's two years younger than me . We lived in Woodridge in Bellevue , which at the time was still US 10 . So we literally could well . It was like a half a mile down to US 10 . So occasionally I would go down to US 10 and hitchhike , get a ride up to Hyak , and I could always get a ride home . But getting up was See that anymore .

Murphy 23:32

Yeah , so we have . Let's see here . Steve's resume is he slept on First Avenue , which is a dodgy part of Seattle now , and he used to hitchhike to the mountains . Another thing you can't do anymore these are the benign stories .

Steve Rolfe 23:45

These are the ones that I can tell publicly .

Murphy 23:49

Anyway , oh well , wait a minute . You got stories that you can't tell publicly . Those are the ones you got to tell here .

Steve Rolfe 23:56

We'll have to get you to interview Wally Costello , who was , I think , a year or two behind me at HIAC but became one of my closest friends and he transferred to Crystal Mountain . He was on the pro patrol the year after I was and so both of us have that legacy of being on the pro patrol and even today , many of our closest friends . Fortunately , we survived being ski bums and actually got real jobs and had good careers .

Murphy 24:28

So what did you do ? You said you went to school for atmospheric sciences .

Steve Rolfe 24:32

Yeah , so I have a degree in atmospheric sciences . The reason I got into it was because in fact you can't believe this Ted Rooks , who was a patroller at Hyak , taught basic avalanche Circle A as we called it then , and Ed LaChapelle was the singular avalanche expert in the country . He was the academic , I mean , he's had a lot of field experience . But he was the guy in the United States and he taught at the University of Washington in the geophysics department , but he also taught atmospheric sciences 101 in atmospheric science . So I took his class , fell in love with it and decided that I'm going to become an atmospheric scientist rather than what I was doing , and I very much enjoyed that . I actually did very well in that department . I ended up doing some research in the Arctic and then I was a forecaster for a while and then my other , my idiot's ski patrol friend , bob Eichenlaub , who you might want to interview , hired me .

Murphy 25:40

And I call him an idiot because he hired me .

Steve Rolfe 25:44

In 1976 , as an embedded software engineer . Now I have a degree in atmospheric science and I had done a little bit of computing . I'd done a lot of computing in Fortran using cards , and I didn't know what a microprocessor was in 1976 . So he hired me and I had to completely teach

Volunteer Leadership and Patrol Evolution

Steve Rolfe 26:05

myself how to become digital electronics and in the semilanguage programming , and that's a story that anyway . So , by the way , he has he had a PhD in aeronautics and astronautics , which doesn't undermine the fact that he was an idiot and hired me anyway . So my career was in digital electronics and I ended up becoming selling the kind of test equipment that I was designing , and so I had my own business as a manufacturer's rep for 30 , 35 years maybe .

Murphy 26:40

So you like sold stuff for Fluke or whatever .

Steve Rolfe 26:43

I worked at Fluke .

Murphy 26:44

Oh , okay , there you go .

Steve Rolfe 26:45

Yeah , that was my first job . Bob hired me at Fluke for five years and I worked there at Fluke for five years and then I left for another company and I came back as a product manager for three years and then I ended up in sales .

Murphy 27:01

All with a degree the equivalent of art history . What was it ?

Steve Rolfe 27:05

Atmospheric sciences of art history . What was it ? Atmospheric sciences ? Well , you know I appreciate your . It certainly fits my sense of humor , but my customers I know , so it's not surprising that people with atmospheric science degrees ended up in in the kind of electronics I'm doing . I always thought it was terribly amusing that my customers at Microsoft had PhD . One of them had a PhD in Spanish , 18th century Spanish history , and another one was in music , and both of them managed very sophisticated technical groups . Oh , my goodness , yeah , because you had a PhD got you a long ways at Microsoft .

Murphy 27:45

That very true , yep . Goodness gracious .

Steve Rolfe 27:48

Yeah , anyway , okay , so let's talk a little bit about use their Microsoft .

