Fire Party

Sunshine Village is a self-sufficient community. It has to be, since at night getting from here to civilisation and back is pretty difficult. So naturally, we have our own medical staff (Ski Patrol), paramedics (Quick Response Medical Team), police (Security) and fire fighters (Fire Crew). Fire Crew are all volunteers with the advantage of getting their basic fire fighter qualifications, which is why Jeremy is one of these guys. Sunshine Village doesn't get many fires, so with Goat's Eye Gardens already burned down it would be pretty unlikely that we have anything else. But these guys still train and still need equipment, so the whole ERT (Emergency Response Team) organised a party for everyone for Sunday evening. It was well organised with fundraising such as lots of drinks and pizza, an excellent DJ, and raised a lot of money for the ERT to buy new equipment for. But the raffle was a very key part of the whole event, with prizes like a 3-day heli-skiing trip for 2 with a personal guide (worth over $1000), private lessons ($360), free rent, gift vouchers, ski/snowboard gear package.

I was working at Chimney Corner on Sunday evening, but it was predicted to be fairly quiet with the hotel at about 45% capacity (the best thing about working at Chimney Corner is that you can be certain about exactly how many people will be eating there. On top of the mountain, there aren't many drop-ins in the evening...). However, with the fire party, a lot of off-hill staff were eating in Chimney Corner, so it did get pretty busy! But I was finished by 10:30 and at the party by 11:00

I had a couple of drinks, but was joined by Steve later on, who had been working the gondola late so hadn't drunk much either. By the time he'd come, there was only on-hill staff left, so once again it was a private party for all 190 of us... I love living on hill, did I mention that? At 12:00, the raffle was announced. Jeremy won 3 litres of liqueur, Steve won the private lesson. But my Chimney Corner colleague Siobhan (who served the Hutches and me on Thursday) won the heli-skiing! She became inaccessible with hoard of screaming friends, so I found her boyfriend (who also works in Chimney Corner) and congratulated him instead. He was pretty shocked...

Stuck around for a little bit, but Steve and I decided that it was time to get to bed, so we wandered back to Sunshine while I told him about what he could do with the lesson he'd won.




The man second-from-left is Trapper Jerry. 92 years old and still skis Delirium Dive, Mad Trapper's is named after him at he is officially Sunshine's Mascot...

http://www.skinet.com/skinet/people/article/0,26908,1651352,00.html