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Six or more patrollers in a blizzard haul a loaded rescue toboggan up through deep snow, 1947

On duty since 1939

Great Falls Ski Patrol · Kings Hill · Showdown Montana

The SkiPatrol

Red coat, white cross. On this hill every winter since 1939.

  • 1939the first winter on duty at the Neihart course
  • 4rungs on the patrol's ladder in 1965
  • 41years Mike Bell gave it
  • ~60+5volunteers and pros on the hill, 2025

Patrol training in a blizzard, 1947. Harlan Cory Collection.

The Ski Patrol room

Look up from the chair at Showdown and sooner or later you'll spot a red coat with a white cross on it. That's the Great Falls Ski Patrol. They put up the fences and the trail signs, they read the snow, and at closing time they sweep every run. Nearly all of them do it as volunteers.

They've been at it on Kings Hill for more than eighty-five years, through a war, four eras of owners and every kind of winter this pass can throw at you. Here's their story as far as we've pieced it together. The short version is the one the mountain likes best. The Ski Patrol is there if you need them.

It is not the purpose of the ski patrol to act as policemen. Instead, the ski patrol is a friend of the skier.
Charles Pichette, head of the new patrol · Great Falls Tribune, December 9, 1939

Some years later a Great Falls paper wrote that a fifteen-member patrol would “help police Kings hill course.” You can decide who had it right.

The birthday question

When did it start?

1938

What the patrol counts from

It's on the golden-anniversary patch the patrol wore in 1988, which reads 1938 to 1988. They held a seventy-five-year reunion at the summit in 2013, and in 2022 Showdown gave 1938 as the year the patrol was founded.

1939

What the papers printed

In February 1939 the Great Falls Ski Club named a ski patrol committee with Dr. F. K. Waniata in charge. On December 9 the Tribune announced that the club's patrol unit would be on duty all winter at the Neihart course, signed on with the National Ski Patrol.

Here's a thought. The National Ski Patrol itself got going back East in 1938, so the patrol here joined it within a year or two of the start. In December 1939 there were just four units in all of Montana, at Missoula, Helena, Anaconda and Great Falls.

Channel one

The radio log

Every entry below comes from a newspaper, a newsletter, a patroller's own photographs or their own telling. Names with a red underline have a Legend page of their own.

01The Ski Club years · 1936–1956

  1. On duty all winter

    The club's patrol goes on duty at the Neihart course with Charles Pichette in charge and a committee of eight, Marian Current among them. Their hope was to stash blankets, stretchers, splints and first-aid kits along the course for anyone who needed them.

    Three men lash a loaded wooden rescue toboggan on flat snow while four people watch
    A rescue toboggan in the Ski Club years. Photos 1936–1956.

  2. Twenty hours at the Y

    To get on the patrol you passed Red Cross first aid. The Y.M.C.A. ran a free twenty-hour course on Tuesday and Friday nights, and fifteen club members passed the exams. Dr. Charles Crago started another class in January 1940.

  3. Crowd control

    More than five hundred people and four mayors turned out to dedicate the course. The patrol handled the crowd.

  4. Tested and tagged

    Under Robert Selzer the patrol got the Forest Service's say-so to enforce safety on the course. Every skier was tested and tagged into one of three classes, and the hill was split into beginner, intermediate and expert sections to match. The rule was blunt. All skiers will be considered beginners until they have been examined by the patrol. Patrollers could bar a skier from the course, or draft one to help pack snow and fill holes.

  5. Seven on the roster

    Richard Voorhees took over as chief. His roster of seven included Jim Hasterlik of the Ski Hut, Cliff Rumford, and a Miss Klesney, the one woman named on it.

  6. Off to war

    Ed Schenck, a founding patroller and the club president who dedicated the course, joined the First Ski Battalion of the 87th Infantry, the Army's new mountain troops. Recruiting for those troops in Montana ran through the National Ski Patrol.

  7. Starting over

    After the war the patrol was rebuilt with eleven people under Joe Taylor, a National Ski Patrol member. Two married couples signed on, Captain and Mrs. Amos Little and Mr. and Mrs. Throckmorton, and so did the obstetrician Dr. Earl Hall. The next January the National Ski Patrol System reinstated the Great Falls unit.

