Kari Brandt: The Road to Diamond Peak Patrol

get ready to experience the pulse of the outdoor community as we dive into the stories of people's journeys into the outdoor world

hello we are 10 episodes in now i would like to thank everybody that's been tuning in I am really enjoying hearing these stories i hope everyone else is also, so, episode this week's awesome talking with a ski patroller coming up on ski season coming up super excited for this one but please go give my pages like shares follows and especially if you're enjoying this and also if you could go give my podcast review on either spotify or itunes I would really appreciate it thank you very much and let's jump right into it.

Hello and welcome to the outdoor pulse i am your host mitch dean and today we have on kari brandt she is the ski patrol director and safety coordinator at diamond peak in tahoe correct yes awesome well great to have you on how's it going doing pretty good yeah thanks for having me yeah so we're gonna jump right into it kinda um just gonna start off with kind of how you got into the outdoors what the initial draw was for you yeah so i um was born and raised in southern california but not the stereotypical southern california most people think of and i grew up in a really small town in the mountains halfway between big bear and lake arrowhead called green valley lake there's about 250 residents 7 000 foot level we lived almost a half hour away from a grocery store we had a 45 minute bus ride to middle school so a little more remote than what people think southern california is um and my my mom had lived there since she was in sixth grade and my dad grew up with a weekend cabin there um so we didn't really have a choice but to be in nature as kids because of growing up in that environment and so in terms of like recreation and sport skiing was our first sport i was on skis at two years old and my sister was on skis at 18 months it's crazy yeah and we had this little ski resort in our hometown called ski green valley and my god parents owned it and we could walk there from the house it was like a little over a half mile from our house and ski home if they didn't plow the roads um and my parents were the volunteer ski patrollers there so before i started school essentially that was daycare like i'd take naps under like desks in the office or in the patrol room and just grew up on skis and that's actually as a kid i hated skiing i wasn't a big fan because it was something that i always had to do with my parents um and then once i realized it was something i could do with friends then i really enjoyed it because then i was like oh sweet i can get away from my parents and ski with my friends instead um yeah so we were just like immersed in it we weren't allowed to watch tv growing up we were allowed an hour each on weekends um so if we wanted to watch a movie we'd combine our hours and watch a movie together and so we grew up just like playing in the woods outside um as kids so um it definitely got me to enjoy nature and like being outside as much as possible yeah definitely having the outdoors that close is a big advantage i kind of wish i would have grown up in the mountains i grew up in the midwest i had small woods behind my house but not the same thing as growing up with mountains in your backyard yeah totally like there's wild spaces everywhere but it's i definitely see how privileged and lucky i am to have been able to be raised in that environment yeah so you grew up uh obviously around all that so after you kind of hit like high school and all that did the love of skiing and other sports kind of grow from there yeah so i started ski racing at seven years old and ski raced all through high school once i hit high school i quit it's was called far west um racing um i just enjoyed being on the snow at that point i wasn't super cutthroat competitive my sister was a super competitive ski racer phenomenal ski racer i liked to have fun a little more and then through high school i was i ran cross country and track and again in the mountains so i trail ran before i knew trail running was different than road running because it was just that was just normal that's what we trained on um and so yeah i continued skiing and then i went to college on a running scholarship in san bernardino and san bernardino's at the base of the mountains there so it was really um a cultural immersion for me because i went from being the majority in my community and then all of a sudden i was at a school where i was the minority so it was a really really awesome experience like i loved being able to learn all these different cultures and interact with people who were different than me um and it was at my university where i started i worked at the university's pool through the rec center and my boss there was also the guy who started our outdoors program and he came up to me that summer and he's like you're gonna lead a surf trip and i was like well one i don't surf and two i don't leave outdoors trips and he's like well you're gonna do it and i'm like no i'm not qualified like i'm not gonna do it he's like well i'm the boss and i'm saying you're gonna do it you're you're going on this trip on this day um so it was someone who saw something and me who really got me to take that next step into more working in that environment

yeah so it was uh it took someone seeing those qualities and meetings it's cool being a part of kind of like the beginning of like an outdoor program for a college like that too because i know that at ohio state where i went um the outdoor programs they had there plus the mountaineers a club that they had it's the outdoor community there is just huge and if it wasn't for that i don't think i would have gotten into the outdoors as much and having that kind of access through college programs and things like that is super helpful for people i feel like yeah absolutely and because like so our school was all volunteer trip leaders too so we were able to keep costs down so these students who would have never had access to trips like that could all of a sudden afford trips to yosemite and trips to the grand canyon and to really like experience those things that they never had access to before i feel like with the outdoors with a lot of those people like you said that we're going on those trips that never would have been able to i feel like a lot of the realizing that there's opportunities to get outside for cheap and be able to go experience nature is kind of like if you don't know about it then you're never gonna really search it out so once you're able to experience it for the first time you kind of have your eyes open to the possibilities of different things that you can do yeah