Murphy 27:50

Very true , Goodness gracious . Okay , so let's talk a little bit about . You were pro-patrol over at Crystal , right ? So did Crystal have a volunteer ?

Steve Rolfe 27:59

At that time the volunteer patrol was okay . So Crystal Mountain , the volunteer patrol really created the patrol at Crystal Mountain and the volunteer really created the patrol at Crystal Mountain . And the volunteer and the professional patrols were parallel in many ways . The volunteer patrol would come in on a Friday night and the pros would leave , with the exception of avalanche control , and then on weekdays the pros did everything . And if you could come up and ski on a weekday and you just put your jacket on and you could ski and you could help out , but they were operated very separately and patrollers were bums like me .

Steve Rolfe 28:44

And now all of my good friends who are still , who were pros at Crystal and still think of that very highly , you know they would probably argue with me about being bums , but they're wrong Anyway . So you know , we were all young , in our 20s . We did it for anywhere from one to three or four or five years and then moved on . By the time I became director of the volunteer patrol , that changed dramatically and some of the guys had been there for a decade . Quite sophisticated avalanche control . The science of avalanche had become much more sophisticated . They were all EMTs by then , as opposed to somebody who barely was able to get a first aid class and so there was maybe half of the people on the patrol who were quite dedicated and made it into a semi-career and you know we really didn't see it as a year or two off or something like that .

Jodie 29:50

Right .

Steve Rolfe 29:50

But saw it as a real , as a anyway , and you know , when you're there five days a week you actually probably get you know .

Steve Rolfe 29:57

Anyway , as I put it when I was director , because I had some real conflict over this , because I was still used to running the patrol , when I was a patrol leader and I had something that was really difficult , I didn't think to call one of the pros to help me . I had been there longer , I knew more , I had more confidence in my knowledge and history of the area than many of the pros . Well , that flipped over the course of the by the 90s and I came to the conclusion that they it was very impertinent of them to ask to be in charge of their patrol and tell me so directly . So we really reversed roles where the volunteer patrol Less in the leadership of it and shortly thereafter then a pro was . There were several pros on the weekends and they were the ones in charge on the hill when when I had been a patrol leader , I ran the hill that day I didn't report to . I mean , I ran the hill .

Murphy 31:06

Well , that's interesting Because I've been patrolling at Crystal for five years now . I think this is my fifth year and it's getting back to that . You know parity , let's just call it where you know you've got pro patroller and volunteer and that the things that the volunteer doesn't do we don't climb towers , we don't do avalanche mitigation , right , pretty much everything else we're at parity . But you're right , we do still have pay patrollers that are the boss of the hill . So we've got somebody that works on mountaintop , somebody who works on nine side or over at the other side of the mountain , and then you just shift in between those two and those patrol leaders are underneath . You know the big boss now , who you know kind of runs the whole show , but we still have a paid patrol director and then we have a volunteer patrol director , but the , you know , paid patrol director is elevated and they actually a volunteer patrol director , but the paid patrol director is elevated and they actually it's corporate now . I mean , so they run the mountain .

Steve Rolfe 32:14

Well , okay , so the thing that I valued the most I think the thing that I valued most about being on the ski patrol was the opportunity to grow in my skills and my judgment and and take leadership positions . Uh , that was incredibly valuable to me . And , uh , when I started , uh , uh , I could do that . And to the point where I , when I became patrol leader , um , the show and it was , it was . And I didn't get to do that . I only got to do that because I had grown enough that people respected me . I don't want to sound immodest here , but they didn't listen to me . I wouldn't have been effective if people didn't respect me , but also I , you know , I also had the tremendous respect and knowledge of all the other people that I worked with .

Steve Rolfe 33:10

It was just a wonderful group of people . It's hardly a surprise that this pro patrol , who is more permanent now than they were then , would want to take full responsibility for the area , for running their show , and that we would be subordinate . Patrolers would be subordinate , but it was a throughout the NSPS . It was a difficult challenge . There were many years . Gary Burke can talk about this because there was a time when he joked that he was the mediation you know the mediation service because he would go from patrol to patrol who was having a problem between area management and the volunteer patrol during this transition when volunteer patrols became less independent . That's actually a very interesting piece of the history Gary should talk about that He'll be coming on in a little bit .

