{"id":10727,"date":"2019-03-08T17:45:06","date_gmt":"2019-03-08T17:45:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/?p=10727"},"modified":"2019-03-08T17:45:06","modified_gmt":"2019-03-08T17:45:06","slug":"heroes-of-the-snowpocalypse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/2019\/03\/08\/heroes-of-the-snowpocalypse\/","title":{"rendered":"Heroes Of The Snowpocalypse"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Hayden Seder<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s hardest working individuals, like bus drivers, snowplow drivers and more, the lives of Valley residents went mostly undisturbed and these everyday heroes of the \u201csnowpocalypse\u201d are to thank behind the scenes.<\/p>\n

This rundown of some of those heroes is part of The Weekly Sun\u2019s special series, \u201cSnow Inc.,\u201d where we\u2019ll cover the business of snow\u2014how it impacts daily lives, city budgets, local businesses and private homeowners.<\/p>\n

Name: Jose Luis Victorino<\/b><\/p>\n

Job title: Mountain Rides Bus Driver Trainer<\/p>\n

Winter job description: Performing a pre-trip inspection, driving the bus defensively, maintaining the safety of the passengers, all while being a professional.<\/p>\n

Years working: 10<\/p>\n

Biggest challenge of the job: \u201cGetting my passengers safely to their destinations and on time during the winter.\u201d<\/p>\n

Proudest moment in your job: \u201cThe satisfaction of my passengers and the smiles on their faces.\u201d<\/p>\n

Name:\u00a0Stuart Gray<\/b><\/p>\n

Job title:\u00a0Mountain Rides Transit Operations Manager<\/p>\n

Job description: Boots-on-the-ground management, such as\u00a0routes and drivers, all aspects of interface, schedules, payroll, and more.<\/p>\n

Years on the job: 11<\/p>\n

Biggest challenge of the job:\u00a0Writing 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 \u201coutages\u201d that occur on a weekly, sometimes daily, basis. One person out can trickle-down to affect several!<\/p>\n

Proudest moment in your job:\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

Name: Cameron Cooper<\/b><\/p>\n

Title: Owner of Cooper Landscapes<\/p>\n

Job description: Plow Driver\/Snow Remover<\/p>\n

Years on the job: 48<\/p>\n

Biggest challenge of the job: \u201cSleep 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Proudest moment in your job: \u201cI love it when we complete all our routes and everyone\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Name: Ross Cooper<\/b><\/p>\n

\"\"
Snowplow driver Ross Cooper relaxes after completing a roof snow job. Photo credit: Ross Cooper<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Job title: Snowplow Driver\/Snow Remover for Cooper Landscapes<\/p>\n

Job description: Help father Cam remove snow in winter.<\/p>\n

Years on the job: \u201cI\u2019ve been helping my dad since I was 7 years old!\u201d<\/p>\n

Biggest challenge of the job: \u201cHaving 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Proudest moment in your job: \u201cMy proudest moments are plowing out and pulling out stuck and bermed-in folks just in time for work, school, or first chair.\u201d<\/p>\n

Name: Sara Gress<\/b><\/p>\n

\"\"
Ski patroller Sara Gress. Photo credit: Sun Valley Ski Patrol<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Job title: Ski Patrol\/Medical Coordinator for Ski Patrol<\/p>\n

Job description: First-aid, avalanche mitigation, find people\u2019s lost skis in the powder, drive toboggans, fix boundary ropes, organize medical certifications, etc.<\/p>\n

Years on the job: 4<\/p>\n

Biggest challenge of the job: \u201cFinding time to go ski touring when not at work!\u201d<\/p>\n

Proudest moment in your job: \u201cUncovering the snow stake in February\u2014the 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\u2019t 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Name: Reed Stokes<\/b><\/p>\n

Job title: Winch Cat Operator for Sun Valley Resort<\/p>\n

Job description: Operate winch cat on Baldy<\/p>\n

Years on the job: 5 seasons<\/p>\n

Biggest challenge of the job: \u201cThis has been a challenging year due to the relentless snowfall; new snow makes it difficult to climb up runs and frustrating\u2014sometimes even downright scary and fast\u2014going down runs. The cats have to work very hard for long hours in these conditions and inevitably they sometimes break down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Proudest moment in your job: \u201cI 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\u2019 experience and plenty of mishaps to get me there!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10730,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[72,18,36],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-10727","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-community","8":"category-news","9":"category-slider"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10727\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}