absolutely and like that i think guiding for them i i was a volunteer trip leader for six years for them um because i did multiple degrees at the same school and for my master's degree my project um ended up i got a masters in stem education so science technology engineering mathematics education but my focus was science and environmental education and i focused towards like the outdoor leadership realm and was able to create this outdoor leadership training program that took as we realized being a school where we were at we didn't have a lot of students that grew up in the outdoors like i did and so i was able to create a training program that could take someone who had never been camping before in their life and at the end of the quarter they were leading camping trips and to see the growth of the people in those programs within 10 weeks in their confidence and their capabilities and outdoors where they never thought they'd be capable was so rewarding yeah um that's always an awesome thing is watching someone grow into something that they love so they start they go out and get on that first trip and then next thing you know they're like full full on into it like learning everything they can and just it becomes a part of their life and it's a cool thing to see that every part of the outdoor i feel like so getting someone into something just watching that light kind of pop on in their head um of like wow this is awesome yeah this is what everyone's talking about yeah yeah um so you helped a lot with a lot of the program stuff then and starting everything there then so yeah like i i was fortunate enough like the program started in 2005 um and then i came in in the i think it was like summer of 2007 is when i started as a trip leader um and then was able to be with the program for six years i don't know if it's a bragging right or not but i was the longest student employee of the rec center in our school and i may still have that record but um it was through those like opportunities of working through the rec center that really helped my professional development so i could go into the real world and be a professional in a field i actually didn't study like my bachelor's is in math and i'm a ski patroller so like it was like through life experience through my college that gave me the skills to get me to where i'm at yeah and uh so you guys started off obviously with not many programs probably but by the time you finish with that what did it kind of expand it to kind of yeah so we've since it started we've only had two different um managers of that program so there was the one that started it and he left right after he got me into the program and then a man named our mark oswood took it over and he's still there and we used to run like one trip a weekend or maybe like a trip saturday trip sunday and now they're running like three four trips every weekend they've expanded where they're going like even since i've left it's it's continued to grow um into this really really cool program um so mark's been able to like take it and run with it and it's been like the right leaders that have been in place to start it and then continue that growth gotcha yeah that's awesome and uh what did they kind of expand out from like what kind of like uh trainings they had for like different so like obviously mountain biking or stuff like that what did you guys kind of start with yeah we we started with like surf programs because one of the girls shannon who was there starting it was a big surfer so reduced her saturdays so we do surfing she was a snowboarder also so do snowboard trips and then camping trips and we haven't are they i haven't been involved this group for a while um but they haven't gone into mountain biking yet but like they'll do canyoneering trips um they do like service trips too so they'll travel to different places to do like community service in different areas um and then like more backpacking trips and and mark the the guy who runs it is just super creative and in how you like trip plans and and makes those programs um and then they're going we record our system when i was there and now they're moving to a semester system so now they're going to look at that outdoor leadership training that i had created oh god that was

man that was a while ago so it's like um maybe six seven years ago um i'm gonna look at it and revise it and you know try to keep it keep it current and with the needs of the program so yeah yeah that's awesome so after college so you said that you stayed there through a master's and everything too yeah i got a teaching credential did a master's program and actually like probably the thing that made me realize that i wanted to have a career in the outdoors um was the summer before i started my master's program um so 2011 i went and worked a season in yosemite and um it was actually my boss mark we were there on a winter trip and i saw a snowshoe guide and i was like oh that'd be really cool to work here and he looked at me he's like so apply and i'm like oh yeah i guess that's all it takes and he's like you know they have lifeguards i've been lifeguarding for eight years so i worked as a lifeguard in curry village for that summer and it was the most life-changing summer i've ever had in my life the community that exists in yosemite valley is never never land it's unlike anywhere i've ever experienced you live in a tent cabin with two other people like you have a wood floor canvas sides a heater three beds three dressers and a light bulb and two plugs and two bear boxes outside and you have community bathrooms and kitchens laundry facilities um and so i always say like it's the place that brought me there the first time but it was the people i kept going back um so after that first summer i knew i didn't lifeguarding is one thing lifeguarding in a national park that has a river like 100 yards away from the pool you're sitting at is a way different experience so i realized i was like i want to come back but not in that capacity and i learned that they had hiking and backpacking guides um and so i made it my goal to become a hiking backpacking guide for the yosemite mountaineering school and of course you need your woofer to go into that level and so i enrolled in a woofer in flagstaff and with the flagstaff field institute it was through knowles and um it kind of changed the trajectory of the rest of my life um because i absolutely fell in love with emergency and wilderness medicine and and so halfway through my woofer course i actually applied for the emt program at our local community college so the same year i started my master's program i went to a community college for the first time so i was in masters degree classes during you know most of