Jodie 34:09

But what did you mean by subordinate ? Well , so you mentioned initially that the volunteers sort of ran the mountain .

Steve Rolfe 34:21

Yeah so the guys that came before me , guys like Bill Savory and Bill Talbot , they walked in and they said , oh

The Changing Culture of Crystal Mountain

Steve Rolfe 34:30

, they created the ski patrol at Crystal Mountain . They bought all the equipment . Literally , crystal Mountain gave them a budget , they bought all the equipment , they figured out all the systems and nearly everything about how the ski patrol operated was created by the volunteers who started the Crystal Mountain Ski Patrol in 1962 . I'm not suggesting that the pros didn't have some contribution . They did have a couple of people who were really quite experienced with avalanche control pretty crude by today's standards and they taught the other guys .

Steve Rolfe 35:15

But the pros would come and go and they were there , you know so , and we had permanence in a way that the pros did not , and that role flipped . The pros had permanence and were far more sophisticated , not unlike volunteer fire departments and paid fire departments , when you go through that process . And so when I and I say I have to repeat this when I was on the Hill , if I needed help from a pro , I mean I might call him up and ask him , but I knew I had as much understanding of what I needed , or more , I'd tell them what I wanted to have them do , or maybe that guy knew how to drive a machine one of the big thigh calls hey , I need one of those . Okay , right , which I had a chance to learn how to drive one of those and it didn't go well .

Murphy 36:06

Oh , we've got to hear that story . I was going to say what happened ?

Jodie 36:08

Yeah , oh , we got to hear that story . So I was going to say what happened ?

Steve Rolfe 36:09

yeah , you got to elaborate on that one so you know , you know , here I get wisdom , judgment , judgment . You get judgment from experience . How do you get experience mistakes ? Yeah , so true very true , so .

Steve Rolfe 36:21

So anyway , by the time I was director that I was really caught right in that nexus of when , where the pro patrol they would have the patrol , the leaders , on top of each side of the mountain . Those were pros and they'd have three or four other guys doing all sorts of stuff and they started telling us what to do . And that was not an easy transition when I was used to be calling the shots , to have someone , by then half my age , telling me what to do that maybe hadn't been there as many years as you know , hadn't had as much experience , so that was .

Shirley Cummings 37:01

You had to convince the other volunteers that this was the way it was going to be .

Steve Rolfe 37:08

I apologize . Can you repeat that ?

Shirley Cummings 37:10

I said you had to convince the other volunteers that this was the future . This was the way it was going to be with the clothes .

Steve Rolfe 37:18

The first person that had to be convinced was me , because I really resisted it . It was very difficult . To be honest , I don't talk about it , but it was a very difficult experience for me Because everything changed . I was used to being innovative . If there was a problem , I'd figure out how to solve it and I didn't have to worry about someone coming after me and saying , oh , you should have done it this way .

Shirley Cummings 37:45

How long did you stay with ski patrol after you were the director ?

Steve Rolfe 37:50

So I was only director for two years . Then it was at least another decade , at least another decade . But it was frustrating for me towards the very end . I had wanted to be that 50-year patroller , but I made it to 42 .

Jodie 38:06

Wow , that's amazing .

Steve Rolfe 38:10

Yeah , and you know , so I I feel really tiny compared to Ferkavish who , who is a good friend of mine , and that was now 60 years , so maybe longer than that . Anyway .

Murphy 38:22

You know , I'm going to tell you , steve , he is amazing Cause he's what ? At 82 amazing . He's what 82 . Now .

Murphy 38:32

So I patrol with what's that ? I think he's 83 . Oh , he might be 83 . Yeah , because I remember I've got a sticker on my helmet that it was Steve 80 , and that was several years ago . But even to this day they pass out jobs . Steve takes a job just like anybody else . I don't care if it's line maintenance , and he's working . He outworks so many people . It's like you're keeping up with an 83 year old guy and I'm just dripping sweat yeah , he is so .

