There’s a distinct danger of getting split in two by a winch cable if you choose to be on the slopes of Red Mountain Resort after hours, groomer driver Troy Colautti said last week.
Born and raised in Warfield and schooled at RSS, Colautti is one of seven drivers who work two night shifts and two afternoon shifts each week through the winter.
Colautti has 20 grooming seasons at Red under his belt and several before that at Mount Washington. Of the other six drivers, two have 17 years experience each, three have roughly 17 years between them, and one has just started.
“It takes about three years to really figure out what you’re doing. The first year you’re mostly learning how to run the blade,” Colautti said, referring to the highly manoeuverable shovel on the front. “You spend a lot of time digging holes [by accident] and filling them in.”
The drivers use about 30 anchors around the resort. They attach the winch cable on to pull the cat up steep terrain as it ploughs snow up the run and towards the middle — this compensates for skiers pushing snow down and out to the sides.
The cable itself is very heavy, and can extend up to a kilometre under lots of tension. The drivers’ message is unequivocal: Beware!
“The cable buries itself in the snow a lot of times,” Colautti said. “As we move around, it jumps around. When it comes out of the snow, it’s pretty violent.”
The first time he used a winch cat was on Mount Washington, working a new run that wasn’t open. As he came up over the top, “a guy was stepping over the cable. He straddled it.”
If the cable had popped up, “it would have split him in two pieces, right there, it’s over,” he said, “or taken his leg off at the very least.”
If you come across a cable, “you gotta get away from it,” he warned. “If you’re in the trees, you can’t get hit,” he advised.
Colautti said he personally encounters people on the slopes in dangerous situations every two weeks or so, and more frequently on holidays.
As if to prove a point, two skiers came down Sally’s Alley from Poochie’s Cabin at twilight during this interview, skiing close to the winch cable with big smiles, oblivious to the danger. A minute earlier, at the bottom of the run and unaware of the skiers, Colautti could have chosen to drive to the other side of the run, potentially whipping the cable across Sally’s and hitting the unsuspecting skiers above.
Colautti also sees people skiing, tobogganing, and walking without headlamps. “They’re just not going to see the cable,” he said.
Sledders are at a particular risk. “They might not know I’m down here and they’re going too fast to see the cable,” Colautti said. “It could be neck height; who knows where you’re going to hit it at.”
Recently, he found sled tracks crossing his cable, though he hadn’t seen the sledders — and they probably hadn’t seen the cable.
In another instance, “a kid came up and tried to grab the tiller,” Colautti said, referring to the long axle with fat tines that spins behind the groomer, chopping up the snow so it will set as corduroy.
“I caught [the kid] out of the corner of my eye, it’s not the first time I’ve seen it happen,” he said. “I just freaked! If he actually got a hold of that thing, it wouldn’t be pretty. It could rip your arm off, just mangle you.”
Neither do you want to be around if the cable snaps, something that certainly happens. A cat goes through one cable per winter, and this year’s cable is already 300 metres shorter than it was.
“The winch is awesome,” Colautti said, emphasizing it’s necessity. Before the winch cat, certain grades were too steep to climb, so the cats would do laps up Rino’s and down Main all night long. Heavy snow days could cause these free cats to go for big slides.
“The only way to control yourself in a slide is to go faster than the snow’s sliding,” he said, noting that the cats have neither gears nor brakes. “If you’re going to go for a slide, you dial [your speed] back at the top of the hill,” then increase the throttle as the slide speeds up.
As an alternative, “you dig the corners of your blades in, hook yourself and try to keep yourself straight,” he said. “You can’t see ‘cause the snow’s coming off the blade and going over the cat.”
Scary? “Well yeah, but it was a lot of fun too!” Colautti laughed.
Snowstorms also create interesting conditions.
“You show up at the top of the mountain at midnight, no roads, nothing,” he said. “You just start pushing snow off into the abyss, trying to find your roads. At that point, we’re not really grooming for the public, we’re grooming for ourselves, just to keep it compacted so we don’t lose our traction.”
Colautti, who works as a contractor in the summer, says he drives the groomer because he likes it. He laughs, “You don’t get paid enough to live off this!”
From rich sunsets on top of Red to the challenge and artistry of sculpting runs, these drivers do it because “this is fun.”
It would seem unfair to add any stress to their job, and death by cable would be grisly: If you must be at the resort after hours, don’t be on a sled, wear reflective gear and a headlamp, get the driver’s attention, and don’t cross the cable!