my time and then the one day a week i was sitting with a bunch of 18 year olds that wanted to be firefighters um in an emt class and i was sitting there saying i want to be a ski patroller um and that's why i sat in there so i just figured it was a job that could pay me through college and maybe like support my seasonal lifestyle for a few years before i grow up um and find a real job or whatever big kid job you're supposed to find quote unquote supposed to find yeah um so yeah and then i got my woofer i became a guide in yosemite so not only was i living in one of the most beautiful places in the world and living in the most enriching community you can find with a job i absolutely loved and was really fulfilling and then when i was in school i started ski patrolling that year so that was um this season's the start of my ninth ninth season on patrol that's awesome yeah yeah and i had like a really quick progression um within it so my rookie season like i was the typical like go get it rookie yeah i'll go i'll go i'll go trying to prove myself every day um and i figured i'd just be kind of a front line for a few years and move on and then my second season on patrol my my boss really saw something in me and i was we didn't have a second in charge but i was the one that was in charge when he was gone and he really took me under his wing and helped me to develop as a patroller and educated me a lot and got me involved in this organization called the association of professional patrollers and so it's a certifying agency for paid ski patrollers whereas the national ski patrol is really focused towards volunteers mostly they do have like a paid aspect to it but it's mostly volunteers and so um that was a way for me to kind of like network and get education outside of the small ski resort i was at because i started as a ski resort called snow valley which is like i always say it's like the small guys next door to big bear gotcha so uh it gave me a little like idea of what the grander scheme of ski patrol was beyond like the little ski hill that i was at gotcha yeah uh yosemite living that just sounds like awesome though like going back to that a little bit that had to be just an amazing experience it's never never land i i'm a climber and i need to get into multi-pitch um and that my goal is to climb there and just get to experience the community that's there because it's i've heard such great things i had red river gorge in my backyard back in cincinnati so that was my home craig down in uh kentucky so um but yeah it's always been a goal of mine to get out there so have not got there yet yeah it's i mean i always tell everyone if you can even work a season there it'll it'll change your life like the community there accepts you for being you like it really helped me to come into my own skin as a person because for the first time in my life i was celebrated just for being me and like the more you pretend to be someone else other than yourself the harder time you have um and so there's just like a really diverse community there too and people like when i first moved there i was so intimidated like i had i was super fortunate in how i learned to climb i learned at tacheets um in ottawa uh which is like yosemite quality granite without the polish and it's just like it's a phenomenal rock in southern california multi-pitch trad and awesome climbing so that's what introduced me to climbing but i hadn't started leading yet like i didn't have any gear other than shoes harness helmet chalk bag and so when i moved in i'm like oh my god there's gonna be all these hardcore people am i going to be able to keep up like i'm not going to be able to keep up hiking or running or climbing or anything and then i realize the people who live there are the most down-to-earth loving accepting people you can ever meet and there's a bunch of badasses that live there and it's so common to just like be sitting around on someone's porch and someone's talking about this badass adventure they just went on and it's like normal talk but they're also like i i got into like more long distance trail running um when i was there and like some solo ultras in the mountains um living there and so like the climbers that were doing the nose in a day and like climbing out cap on the regular were like just as psyched about my running objectives as i was psyched about their climbing objectives um because it was just like people getting out and getting rad yeah or if you drink beard by the river all day they were super psyched too like no the outdoor community i found is i mean i feel like it's everywhere this way they're just a bunch of weirdo ragtag just kind of everyone's kind of just kind of there for the you know we're all there for the same reasons and everyone's out there just having a good time and it's it's so cool i mean i guess the close experience i have to just the random people being around is down at miguel's down at red river gorge it has that same kind of climbering community where you're next to people that are just crushing it and you're down there for the first time as a gumby like i don't know what i'm doing but i'm you're hearing the stories from people sitting right next to you and it's it's inspiring kind of and the whole outdoor community is so welcoming and helpful i think compared to some other communities and they're more than people are more than happy to help you learn a new skill do a new thing and encourage you in your path so yeah absolutely and i think it just like you know for people getting into it i think it takes the courage just to like ask or start the conversations with people like i'm pretty fortunate i thrive on random conversations so i love just like sitting in parking lots at crags or at trailheads and i just talk to everyone who's around me yeah which i've noticed with coven people are more likely to talk back because everyone wants a little more social interaction these days so that's true i look a little less weird talking to everybody because they're like oh yay someone's talking to me um but yeah like if you just reach out like when i first moved there i didn't know a single person who lived in the valley like i moved there knowing nobody and moved into this tent with two other people and i remember walking by the tent that was two tenths down from me every day and they had scrunched their beds up to one side of their tent and then they had their crash pads and then all their trap gear hanging above it and all these ropes and i'd be like oh my gosh they're like real yosemite climbers and i was so intimidated to just stop and talk to them um but then one of them broke broke his ankle and so he would sit outside their tent quite a bit because he wasn't going on a bunch of adventures so he he became approachable to me i'm like oh i could like talk to the guy with the broken ankle and so i like ended up becoming friends with him and then meeting the guys he lived with and i realized they actually didn't climb that often they just had all their gear in there

