Despite, if not because of, such Bacchanalia, the Winter Park junior patrol was the finest in the country. At the annual National Ski Patrol Jamboree, the Winter Park juniors took first in the competition for best overall junior patrol in 1972 and again in 1973, the year Jim joined and the year Bob Patterson was president. In 1974, when Jim was president, they didn't compete. They'd raised so much hell partying in 1973 that they were asked not to return. By that time, though, the tradition of an annual group trip was established. In 1974, with money raised through raffles and equipment sales, they went to Aspen for a week. In 1975, Jim now a high school senior and a Senior Patrolman, they went to Telluride, where they hit the big time.

"When we got there, there were signs that there was going to be this world-class freestyle tournament, the last day we were going to be there. We thought we were pretty hot, so we decided we'd enter two or three people. We entered Baldwin [the patrol advisor], Joe Ward and Bob. Baldwin got sick and couldn't compete, but Joe and Bob did.

"It was just a bump run, about 300 yards long--a pretty tough run. The prize would go to 'the most exciting run' down this slope. And there were world-class people there.

"So Joe and Bob entered it. People were spread out all along the side of the run, and there was a normal level of noise, except all of us were sitting together, pretty drunk, screaming our heads off. Now, we used to call Joe 'The Ranger,' and Patterson was always 'Tonto.' So these people thought we were nuts, because we were yelling for the Ranger and Tonto.

There were two heats, and in the first one they were the last two guys to go, and in the last heat they were the first two guys to go. Joe came down, had a spectacular run, doing all these amazing stunts off the bumps. Patterson followed him down, skiing far better than he usually could ski.

"We built up a lot of excitement, and we kept it going until the next heat. They came down, and it was really a rush, they were terrific. Everybody else on the side of the mountain was cheering for them, too, even though they didn't know who they were.

"Then we all went down to the bar, hoping that they might have placed. The other skiers were all pretty hot. But Joe won first and Bob won second; I guess Joe got about a 100 bucks, Bob about 50. Now we'd been raising hell in this town for about a week, driving around sitting on top of cars and just carrying on. Anyway, in the bar, this guy stood up and made a speech about how they'd really appreciated it how the group of us had come down and really livened up their town and they just wanted us to know we were welcome in Telluride any day of the year. We should just introduce ourselves to any of the merchants, and they'd be happy to have us. When it was over, everyone in the bar stood up and applauded.

"BOB PATTERSON aspired to a lot of things," Jim says, but he didn't put much effort into things he didn't care about. "The goodness of the person is hard to evaluate on paper. He broke a lot of rules he had no business breaking, he was contemptuous of higher-ups, he got into a lot of trouble, and people who didn't know him very well didn't like him. The magic of the guy was his personality and what he could contribute to a group of people."

Patterson was the oldest child of a wealthy Denver executive, and a graduate of a private school south of Denver. Two years older than Jim, he was a sophomore pre-med at the University of Colorado at Boulder (CU) when he won the Telluride contest. Bob was a tremendous skier, and well-known in Boulder as an excellent hang-glider pilot. He was bright, and although he did not aspire to academic success, he respected it and sometimes achieved it.

As a patroller, he was unsurpassed. "On an accident," Jim says, "I would take him with me before I'd take anybody. He was an excellent skier, and he could handle a toboggan as well as anybody. Next to skiing, though, the most important thing in patrol work is how well you can relate to a person, especially a person in distress. All those people were very extroverted, and able to really communicate with accident victims, and help them through hard times--calm their fears.

"I'll never forget, we had an accident--it was the grossest thing I'd ever seen in my life--a guy took a spill and cut most of his balls off with a ski pole. Patterson handled that accident like he'd been through it 30 times in his life--putting the guy back together, and talking him through the whole thing."

His technical expertise matched his ability to communicate. "Bob was excellent at first aid. He was an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT), and he took it very seriously. He had a very detailed knowledge of the field of emergency medical care--it was better than mine. I think I had more experience than he did, but in a weird case, you'd do better to have Patterson along, because he'd read the book. He'd read all of them."

Patterson smoked massive quantities of dope. Jim tells the story of the time Bob and four or five of his friends wanted to get high in the Moffat Tunnel, a six-mile-long railroad tunnel beneath the Continental Divide, its western portal across a bridge from the Winter Park lodge. They walked in about 30 yards, sat down in the middle of the tracks with a huge bong, and proceeded to get blown away. Jim, who does not smoke pot, stayed outside in the parking lot, looking at the stars, when from far down the valley he heard the forlorn 'woooooo' of a diesel train horn. He walked across the bridge to the mouth of the tunnel and said, "Ah, you guys, you better get out of the tunnel. There's a train coming." "Oh come on, Bredar," they shouted back, "stop being so paranoid."

Jim recrossed the bridge and watched the stars some more, then he heard the whistle again. He ran back to the tunnel. "Hey, there's really a train coming," he said, with fear in his voice, "you guys are out of your minds if you don't get out of there." "Bredar, will you cut it out!"

"So I came back out," Jim says, "and I can't remember how many more trips I made in there, but the train was coming. You could hear the engines and everything. I couldn't convince them, and I was getting really worried, so I came out. I wasn't getting killed for those bastards.