Concerning the Patrol A rant by Ocean11! DISCUSS THIS FEATURE HERE

I’d like to make some observations about Patrol and their role at the resorts I visit. Patrol seem to loom rather large, but what little I’ve seen of them doesn’t impress me. An encounter with Patrol has thrown the issue into sharp perspective for me, along with the recent incident in which an SJ Member was roughed up by patrol for riding off the course and for daring to come back having been told to leave.

These observations take a few things for granted;

I’ll start with an analogy. If you go scuba diving, obviously you want to dive in the ocean, off beautiful reefs and maybe over shipwrecks. That’s because those places are clearly the most satisfying sorts of places to do it. You don’t want to dive in a swimming pool every time, or over some flat, lifeless sea-bed. However, reefs and shipwrecks can be dangerous. There are dangerous currents, poisonous creatures, and risks involving the equipment used. But this is taken into account, and procedures are developed so these intensely enjoyable activities can be done reasonably safely. You may be required to get a license, and the people that look after you certainly will need to be qualified. But there’s no reason why the same systems can’t be developed for snowboarding, so that practitioners who want challenge and fun don’t have to be chased around by loudmouthed incompetents. I know that diving is generally a more expensive sport than skiing or snowboarding, probably because of the safety problems involved. It may be said that my suggestions here would make snow sports as expensive as diving. But diving is inherently more dangerous than snow sports, and there would be no need to see prices go up any more. I think it’s a good analogy.

Going to a snow resort and riding on the course all the time is like scuba diving in a swimming pool. It may be OK for a while, but it’s not the best that’s available. There are places at my favourite resort where you can ride through widely spaced trees, over rolling bumps, and come out near a lift. There’s no risk of avalanche whatsoever, and you don’t even need to duck a rope to get to it, as there aren’t any for most of the run. And yet, recently, for the first time in my long experience of riding this area, a very rude and offensive patroller swept down and abruptly ordered one of my group to hand over his pass. My mate was polite, saying quite dishonestly that we would stop riding in the trees, and the man relented. But if it had been me he had spoken to in that way, I would have invited him to reconsider his approach, and to give me his name. How that might have ended, I don’t know.

It is often averred that while it is OK to duck ropes or ride in the trees, it shouldn’t be done near a liftie or a Patrol office, as to do so would be ‘rubbing their faces in it’, or ‘provoking a reaction’. This of course is pure nonsense. It isn’t an issue of naughty little children seeing how far they can push their elders without getting spanked or shouted at. It’s an issue of the principle of enjoying your sport to the maximum where it’s safe to do so. If it is verifiably safe and enjoyable to ride 20 metres from under the top lift station and also from right in front of the top lift station, there shouldn’t actually be a problem with heading into the run right in front of the lift station. Paying ‘lip service’ to a completely meaningless rule is absurd, and potentially dangerous too. Why should paying customers have to concern themselves with the ‘dignity’ or ‘face’ of lift staff and patrollers, or give them a little fig leaf to wear? There are tracks crisscrossing the forbidden zones from all directions and for all to see, and there’s nothing Patrol can do about it, and what’s more, most of the time they don’t ever try doing anything about it. Anybody who thinks that trying to ride in powder snow is somehow reprehensible and deserving of rudeness and punishment needs to spend some quiet time reviewing how they were brought up.
  

  
In England we have bobbies, and we have lollipop men and women. Bobbies (police) will be rude to you even when you’re trying to help them catch bad people, and most of them are horribly thick, or at least will behave like they are. Lollipop men and women probably aren’t too bright either, but they’re always kindly people who walk stalwartly out into the traffic with their big round Stop sign on a pole so that you can cross the road safely. They’re always on the side of the pedestrian, although they’re never rude to car drivers either. To put it simply, all the patrollers I’ve ever come across think they’re bobbies and act like it. In reality, they should be lollipop people, and the sooner somebody tells them this, the better it will be for everybody.
  

For instance, one course I like to ride has a large ridge where two courses meet, that is used frequently by skiers and boarders for jumping. I go off it myself, and have always found it to be safe. Except last time. Last time the grooming staff had used it for dumping large bits of crud on the downside of the ridge, out of view of the uphill side. The crud consisted of large boulders of ice covered in a few centimeters of snow. My crew went off the ridge, wiped out amidst the boulders, and tumbled like rag dolls through the crap, banging arms and legs on the hard clumps of ice dumped there. We received quite a shock and some severe bruising. I thanked my lucky stars, some of which were whirling in front of my eyes, that I wear a helmet. If anything requires crossed sticks, plastic fences, “Do Not Enter” signs, it’s places on regular courses where people are allowed to ride, that have for some unaccountable reason been turned into tank traps. All day from the gondola, we watched a good number of other riders wiping out as we had.