and they like obviously like the guys who lived in that tent became they're still my best friend yeah yeah but like it just took me kind of like making that initial contact and actually just talking to somebody to find these meaningful relationships that i'd never found with any of them like one of them sam him and i call each other soul friends um because like we were never like soul mates it was not like that direction but like once we started connecting we realized we were like destined to be friends yeah and so it was like my soul friend and um and then the community just like grew from there and like that's they're my family like they're my friends and family and they always will be even though now we're kind of all spread out some are still in the park and others are all like out doing their thing yeah that's awesome so uh in order so going to the yosemite thing you ended up through all that you got your woofer you got your emt and all that which obviously built the building blocks towards uh everything that you're doing now with working as a ski patrol so what was your next steps after um uh into the outdoor community uh after yosemite where where did you kind of go after that yeah i kind of like so my last season in yosemite i started like trail running a lot and doing some long solo days in the mountains um that summer i did like a 36 mile run going from the valley up to the top of mount clark and back and then i ran the high camp loop which is like a 48 mile loop um in the park self-supported um so i kind of like got that passion for self-exploration um that was always like kind of in my back the back of my head um when i left and then the winter after my last season so i did four total in yosemite um i became the ski patrol director so i became the director in my third season of patrol um yeah i learned a lot in a really short period of time and i won't say that that first year as a manager was pretty for anybody um i was really overwhelmed like it was a lot because i didn't even know what my job was supposed to be and then i went from being co-workers with all these people to their boss in just a few seasons um but i also knew that that's where i wanted kind of my career path to go um so i spent three years there and that winter i ended up like meeting a guy i started dating this hot shot um firefighter and um and so that's kind of like what made me not go back to yosemite um because i was always kind of one to run away from relationships because i thought i just never had time for him and i was determined not to do it this time so i stayed in southern california i worked a summer at um what's called children's forest a visitor center in our the mountains where i grew up and it wasn't a super fulfilling job um and then i had a really like unique opportunity um to start working at this adventure theme park that was starting up um so there's an old theme park called santa's village uh in lake arrowhead so i'm sure people who grew up around there that are listening to this would be like oh i remember santa's village um it opened a month before disneyland um and was the first franchise theme park in the united states and then in 1998 it closed and then a local family from our community bought the property in hopes to make a mountain bike park and an adventure theme park all themed around santa still um and so i was able to join in on that and get a job with them a few months before they opened um and i put together their emergency medical system their security department their risk management their employee safety workers comp and then i also um did a lot of the environmental reporting um for the state um so it was a super unique opportunity to create all of that stuff like before i was 30. yeah um so i kind of like dove head into that and i was working a lot and um i tried to do another full season at snow valley and things didn't work work out my boss and i didn't really see eye to eye so i went full time at the sky park at cines village is what it's called um and to be honest like so the relationship i was in um it was an abusive relationship but i just stayed in it and i was determined and um it's kind of something i kind of go through my head is you know like i can go out and do a 50 mile run and i know how to suffer and i know how to push through that and so i think i think that like mentality and ability i like to call it to embrace the suck like made me willing and determined to like stay in this abusive relationship and try to make it better and try to make it work and so all of my focus during that time was on work and honestly daily survival um because like it was hard to wake up every day um and hard to get out of bed every day because like life sucked um so i wasn't climbing i wasn't running as much i picked up mountain biking because i worked at a bike park um so that was awesome that was fun um but i i lost a lot of who i was i'd i'd run a lot but like not not the distances i wasn't training anymore um i was just surviving for a few years um and ended up marrying him um lasted i left him a year and six days after um after our wedding because i had i met a patroller from southern oregon who started to just ask me like normal questions of like what's marriage like and why does someone get married and i started talking about a relationship and he was just like hey kari like that's not normal and um he was the first person that i told about any of the physical abuse that happened there and he was super supportive and it was like the right person who came into my life because he was in my community like i never left that patrol community i worked part-time in big bear just to stay current in it i stayed involved with the association of professional controllers and and so is the right person kind of bringing those red flags to my attention that i wasn't willing to admit before and um you know he was never like you need to do this he's just like i think you know what you need to do and i'm here to support you whatever you decide um and so you know he helped me to see the strength i had on myself the entire time um to leave and so i finally left that relationship and my sister and brother-in-law were so gracious to let me move into their house um with their one and a half year old daughter my niece who is a little badass and like her energy being around that was exactly what i needed to and to have my sister's always been my best friend in my life