Steve Rolfe 39:06

So Steve and I , we were part of Ancient Skiers and so when we go to Sun Valley , everybody else would go in by , you know , mid-afternoon and at 2.30 , we would always find ourselves at the top of the mountain , wherever we were skiing , be , steve and I and maybe a couple other guys , and we'd ski non-stop from 2 , 30 to 3 , 30 , actually 3 , 45 . So we would ski non-stop , uh and uh , and it was hard for me to keep . He's nine and a half years older than me and it was hard for me to keep up with him . Wow , but then , but , but I did , and we'd ski all the children and and then two years ago , like not last year , but two years ago , I didn't make it to 330 . And I asked Steve and I said , steve , did you make it to the final chair ? And he looks at me and he goes no , no . So we did a few days this last year in January , a few days we made it to 3.30 or 3.45 . But we ski hard and my legs were kind of worn out .

Murphy 40:16

So do you ever come back to Crystal ? I mean , do you ski ?

Steve Rolfe 40:19

I ski there at least once a week . Oh , you do .

Murphy 40:22

On the weekends .

Steve Rolfe 40:23

Yeah , I skied . Let's see I skied 30 days this year . 20, . Let's see . 19 of them were at Crystal , yeah .

Murphy 40:31

Oh all right .

Steve Rolfe 40:31

Well , you have to look me up when you're there . I skied , you know , Tuesday or Wednesday , typically . Yeah .

Murphy 40:39

Oh , where there's no lift line .

Steve Rolfe 40:42

Well , sometimes there are . But yeah , and if I'm really lucky , al McEwen , who was an original patroller , he's 90 . Well , he'll be 90 in a few couple of months . He lets me stay at Billiken's with the Billiken's , so I get to stay overnight up there .

Murphy 41:00

Yeah , that's one of the things that they're going to try and fix is get overnight accommodations accommodations , Apparently . Let's see here I heard they were going to get rid or exchange the restaurant that's at the top of the mountain , but that got pushed back because they need to replace Rainier Express , which is starting here next month . They're going to yank out the old chair and put in a brand new quad going up to the top of the mountain .

Steve Rolfe 41:30

Yeah , I'm a little surprised . It's only a quad . I thought it might be a six-pack .

Murphy 41:35

Yeah , we were all guessing , but that's what we were told . It was going to be a four , and that's all based on rumor .

Steve Rolfe 41:44

Yeah , well , wally and VA Bob Anderson , who also was a volunteer for many years , but he was the director of the Pro Patrol for the second half of the year that I worked there . Anyway , wally and BA and I were sitting at midweek sometime and this guy walks up to us who's ? I consider young , probably around 50 . I consider young , probably around 50 . And he starts talking to us and I said so , what do you do here ? And I figured he was somebody assistant in that building . And he said so , no , I run this . I go . Oh , you mean this department ? No , no , no , you mean this building ? No , no , no , I'm the president . Oh , okay . And for about 20 minutes he extemporated on the challenges at Crystal Mountain and why it hasn't moved as fast as it appears . It was far more deteriorated than Altera understood . They spent a huge amount of money on water systems and sewer systems , none of which anybody sees , because they were totally destroyed , and so , yeah , another new chairlift and a mountaintop restaurant and the old day lodge just needs millions of dollars , right ?

Murphy 43:09

Yeah Well , they put that brand new lodge in there , which is lovely . The old day lodge just needs millions of dollars , right ? Yeah Well , they put that brand new lodge in there , which is lovely . It's small but it's a nice building . They're going to have to get rid of the other side and put something in there .

Steve Rolfe 43:22

So it's still a decade away from being . From my perspective , they may have more challenges than I understand , but when you go up to Campbell Basin and you can't get hot food because they don't have enough staff , I don't quite get it . The whole point of I mean I don't think they're being aggressive enough at providing additional services which they can make money at .