    Harlan Cory in a work jacket with a round patch on the shoulder and a first-aid belt, outside a building with multipane windows
    Harlan Cory on patrol, 1947. Harlan Cory Collection.

  8. Then a ski test

    The bar was a twenty-hour first aid course, Monday and Thursday nights at the Y, plus a test of your skiing. You had to make every class.

  9. Certificate No. 882

    Jack Throckmorton got his National Ski Patrol badge of membership. Somebody pencilled on the envelope, 1ST NAT PATROLMAN IN CENTRAL MONT 1948. That December the club owned four first-aid kits on snow sleds, and on ski days the patrol kept barracks bags stuffed with blankets and splints.

  10. A ranger on Sundays

    For the first time the Forest Service sent a safety patrol of its own. Ranger Frank Bailey of White Sulphur Springs worked every Sunday beside the club's patrol.

  11. Section leader

    Dr. Lester F. Howard was appointed to the National Ski Patrol and made a section leader for the mountain area, with a special mark on his shoulder badge to show it.

  12. The ski-bike

    The program for the dedication of Throckmorton's Mile listed a novelty race by the ski patrol and a demonstration of a ski-bike, built by Jerry Rawlers and Bill Reynolds themselves.

02The Shareholders Era · 1957–1973

  1. Stan King signs on

    Stan King joins the patrol. More on him below. That season the Junior Ski Patrol starts too, for fifteen- to eighteen-year-olds with advanced first aid cards.

  2. Doubling up

    With the new T-Bar running, the patrol nearly doubled, to nineteen adults and six juniors, to make sure every run was covered. Joan Nebel, Charmayne Bell and Bevy Ball were on the roster. Headquarters was a patrol room in the lower level of the newly enlarged lodge.

    A patroller in a red jacket with a white cross stands by a toboggan in front of racks of skis and the Ski Hut
    Toboggans by the Ski Hut, 1960s. George Willett Collection.

  3. Ninth and tenth

    Bob Olds and Chick Nebel were named National patrolmen, the ninth and tenth from Great Falls since the patrol began and the first since 1958.

  4. Test days

    Patrollers went for their Senior and Local ratings, in Missoula in December and again in January, judged by patrol leader Howard Farley and by Chick Nebel, now Section Chief. You can take the same test below. On January 26 the senior patrollers started avalanche training, and in February they spent a weekend at an avalanche school in Bozeman.

  5. Eleventh and twelfth

    Jo Ann Nebel and Dick O'Reilly were appointed National. The patrol sold medallions to raise money, and that summer they built their own patrol hut.

  6. Rust and blue

    Chris Quinn, twelve years old and new to the hill, remembered the first two patrollers he ever saw, Dick Mosher and Stan King, coming out of the trees in full rust and blue uniforms, fanny packs and these fur gaiters that went up to the knees.

  7. A shack at the chair

    The base building of the new double chairlift went up with a ski patrol shack and a warming house inside. That January the patrol asked members for military wool blankets for the Patrol Shack on the hill.

    The lodge complex in 1970 with a tall dark two-storey building beside it
    The lodge and the patrol building, 1970. Harlan Cory Collection.

03The George Willett Era · 1973–2020

  1. Two pros

    Wayne Ellington was a ski instructor paid by the lesson, and it wasn't paying. So he went to George Willett with an idea. Showdown needed a professional patrol, at least two people on the hill every day, who could also look after the fifty or so volunteers. Wayne and Dick Mosher, an Air Force man, were the first two.

    Wayne Ellington's 1976 National Ski Patrol registration card
    Wayne's 1976 card, marked Professional and signed by Stan King as patrol leader. Ellington Family Collection.

  2. Eight in a line

    Patrollers in red cross an open slope single file, five years into the Willett years.

    Eight patrollers in red cross an open snow slope in a line below dark timber
    The patrol on the mountain, 1978. George Willett Collection.

  3. Outstanding pro

    The National Ski Patrol gave Wayne its Harry G. Pollard Jr. Outstanding Professional Patroller Award, for thirteen years as Showdown's pro patrol director. By then the paid patrol was four strong.

    Wayne Ellington in a red patrol coat beside yellow safety netting
    Wayne Ellington on duty, 1980s. Ellington Family Collection.