and been my number one support and she understands me better probably than i understand myself a lot of times and so to be with them to kind of process and realize what what i had just gone through for almost five years of my life um and there was still parts of the outdoors there but i i had isolated myself it wasn't connected with the friendships that i had had um and so leaving that and actually so before i left that too another thing that gave me help me find strength in myself and find my identity again as i started training for a marathon um and that was about like a year before i left it was like right after our wedding that um i started training and connected with um a coach who coached at a junior college that would host races for my high school team so he knew me as a high school cross country runner he randomly came to my job and i sold him a ticket um i was helping in admissions that morning and i saw his id and i'm like kevin barta and in his head he's like well duh of course that's what my id says that's my name and then i was like hey it's kari brant and we talked about running and he offered to coach me um and my training went way better than i had ever trained in my entire life like i was running faster than when i was in college um and everything lined up and he he saw things in me i think this is a theme in my life other people see things in me and tell me i can do things and then i'm like okay i guess i'll try and he did that with me and i was able to run like a 254 marathon um so sub three and like i was so proud i pr in the 5k at 30 years old by like 56 seconds like i ran in 1803 5k at 30 years old and my pr in college was in 1859 so like he helped me to rediscover a passion that i had lost because i was giving myself to this person who was awful to me and so like you know finding my strength and then knowing i had running again and then having mountain biking really like that that was the thing i was doing and i never stopped skiing because i'll never stop skiing

but like it it was knowing that that community and those resources and activities were there and then with coping and processing through like my relationship and my ptsd like the outdoors and long distance running to be honest is like the thing that has taught me with the most of like how to find strength to to process everything in life that's happened i feel like long distance running like you were saying before you're talking about like just embracing the suck i've never long distance ran but it sounds like one of those things that just would be to me just sounds terrible i mean that's never been something that i've ever even wanted to try to do yeah and i didn't used to think like in high school so the first time i ran 10 miles i was 13 years old and at that time i'm like that's the furthest i'm ever gonna run in my life like there's no way i can ever run longer than 10 miles because that was the hardest thing i've ever done um and then when i got to college i after college i was like oh i think i want to run a marathon and like my debut marathon wasn't bad i ran a 317 so it wasn't too bad and and but i was like no way am i ever going to do an ultra like i'm stopping at the marathon there's no way and then 2014 in yosemite i started to be like huh i wonder what i can do and i i had run a 50k ultra because i'm like okay i ran 26 miles what's adding like another five miles because when you sign up for a 50k you expect it to be 31 miles but you learn in the ultra community sometimes they tack on a few free miles at the end of it just because you know and so i was like okay well that's it and then in my woofer i met a long distance runner jason from flagstaff and flagstaff is kind of a mecca well not kind of it is a mecca for ultra running and long distance running and um so he would do these like long solo days in the canyon and he told me he's like yeah i don't really like racing but i love how much distance and how much i can see in one day and so that stayed in the back of my head for a few years until 2014 when i finally was just like just try it like go and see and see if you can do it so the first time i did that 48 mile loop it was like i don't know if i can finish it but like i'll give it a shot and that was my mantra with my last marathon training cycle was like you won't know if you don't try yeah and so i'd start these runs with like my pieces and i'd try and then i'd accomplish things taking that first step yeah and like i tell people you know like because people will come to me and and be like oh yeah like i'm so proud of myself i ran a mile yesterday but it's nothing compared to what you do and i'm like no that's awesome like if you're proud of yourself for running a mile like that's just as big of an accomplishment as me going out and running 30 miles like that's great like if you feel empowered because you went out and you moved your body and you did something that makes you feel good like that's just as important as any distance yeah and i feel like just getting out in nature in general and like you said trail running that's different than running on concrete you're out there in nature actually and i feel like it just adds an extra um aspect to everything just being out in nature and having that extra kind of like endorphin hit and just from the natural environment around you yeah totally and and people are like oh you must get runner's high and the more you run honestly the less you get runners high like i don't get it too often that's what the beer is for after but um but you know like it's it's really like i i had a trail run a few weeks ago that just like i was not feeling it it just sucked the entire time like um i my kind of one of my themes for this summer i go through different mantras um throughout and one of my themes for this summer came from a local trail runner up here in the tahoe area he lives in thai city adam kimball he just broke the tahoe rim trail record he ran 171 miles in 36 hours um yeah that was terrible yeah and so um he he did a podcast and one of the statements he had was nothing's guaranteed um and so like when you're running those distances really nothing's guaranteed like if you feel good it's not guaranteed that you're gonna feel good for a long time but if you're feeling bad that also means you're not necessarily going to feel bad for the entire time um and so i started this one trail run and i was like nothing's guaranteed it's gonna get better it's okay that you still feel bad and finally i got 10 miles into i don't know how long the loop was gonna be because it was gonna do some cross-country travel and i just knew i'd be out all day and i got 10 miles in and i still wasn't feeling it and i was like i just need to turn