Murphy 43:48

Well , they got the yurt at mid-mountain , they got the yurt down , down , you know , at the bottom .

Steve Rolfe 43:53

Yeah , well , you don't come on a weekday and you go . You walk up and you go . You can't buy any food at campbell basin oh , you can't no , you can get chips oh yeah , yeah , you can get chips and some jerky and stuff like that , but you know , I just think that there's a lot more opportunity to but that's a whole nother story anyway .

Murphy 44:15

All right , so let's go back to 1960 . So the biggest change that you've seen in Crystal Mountain over the 25 , 30 years , what do you think it's been ?

Steve Rolfe 44:30

what do you think it's been ? Well on the . When crystal mountain was still owned by the 930 or 70 or whatever it was stockholders , it was a . It was I haven't I haven't talked about this in a while , but I've . It was a very dysfunctional organization . It had a rather narrow vision of itself , an old , backwards looking vision , and I knew some of the directors and it really did appear that their primary interest in being a director was being a big guy in the community and getting the parking spot up in the front , and so they were just trying to maintain what they had and the privileges that they had . That's a bit negative , but I don't think it's wholly wrong . And since it was a public company , I could read the financial statements and I go . And since it was a public company , I could read the financial statements and I go . I was shocked by how tiny it was , how

Avalanche Control and Winter Safety

Steve Rolfe 45:43

little income it made and how you know it was it's the most important area in the north in Washington and it really wasn't making any money .

Steve Rolfe 45:50

And I think one particular story tells it all that when Chris Christensen , who I did not like at all , he was the general manager not the president , but the general manager . When the bullwheel broke on Old Chair 5 , on a Sunday , on a Monday morning , he called in and had the bullwheel ordered and it was going to take several weeks or take what ? Three or four weeks to be replaced . And he just did it , because without your five you're very limited . And he apparently the board of directors absolutely chewed his ass upside down on the other for making that decision without them . And it's exactly from my perspective as a manager and a leader . That's exactly the decision I would want them to , a leader , to make , because every day you don't have your ski area running is a day that you're losing money hand over fist .

Steve Rolfe 46:43

I think that exemplified the board Then . So when then they went through several presidents who were really poor , and then they sold it to Boeing and I have mixed emotions about Kircher and Boeing , but the first thing they did is they made it look better Instead of being sh , and they just made it look more attractive and feel more attractive . And guess what ? Even more skiers showed up and Boyne made money after spending a lot of money . They made much , much more money than Crystal Mountain made with a much smaller operating budget . So Boyne must have done something right for sure .

Murphy 47:39

Well , they've grown that area . I'm going to tell you the park outs . That is our biggest challenge now is that you know they have that sign down at Enumcloth that says if you don't have a parking reservation , you're not getting up there on the weekends . Enumcloth and says if you don't have a parking reservation , you're not getting up there on the weekends .

Steve Rolfe 47:55

It's particularly remarkable because one of the things I did is I ran a ski swap for Crystal Mountain for many years . I know a lot of the retailers and I know a lot of the people in the industry . 20 years ago , 20 , 30 years ago , skiing was a dying sport . The demographics did not look good and you would not . No one thinks that today , at least at this instant in time , In Utah and Colorado and here in the Northwest there's too many skiers , not enough places to ski , so that's a dramatic turnaround .

Murphy 48:36

Yeah , I will agree with you there , and they've got to get some of that stuff figured out .

Steve Rolfe 48:41

Yeah , and Crystal is particularly constrained because of its geography and it also it doesn't have the . From my opinion , from a distance the relationship with the Forest Service isn't as collaborative as you might find in other places in the Intermountain regions . If you go to Sun Valley and I've met the snow rangers there and they feel their mission is to collaborate with Sun Valley- Valley .

Murphy 49:16

Well then I might disagree with you on , because I've been in meetings and I'm just a cog in the wheel there . But , um , you know , they bring in the forest service to do , uh , a little talk . We're , you know , bounded by the park service , you know , with uh Rainier on that backside , so you can't really go that direction . You have the tribe and the tribe winds up having a huge say over what goes on in that area now .

