By Hayden Seder
February was a crazy month for snowfall in the Wood River Valley, with a record-breaking accumulation of more than 120 inches falling in the short month.
Anyone living in the area certainly felt the difficulties of so much snow: cars getting stuck, roofs getting weighed down by snow, difficulty just driving around town, difficulty finding a parking spot your vehicle could get out of. But thanks to some of the Valley’s hardest working individuals, like bus drivers, snowplow drivers and more, the lives of Valley residents went mostly undisturbed and these everyday heroes of the “snowpocalypse” are to thank behind the scenes.
This rundown of some of those heroes is part of The Weekly Sun’s special series, “Snow Inc.,” where we’ll cover the business of snow—how it impacts daily lives, city budgets, local businesses and private homeowners.
Name: Jose Luis Victorino
Job title: Mountain Rides Bus Driver Trainer
Winter job description: Performing a pre-trip inspection, driving the bus defensively, maintaining the safety of the passengers, all while being a professional.
Years working: 10
Biggest challenge of the job: “Getting my passengers safely to their destinations and on time during the winter.”
Proudest moment in your job: “The satisfaction of my passengers and the smiles on their faces.”
Name: Stuart Gray
Job title: Mountain Rides Transit Operations Manager
Job description: Boots-on-the-ground management, such as routes and drivers, all aspects of interface, schedules, payroll, and more.
Years on the job: 11
Biggest challenge of the job: Writing the weekly schedule is the basis for the heartbeat of our agency. The difficulty facing Mountain Rides is that being small, we do not have a roster of extras to fill the “outages” that occur on a weekly, sometimes daily, basis. One person out can trickle-down to affect several!
Proudest moment in your job: With all of the above going on, including bus and equipment failures, maintaining and managing a consistent Winter Transport Flow during another super-heavy snow season. We have an amazing team of drivers and mechanics that make it happen.
Name: Cameron Cooper
Title: Owner of Cooper Landscapes
Job description: Plow Driver/Snow Remover
Years on the job: 48
Biggest challenge of the job: “Sleep deprivation and physical and mental exhaustion from all-nighters, and all day long and all-nighters again, and how to drive safely when it has to be done.”
Proudest moment in your job: “I love it when we complete all our routes and everyone’s taken care of, but what I love the most is someone elderly shoveling a berm the city put there and being able to drop a blade and help them in such a short span of time.”
Name: Ross Cooper
Job title: Snowplow Driver/Snow Remover for Cooper Landscapes
Job description: Help father Cam remove snow in winter.
Years on the job: “I’ve been helping my dad since I was 7 years old!”
Biggest challenge of the job: “Having to keep going as long as the snow is falling; roofs are leaking no matter how tired we are. I pulled a 107-hour work week that first storm of February.”
Proudest moment in your job: “My proudest moments are plowing out and pulling out stuck and bermed-in folks just in time for work, school, or first chair.”
Name: Sara Gress
Job title: Ski Patrol/Medical Coordinator for Ski Patrol
Job description: First-aid, avalanche mitigation, find people’s lost skis in the powder, drive toboggans, fix boundary ropes, organize medical certifications, etc.
Years on the job: 4
Biggest challenge of the job: “Finding time to go ski touring when not at work!”
Proudest moment in your job: “Uncovering the snow stake in February—the public needed to know what sort of epic conditions we were experiencing! I also had someone I helped earlier in the season walk into the shack and say thank you. I didn’t even recognize them because I had only seen them having such a bad day due to life-threatening injuries. We took a run down Limelight together; it was so good to see them skiing after how I saw them last.”
Name: Reed Stokes
Job title: Winch Cat Operator for Sun Valley Resort
Job description: Operate winch cat on Baldy
Years on the job: 5 seasons
Biggest challenge of the job: “This has been a challenging year due to the relentless snowfall; new snow makes it difficult to climb up runs and frustrating—sometimes even downright scary and fast—going down runs. The cats have to work very hard for long hours in these conditions and inevitably they sometimes break down.”
Proudest moment in your job: “I take pride in my ability to safely and efficiently operate these machines in difficult conditions, and (hopefully) without mechanical issues, thanks to a number of years’ experience and plenty of mishaps to get me there!”