around and and kind of what i determined is like a bad trail run is still a great day of walking in the woods yeah like at the end of the day you can just walk and you go for a hike and you get to be outside and like i had my dog with me that day and we just like kind of enjoyed our day in the mountains and yeah and so like it can be like that experience over objective um yeah but yeah you can have like you can have some really amazing days in the mountains and um you know cover cover ground and see things like that that a lot of people take multiple days so like yeah it becomes really rewarding and then you can sleep in your bed at night best part yeah so um have you ever thought about doing like an iron man um so i've yeah i've thought about doing kind of like multi-sport things but like my running's been pretty successful and so i i haven't really wanted to go that route and then like training for one sport is one thing but then training for three essentially like takes a lot more time oh yeah um and so yeah like at this point no uh but with like really long distance things like i'm i'm turning 33 next month or this month and so like i still have a lot of years to be in my prime for that like ultra and long distance stuff um and so like but i also only have a few years for like the marathon thing and so you know this this season so far i've done like four ultras and then just solo like there hasn't been races so they've just been solo days in the mountains and then i'm doing like a a group one on saturday just um so i'll end up having done like an ultra distance five times this summer and um and so next summer i think i want to do another trail summer and um you know this year was like the year the fkt are you familiar with fkt like that term so it's called fastest known time okay um so there's a website fastest known time that um kind of keeps a log of all the fastest times on these different routes and since all the races were canceled this summer with covid then a lot of the ultra runners started going towards those fastest known times and so i was able to accomplish three one of them just got broken last week um by another local female um she did the run and then i beat her and then she beat me and i don't know if i want to like go back out and try to like start that battle but um so yeah it's been just super fun to like challenge myself and see what i can do out there so i'll probably do like another trail summer next summer and then the summer after that do another marathon training cycle because i'd really like to see if i can like break 245 in the marathon and so i'll go back to rhodes for a little bit but that'll be my last like shot at peaking in the marathon and then i've got another good 15 20 years to peak in ultra distance so that's weird how that works with like going from marathon to altar distance you get more time with it yeah i feel like most people try me include it i feel like it's natural to think that it would be the other way around yeah but as you get older your endurance gets better um and so like with the marathon like it's it's still speed you know so like my my um my last one so running that 254 i think it's like a 632 average mile so you're running like a 632 for 26.2 miles um so that speed component and um definitely makes you peak a little younger so you have like till mid to late 30s to peak that speed but yeah physiologically um as humans your endurance like doesn't peak until into your 40s that's awesome yeah it's exciting i'm not even in my prime yeah you have that to look forward to yeah um so moving on a little bit from the ultra distance since you're talking about that and how you were kind of brought back into who you were and how that journey kind of brought you kind of to where you are now so you got back into ultra distance and you left the one uh ski resort and went to the bike park so after that what was kind of the how did you end up where you are now yeah that's a bit of a ways away from where you were before totally yeah and so i knew that i needed to get away from southern california for a few reasons one like don't get me wrong where i grew up it's a little like it's an island in the sky like they're beautiful mountains there's some beautiful wilderness areas yeah but like they're not this year in nevada and the sierra nevada like has my heart that's like that's my my first true love is this year in about a mountain range and so i knew i needed to get out of southern california and so i just started job searching um and i knew i wanted to get back into the ski industry so i had applied all over i applied in idaho um up in washington all over the sierra nevada applied in mammoth um just knowing i needed kind of a new start like i got out of this abusive relationship i had accomplished i looked at my list of things that i made my first week at sky park and i had checked off like all but one or two boxes from this page-long like grid of things i wanted to accomplish so i felt like i did my job there and so with diamond peak i had never skied there before i applied there um but a friend i knew through the association of professional patrollers devin had worked there for 19 years and he's the assistant patrol director at mount rose and i texted him to see if like he was hiring anybody and then he's like well diamond peak's hiring a patrol director and so i kept i looked every week since he told me that for the job posting and it wasn't seeing it wasn't seeing it i had gotten a lot of no's from other places um which was kind of starting to get me down and then finally diamond peak posted the job and it was only open for a week and so i put in my application um and then they called me i had a job interview and then the next day i had a job offer and it's awesome um yeah so it was super awesome it happened quick and that was like last september so a year ago september um and you know like my my boss there i thought it was super sweet because he kept showing me pictures of diamond peak if you've never seen the view from diamond peak look it up we have the best view in all of tahoe's ski area that lake on the bottom yeah i looked it up after you said that and i remember looking at i'm like i need to actually go ski there now yeah we have the most incredible view and so he kept sending me pictures of that view um but he's also used to you know seasonal workers and things like that and so i told him how much that meant to me that he like kept sending me pictures of like this is your new office and then he confessed that he was just worried i was gonna bail and not show up