There are those people who advise that we learn about mountain safety. While I have nothing against the view, and agree that it’s surely wise to know about it, I do find it a boring subject, as surely many other people do. And should it really be necessary for having a good time at what is after all a resort? (Resort: a place providing recreation and entertainment especially to vacationers [Merriam Webster]) On vacation, I don’t want to be told not go into the sea because there are sharks in the water when there aren’t sharks in the water. However, when there are sharks in the water, I would like to be told clearly. On the occasions that patrol have spoken to me in their universally boorish way, they have not said, “Don’t go down here because you might hurt yourself or somebody else”, which would be worth paying attention to. Not once. Ever. I think that’s pathetic.

Occasionally patrollers will adopt a semi-conciliatory tone having threatened to relieve you of your pass. I’ve been told directly “I know how you feel, I too would enjoy riding off piste, but just don’t do it or you’ll suffer.” This is the worst of it - the hypocrisy. They know they’re being killjoys and they cannot justify it, and yet they blandly require you to accept the status quo, and they go on hassling people who want some variety in their sport.

Now I know there will be people who say “It’s somebody else’s resort and you’re just a visitor, so who are you to say what should be available?” I think this argument is scarcely worthy of a riposte, but here goes anyway. It denies that communication is an essential part of any service, and nullifies the human capacity for improvement. (This site is just one example of a service that has improved immeasurably in a very short time thanks to the willingness of the proprietors to listen and take action. Perhaps the proponents of the ‘like it or lump it’ way of thinking would rather use Ski Japan Guide of two years ago than the fully featured site of today. I’d like to go to a resort where the patrol help me to enjoy myself.)

Those of us who have lived in Japan for a long time have surely seen many instances of Japanese people behaving eccentrically when faced by a foreigner - refusing to look at us, stammering uncontrollably, pretending we’re not actually there, or suddenly getting very angry for no good reason. I wonder if the patroller who instigated the recent incident was one of these types? And whether once he got started, the others in his group felt it was OK for them to join in? I don’t know, I wasn’t there, but I’ve seen this sort of thing in other situations, and I’m quite open to the possibility of the same thing here.

There are lots of foreigners riding the slopes at Japanese resorts these days. At Nozawa, I regularly see two or three large groups of foreign boarders and skiers besides my own crew. To the extent that they have put a few signs up in English, notably around the lifts, some resorts must have recognized this. But does this recognition extend to how the patrol behaves? Certainly there are some patrol staff who speak English. Or rather, they are able to say “I will take your pass!” in English. But they aren’t usually able to convey much more than hostility and anger to one degree or another, and nor are they prepared to explain or negotiate. Personally I don’t need patrollers who speak English, but there must be foreign visitors to resorts, who have come to Japan recently or on holiday and who don’t speak Japanese. If the patrol is going to physically jump on foreign people at some point, they ought to be able to give some sort of coherent warning in English. Of course, another interesting question to which I don’t know the answer is, would the same patroller have roughed up a Japanese snowboarder? I meet plenty of them in the trees.

Now of course this is getting into the realm of pure speculation, but would a patrol mounted on snowboards be so eager to rough up another boarder? Or could it be the frustration of old school skiers at seeing the independence and ‘disobedience’ of a boarder that made them see so much red that they turned violent? Personally I’d give that view as much weight as the possibility of a bit of racial fear behind this episode. That’s just another reason why I’d like to see more patrollers on snowboards. And if the men are just too macho in the execution of their duties, how about having some women in the patrol? That might help.
   

  
So, what can be done? I’m reminded of when the horrible prima donna Zico joined my favourite team of old, the Kashima Antlers. He told them that the referees were the player’s enemy and that they should treat them as such. In the early days of the J-League, the referees were pretty awful and spoiled a lot of games with their bad calls. Naturally the team suffered from Zico’s idiocy, and the calls improved not one jot. So if ever a patroller makes a serious effort to stop me riding safely where I want to, I will simply insist he takes me not to his miserable little hut, but to the office of the management so that we can get to the bottom of why the patroller thinks I shouldn’t be having some fun for my money.

A recent Nagano News program introduced the new policy at Happo. Apparently they have reinforced their roping off, while opening up more of their ungroomed terrain. They have also posted 15 notices advising that all off-piste activity is at your own risk. While this tendency is to be applauded, the interview with the head patroller was revealing. He said “Manners are definitely improving, although there are still a few - only a few - who won’t take any notice.” There it is again, the completely inappropriate viewpoint, “manners”. It has nothing to do with manners. What this shows is that Happo has been stopping people from enjoying their sport to the full at the resort, and finally they are beginning to let up - a tiny bit. When their manners are fully developed, they’ll surely apologize for being so uptight before, and will open even more safe terrain.

Patrol should develop a rapport with the customers at resorts. They need to ride the courses in the ways that customers do, finding out the obstacles and dangers that customers actually encounter. This should include all customers, not the ‘favoured’ customers. When danger exists they should alert people to it, and should not bother those who are not in danger, or presenting a hazard themselves. Safety, not punishment that they are not even authorised to mete out, should be their focus. A focus on safety will lead to cooperation with customers, whereas an “I’ll take your pass” attitude obviously results in rudeness, and danger, and quite possibly more violence. I hope that any resorts that have an interest in improving their services, and thereby profiting more, will take more notice of what their Patrol are actually doing, and what their customers expect of the Patrol.