Steve Rolfe 49:37

So you know , you're you have , my knowledge is old , but the tribe being involved is not a surprise to me . But I but I wouldn't have thought about that . But I will say that that the challenges compared to Whistler we're really far afield . That the challenges compared to Whistler we're really far afield . I ran into Tom Leonard at the airport in Chicago once , who was the president of Crystal Mountain at the time , and so we talked a little bit later . I was saying , tom , how come it's so difficult to get things done at Crystal ? He says well , you remember when you saw me in Chicago I was coming back from testifying before Congress to get four acres on the back traverse to Lucky Shot and become part of Crystal Mountain , part of the Forest Service , so they could do it Because otherwise they wouldn't let us run grooming equipment on the trail . They had been doing it in the past but the Park Service wouldn't let them do it . He says it took an act of Congress . You are kidding it literally took an act of Congress .

Murphy 50:35

You are kidding .

Steve Rolfe 50:36

It literally took an act of Congress to get that to happen .

Murphy 50:40

Oh , and I ski that on the regular and I had no idea .

Jodie 50:44

When did this happen , Steve ?

Steve Rolfe 50:46

Oh gosh , this has to be in the 90s , early 90s , I think , the 90s . Okay , so then he said , when Whistler wanted an additional 40 acres , they went to the Ministry of the Interior in British Columbia and that afternoon it was done . So that's the difference in the cooperation . Now it could well be that the Forest Service , the relationship , has changed a lot in the intervening years and that my knowledge is not contemporaneous . I do know that there was a very acrimonious relationship for a few years because Wally Stats because Wally's Way is named after Wally Stats was president for a year and did as much as he could to offend everybody , and I'm full of these stories . I haven't talked about this in so long .

Steve Rolfe 51:49

Wally Stats got a ticket . He was ticketed by the by the Forest Service for illegal logging and then insulted at a dinner . Insulted the director of the Forest Service in Portland at a big dinner out .

Murphy 52:06

Yeah , Apparently he didn't read the book how to Win Friends and Influence People .

Steve Rolfe 52:12

No , he was a little bit more like Trump but anyway we won't go there uh , uh , but uh , I hadn't really , you know , anyway , wally was a difficult man , um , but anyway . So the biggest change , I think was really , uh , the at crystal was a totally different vision of itself and some of it being lost by skiers for skiers , which is the byword of how Crystal was created , and there was no question about that . It was a community thing by skiers for skiers . But it didn't . It couldn't make the leap to the next level of being a well-managed ski area , and Boyne , I think , did that . It just created a different attitude . Right , you won't see it in certain places , but food service , food service . All of a sudden it looked better and the services were better , um , and the staff were mostly better too did you work at the pass when boeing ran ?

Murphy 53:26

and it's boeing , not boeing . Um , when boeing ran , uh , like the three mountains or four mountains at Snoqualmie .

Steve Rolfe 53:38

Yeah , and I didn't have much involved . I didn't have much specific knowledge . They also owned up in Canada . What is it ? I can't remember . Yeah , no , yeah , I can't remember . Yeah , no , yeah , I know that Paul Bogger , who was the patrol director at the pro patrol director at Crystal , was also had responsibilities at Snoqualmie Pass for risk management , so there was some crossover there .

Murphy 54:07

Right . So , paul , I know the name , paul Bogger , because you know Steve Schwartz , pete Schwartz , I don't know if it's Steve Peter Schwartz , come on , yeah . So Steve , or sorry , peter Schwartz just stepped down and Christian's a new volunteer patrol director . And didn't , pete , take over from Paul Bogger ? Isn't that it .