but it set a really good precedence like they got back to me really fast like they had a job offer and like a little over 24 hours from my interview and they were really attentive in the process and so i moved up here a year ago october 1st is when i started so i lived a month in incline village um and then ended up finding a spot in truckee which is like 30 minutes north of tahoe and and truckee is phenomenal um it's just like the access here is incredible um and so yeah i love where i live and then my workplace is the the most encouraging workplace i've had since i worked at the outdoors program in college yeah it's really cool and you know as a female in my industry especially as a female leader in my industry it's not common to see that and it's it hasn't always been an easy um path as a female patroller and a female leader in the ski industry and my boss and our management team on the mountain operations side are all 100 supportive like it's the first time that i don't feel like the only woman in the room like i am the only woman in the room on our mountain ops team but i have an equal voice for the first time in my career and yeah it's really really awesome um and then with diamond peak 2 our mountain ops managers we have some incredibly experienced managers so like our slopes manager has built more super parks than any one in the world and he works at dino peak and he could go anywhere he wants he could work anywhere but he chooses to be there and that's the entire management team there we have this incredible experience team who chooses to be at this resort and so it creates this really positive encouraging amazing work environment and then my boss always promotes like my personal growth and a work-life balance it gets hard in the ski industry to find that work-life balance a lot and like they all give me a hard time if i don't take my days off or if i stay at work too late um they're like just go home do it tomorrow whatever like yeah they're really encouraging for that and then um my boss is encouraging i'm starting i had started a instagram about three um three years ago called women of patrol to promote female patrollers because i through networking with a lot of them um there's often times that there's one female or two females on a ski patrol staff and so i wanted to show that it is a job that women do and women do well um and then i just became the president of the association of professional patrollers this summer and my boss is fully supportive of that and my growth in the industry and so it's just created like the combination of having this really amazing workplace and feeling supported and then living in this community that is just awesome with incredible access like i i i finally like claimed my life back like it's the best fresh start that i could have and obviously i still like in processing a lot and i still have flashbacks and i still have ptsd from from what i came from but without kind of those components of having access to the outdoors like finding my strengths again and having support is what's really helped me to to be able to grow and like know that i i'm a whole person still gotcha yeah um and then you're speaking from uh coming from like a female in the um ski patrol world i actually just recently did an interview with a female that is in the hot shot world um and uh she was with the zigzag she said one of the she brought up a very interesting point about like some of those male-centric having a female voice there can kind of bring down the egos there's a little bit more you guys are a little bit more uh this is generalizing a little bit but generally a little bit more in tune with uh emotions of other people and like realizing like when things can actually be done versus if you're maybe pushing yourselves a little bit too hard where guys might just say we will do it anyways even though you probably shouldn't be so and she which i thought was a very interesting way of looking at it uh coming from a female in a mainly male dominated kind of sphere yeah absolutely and and you know you see it a lot i think the the most clear example is like with toboggan handling when i learned i had a bunch of dudes teach me and you know they were like oh yeah well you just like lift it up and i'm like yeah but i can't like i i just physically can't like i'm strong and i'm competent but like i'm five foot four like at 125 pounds like i just when i have a 300 pound person in this wagon i just can't and so i figured out a lot on my own like the finesse of it and how to use the toboggan to my advantage and um and so that was one of the things that inspired me to start women of patrol too is doing women's clinics so then instead of all all of us women teaching ourselves that fans we can share that and i have guys come to me and they're like can you teach me how you pull a toboggan because like they realize they're working harder and not smarter yeah and then i think as a female manager i noticed it especially in my last job my crew we had a super tight ems crew and i recently visited and there was they they ran a really heavy call actually on the day that i was there and i realized the value of being a female manager because the second they saw me these guys that are tough guys and have been in it like they're feel comfortable to have me and just cry yeah and that's what they need to do and with my crew last year we got in the habit of debriefing every single day so sometimes we wouldn't run a single trauma all day and we debrief and share what we've learned and sometimes it's random facts that they found on the internet because they knew at the end of the day i was gonna ask them what they learned yeah um but then because it was normal to talk then on those really heavy days then these men who would never share like hey this is affecting me in this way we're all of a sudden sharing that yeah so it can create an environment that's like really conducive to like breaking that down that like masculinity of just suck it up and go every day and letting these men also be in touch with how it's affecting them yeah and yeah that's very similar to kind of how she brought it in because uh like you said there's those hard days and as a hotshot she was like there's these hard days where it's like you just kind of need to you know um it's it's hard it's not it's not the easiest jobs that you guys do which is why i think it's awesome that i never thought i'd be able to talk to the people that i've already been able to talk to doing this even though i haven't been doing it that long but just hearing the stories and and it's opened up my own mind also to kind of all that and it's awesome i think yeah yeah absolutely so um with what you're doing now at the um your current job um what what are kind of your next steps and like what's like uh for you personally what uh your personal goals um ski as much as possible