burke week 4

This week at burke mountain i was in the grooming department. I rode along with head of grooming Randy Sanchez. Randy has been grooming at burke for more than 20 years, he knows all the ins and outs of the grooming department. Sustainability wise Randy takes all measures before and after grooming to ensure a long lifespan for all of the machines. Also randy is pro at conserving fuel used buy the groomers, he takes everything he does at precise speed and angle to ensure the machine doesent work more than it has to. When it comes to safety Randy knows the limits of the operator as well as the machines. If a trail is too steep, icy, or thin Randy will not risk the groomer or himself, in the end he makes the final call, oh and myself along with the operator always wore a seatbelt while grooming.In relation to the guests, if grooming does not take place than the trail conditions will he horrible especially with the horrible winter we are having the guests would not want to ski burke mountain. So the main point is grooming is everything!!!!!! In relation to management the big wig office admins rely on grooming because frankly, if theres no grooming, theres no customer, in turn theres no paycheck. simple as that. all in all i learned alot about grooming this weekend, the pre checks, the post checks and everything in-between........except driving one....bummer

Burke week 2-3

The second weekend at burke was a total blowout due to the fact that class was canceled due to some bogus rain, all in all the second day went over good. I learned some new and interesting facts about the new lift and even did some scanning and loading, it is very helpful to go from resort to resort and see how lift ops handles buisness. The 3rd weekend(this past one) was the most exciting yet. on friday we worked with the park crew to help install a new feature for sundays slope style event. Also we explored the marketing side of the event with connor osullivan as he was incharge of prizes and advertisement. i would like to give Connor props for doing such a good job with marketing the event in such a short period of time, he proved himself to the whole burke community. on saturday we helped the events team aka hannah and connor set up the slope style event. this entailed us fencing off the competition area, sign ups, signage in the park, hauling equipment up and down the hill, this was a busy day. the event went over great everyone did a great job. i am looking forward to next weekend where i will be doing grooming with the burke team!