Steve Rolfe 54:29

No , no , no , those are two , no , Paul . Paul was the patrol patrol and he was the patrol director for a number of years before I became the volunteer director and for a number of years after me as well . The linear let's see , so after me , see before me was Jim Baldus John Austin . Was Jim Baldus John Austin ? Well , I see , if I can remember them all . It was Talbot Savory , talbot Gary Eide , jim Hilliker , al Al Alpaxia , jim Hilliker , and I can't remember who . And then my Let me see , jim Baldus John Austin , me , john Kerner and Pete Schwartz . So I passed my mental , I have my , your dementia .

Murphy 55:31

Yeah , what do they call that test where you can recall things ?

Steve Rolfe 55:34

So on the pro side there was Gordy . Burlingame hired me and Gordy was an icon and then he left to go work for the state for avalanche control for the state . And Bob Anderson took over for a year and a half , and then Bill Steele for a while , and then there was a series of guys that were very forgettable .

Murphy 56:00

On the pro side .

Steve Rolfe 56:01

On the pro side yeah . Whom we mostly kind of ignored , and then Jim Mitchell , who was the pro director . He became the general manager , and Paul Bogger might have been there for 20 years .

Jodie 56:22

So what's the last name on that ? Paul who B-A-U-G-H-E-R ?

Steve Rolfe 56:27

Oh , okay , I don't know exactly , but it was a long time , and so Paul had been head of Avalanche and then he was promoted to be the director of the patrol and I reported , and patrol and volunteer directors reported to the pro director ostensibly they always did , but in the earlier years we kind of ignored him . By the time Paul came along it was clear he wanted to run his patrol Right .

Jodie 57:02

On one level I could understand that so no , no , go ahead , I'm sorry

The Legacy of Mountain Leadership

Jodie 57:09

became quite significant .

Steve Rolfe 57:11

He parlayed that into quite significant in the industry . Not only was he highly respected in the Northwest for his avalanche knowledge , but he later became the chairman of the National Avalanche School and had his own consulting business . He got into risk management and would consult in a number of court cases across the country on risk management issues I think always on the defense side . So Paul was quite well known . Plus , I think he was a partner in a guide service as well . He did a lot of climbing in the summer .

Murphy 57:52

Oh , kind of like RMI or something as well .

Steve Rolfe 57:56

He did a lot of climbing in the summer , okay , like rmi or something . Well , I think he might have started at rmi , but he became a part owner with phil or phil no , not phil , uh , um , uh , I can't think of the name of the company , but they had the . They had the uh license on the uh . They had the license on the sunrise side of the mountain .

Jodie 58:15

Oh , okay Now . Paul was involved at Avalanche and you mentioned a gentleman by the name of Ted , something .

Steve Rolfe 58:25

Oh , ted Brooks was a boy . Ted Brooks taught basic class . He was the perfect example of a patroller who , who ? I mean he was an engineer at boeing and he studied avalanches and he was a skier and whatever and he became the instructor for avalanches . Well , I'm not in any way dismissing him , but he was . He just had some knowledge in it and had read the books and had been a little bit out , not unlike my early experience with it as well . But I remember him because he taught the class and I mean he was knowledgeable , but he wasn't someone embedded in the industry doing avalanche control work and throwing bombs . Most instructors in the NSP don't have that kind of experience .

Jodie 59:20

Right yeah , right yeah , definitely .

Steve Rolfe 59:22

Now I have a side story for that , and that is before I was patrolling at Hyatt , but I wasn't at Crystal . One day I show up , I drive up . I must have been 19 years old and it snowed all week and the north backcountry wasn't open in those days and I remembered that Paradise was a great place to ski in new snow . So I get to do ski cutting , which is that's not obvious to you . You ski across the top of the slope and you push the snow to see if it's unstable and then start an avalanche . So I get out there and I get right to the top of the ridge I can still visualize it and I go , and I this is the between arrogance and foolishness of a young person I go , I'm no fool , I'm going to ski cut it . Now , the reality is that was a very foolish choice on my part . So I get out no more than the length of my skis I had , you know , but in those cases I had 200 centimeters skis , so I had not progressed even that far and pushed , and the whole slope went three feet deep all the way to the bottom , and if I had not done that I am quite sure I would have died . Wow , no one was with me . And my immediate reaction this is kind of a window on me . I'm going like shit , I screwed up , you know it's , I made a mistake , you know . And . And I'm looking around and I look up and there is Lloyd McGahee , the snow ranger .