yeah last season i pride myself from december 1st through march 15th i only spent six days not in ski boots um so yeah ski as much as possible always um in terms of like career like i have goals within my patrol i really want to help to continue to develop our training program but i also really want to bring in the leadership side of my experience and start doing leadership training with my patrol staff to help them grow as individuals so whether they want to continue patrolling or whether they want to go into fire or if they want to go into nursing or wherever they want to go they have these tools that they can take to to any job um and just like continue to like learn and and grow at diamond peak and then i just filed this weekend on articles of incorporation for women of patrol and then i'll work on my 501c3 status and so i'm starting a nonprofit around it and so my goal with that if in the first year if i can raise enough money to offer one scholarship to one female patroller for either avalanche education or dog school or some sort of um aspect of ski patrolling if i can provide one scholarship then like i'll feel really fulfilled and um and i'd like that to be an organization where we can do women's clinics and i'd love to because sometimes it's really intimidating for a female to go to this patrol director who's been there for 30 years and just ask like how do i become a ski patroller and so like hosting clinics for people to come and learn about ski patrol and what we do and experience it um and do some partnership with she jumps i don't know if you're familiar with she jumps um i am not um their logo is like the giraffacorn so it's the giraffe unicorn logo and she jumps was formed by uh lindsay dyer who's a pro skier and um claire smallwood she's out of new mexico and they have this junior ski patrol program um which takes little girls and has them shadow female ski patrols patrollers and like learn different parts of the job and then they do a lot of like outdoor education for for girls and so i'd love to do some partnership with them um and then also build some education stuff that patrols all over can take to local elementary schools middle schools high schools to kind of bridge the gap between the kids that are using the mountains and the patrollers because a lot of times we're looked at as cops and like that's our least favorite part of our job like we hate pulling passes we don't want to but it's for everyone else's safety that we have to and so if we can change that relationship um you know then i think that would be really beneficial um so that's like my passion project um in the ski patrol world um and then i'm also a avid snowblader um and so i think things are cool the snow blades are interesting i've done them once and they're definitely different than normal skis yeah they were my passion in middle school i was i was definitely a soul snowblader um so my friend and i are like starting this lifestyle snowblade lifestyle company called blade for life um but life is spelt lyfe of course um so yeah i mean just like get out and have fun like at the end of the day skiing doesn't have to be super serious i think like ego gets in the way of like oh you gotta ski the gnarly slime and you gotta like do all this stuff and like it's really ridiculous because you're strapping wood to your feet and sliding down a hill like it should just be fun like it doesn't have to be so serious and so we you know mess around on our blades from time to time and just a good time on the mountains yeah um so what about a personal trip do you have like a place that you ever want to get to like a personal like uh i don't know just like a dream trip for skiing yeah i mean i i went to japan um actually for my honeymoon um and it was the most incredible thing like trip in the world the snow is fantastic the people are even more fantastic the beginning is amazing good powder days over there because i've heard the powder over there is just different yeah every day every day and it was just like such an incredible experience so i would love to go back there um and do probably either a solo trip or go with the right person i'll say um and um so like skiing really that's like the main tick list and then i also really want to get out to sweden and norway because my mom's family all lives out there and i haven't visited them since i was in eighth grade um and the last time we visited was in the wintertime so it's dark and cold and gross all the time so that's like my dream summer trip is to like actually go when the sun is up instead of when it's down all the time yeah when it's not perpetual winter yeah exactly yeah my dad always jokes we went for two weeks and he's like yeah we went for one night

how long is the sun actually up there because i know sweden it's a little bit further north than like britain it looks like on a map but i know it's like pretty significantly higher so yeah like where my cousin is in trondheim norway he'll send us pictures like in the middle of the night and you still just see a sliver of sun above the above the horizon on like their longest day yeah yeah that's crazy yeah so i think that's it for uh question wise i you covered a lot in your journey to where you're at is amazing so is there anything else that you'd want to uh end with i mean i know that you you were talking about your uh women of uh what what's the name of the organization again

women of patrol women of patrol awesome and yeah like you said you just want to be able to uh get enough to have uh kind of like a scholarship for someone so i'll definitely uh try and uh push that also for you because oh yeah i gotta get my 501c3 status first and then you know then we'll be taking donations so um and i have a really awesome local graphic designer md and working on our logo right now so it's pretty exciting yeah things are moving but yeah i think the biggest thing that like i wanna that i try to like encourage in people is like we all have strengths in us whether whether you see them or not and like the journey starts with one step and it just takes a step in the right direction to start your momentum and yeah yeah and just the whole um in order to be in the to be lucky you have to be in the right place so i mean it's not just lo i i i don't personally believe in i mean yeah there's a partial thing of luck but if you keep doing the same thing for long enough going down that same path you're gonna end up making it so yeah yeah i love that kind of mentality and that mindset so yeah but thank you for coming on very happy to have you it's an awesome story so yeah thank you very much and thanks for having me yeah no problem and i will see everyone else on the next episode thank you very much