Steve Rolfe 1:01:04

30 seconds after this . What are the odds ? Yeah , maybe , and I go , and I look up very sheepishly and I go did I go through a closed sign ? He goes I don't see one . And I go , oh , and then he goes . I need to talk to my patrol patrollers because they were supposed to have closed it that night so that people wouldn't go skiing in that area because it was very dangerous . Uh-oh , so yeah , it was very dangerous . Uh-oh , so yeah , it was very dangerous . I mean , I have no doubt that if I had just skied into it , it would have gone and I would have been buried and nobody would have known that .

Steve Rolfe 1:01:46

I was there , I mean yeah , because it was three feet fracture line . It was probably eight feet deep at the bottom .

Murphy 1:01:54

Oh yeah Well , and they've had some people die on that backside , in that area , you know , with some massive avalanches . In fact , I think the biggest avalanche death is , you know , out back there somewhere . I can remember the stories that they used to tell about that used to tell about that .

Steve Rolfe 1:02:19

Well , I , I have another , uh , wally and ba , and I would . Again , it wouldn't be open until the , until weekends . It didn't open on weekdays . There wasn't a chair back there . So I remember by then wally had a bomb and ba had a bomb in in um , in the Northway area , below I guess I can't think of the names anyway rather steep spots . Wally throws his bomb a little early , it goes six feet deep and I'm just watching this . And then Bob is watching it and he's with a bomb in his hand . He's going whoa , and finally I have to yell at bob , throw your bomb , go . Oh , yeah , anyway . So it had gone all the way across , uh , uh , north there , for what is morning glory bowl , from below morning glory bowl down to lower to upper north to the trail , all all went , and the peak of it was six feet deep , and that's because we had a hell of a lot of snow in those years .

Murphy 1:03:21

Right . Yeah so you're talking about , like Gate 3 , gate 4 , that area .

Steve Rolfe 1:03:28

No , that's Paradise .

Murphy 1:03:33

So Northway Bowl , you've got morning glory bowl that wraps all the way around . I don't know the name .

Steve Rolfe 1:03:38

I don't know if the names of the gates back there , but if you go to the top of morning , glory bowl right ski down , you know there's into the bowl , yeah , or you ski down . You can ski west down the ridge a little bit . Most people

Avalanche Stories and Mountain Risks

Steve Rolfe 1:03:49

don't , but in any event it breaks off . You know , just below morning glory boulder , sorry , it breaks off into a series of cliffs , penny dogs being on . If you face uphill , penny dogs is on the left all the way to the snag shoot on the far right .

Murphy 1:04:06

Uh , uh and and so that whole area went okay one , one big , well , several avalanches , but they were all started at the same time wow , yeah , we had some avalanches out there this year that were just natural and they , you know , were several feet in the ground and it's uh , that's pretty amazing yeah , my thought when I heard about that I'm going like that ought to make everybody a very uncomfortable when those go natural .

Steve Rolfe 1:04:35

Um , that's I'm . I'm not criticizing anybody , I'm just because these things happen was like whoa if that had happened during the day yeah instead of in in the early evening .

Murphy 1:04:47

That would have been a disaster oh yeah , well , they closed all the gates . We had gates closed all over plus Plus , we had all that , you know , wind load that blew all the snow up , so you had those cornices that were just sitting on the top and they would drop bombs , you know and try and get them to go Sometimes they would , sometimes they wouldn't , so they just had to leave it closed .

Steve Rolfe 1:05:09

Sophisticated now the level of understanding of how the area works is after 62 years is much better than when I was there . But over the years we throw a bomb , a bunch of bombs , nothing happens . Two days later it goes on its own . There's no way of really understanding the mechanics inside the geophysics of what's going on inside the snow load . There it's , yeah .