  4. Mr. First Aid

    The patrol wore its golden-anniversary patch. That year George sat down with the Showdown and Great Falls patrols and ranked the job with accident prevention first and first aid last. A heated argument followed, according to Ski Patrol Magazine, which summed it up. The days of the patroller as 'Mr. First Aid' are gone.

  5. Snow report by six

    Joe Blanchard was patrol director, and he kept the mountain's snow records too. The morning snow report went out to the radio stations by six. That season Barry Gill came over from Australia, fresh off a summer patrolling in New Zealand.

  6. Off the chair

    The Showdown and Great Falls patrols practiced evacuating the chairlift together. Every member put in at least twenty hours of refresher training a year, from first aid and toboggans to avalanche rescue and searches off the area.

  7. Twenty-four years

    Dick Mosher received the National Appointment, the highest honor given to a member of the National Ski Patrol, for twenty-four years of patrolling. Ten active Great Falls patrollers held it that year. The Mosher family has a Legend page.

    Seven patrollers in matching patrol jackets pose indoors
    Dick Mosher, Dave Elmquist and the patrol. George Willett Collection.

  8. Chris Quinn

    Chris Quinn, the kid who'd watched Dick and Stan come out of the trees, became Showdown's patrol director.

  9. Mike's Bell

    The patrol and Showdown raise a bell at the top of the mountain for Mike Bell. Ring it below.

    Mike's Bell, a blue bell under a timber gable, in fresh snow near the summit
    Mike's Bell on a bluebird day, 1990s. George Willett Collection.

  10. On top

    Five patrollers rig a toboggan outside the Top Rock Cafe, chains laid out on the snow. Read the side of the sled and you'll see it has a name.

    Patrollers in red rig a rescue toboggan lettered Bill Roberts Express at the summit
    The Bill Roberts Express, 1999. George Willett Collection.

  11. Toboggan practice

    Mel Carnahan, Allan Rabbit and Bob Short practice with the rescue toboggan while Debbie Trenberth and a friend ride in it. Somebody wrote the date on the Polaroid.

    A Polaroid of patrollers in red vests beside a red rescue toboggan with two people riding in it
    Hand-dated Polaroid, 2004. Idaho and Debaho Trenberth Collection.

  12. Lift evac in deep snow

    Mel Carnahan and the patrol practice getting people down from a stopped chairlift, working a belay rope in deep powder.

    Three patrollers in red sit in deep snow among frosted trees, one handling a belay rope
    Lift evacuation practice, 2010. George Willett Collection.

  13. Seventy-five

    Patrollers old and new, about thirty of them, walk up to Mike's Bell in the summer sun for a seventy-five-year reunion.

    About thirty people in summer clothes posed in front of Mike's Bell at the summit
    At Mike's Bell, June 29, 2013. George Willett Collection.

  14. One in thirty thousand

    The National Ski Patrol named Colleen Finch its Outstanding Ski Patroller of the Year, picked from more than thirty thousand patrollers.

04Boedecker and Gold · 2020–today

  1. Sixty years of Stan

    Stan King's sixtieth year on the patrol. The Great Falls Ski Patrol was runner-up for the National Ski Patrol's Outstanding Large Alpine Patrol award.

  2. Best in North America

    This time they won it. The National Ski Patrol named the Great Falls Ski Patrol its Outstanding Large Alpine Patrol in North America. They had forty-nine members, on the small side for a large patrol.

  3. So long, Stan

    Stan King died after more than sixty years on the patrol.

  4. Sixty and five

    Showdown counted five pro patrollers working beside nearly sixty volunteers from the Great Falls Ski Patrol. These days they teach the kids too.

    A patroller kneels with young skiers around a probe pole stuck in the snow
    Safety tips for the kids, 2024. Great Falls Ski Patrol.

1965 · four rungs

Climb the ladder

The Kings Crier laid out exactly what it took to move up the patrol, in 1964 and again in 1965. You started at the bottom as a teenager with a first aid card, and the top rung took a nomination from another National and a board of review.

By the end of 1965 twelve patrollers from the Great Falls area had made it all the way up.

  1. 1

    Junior Ski Patrolman

    Fifteen to eighteen. Twenty-six hours of Red Cross first aid. Able to ski anywhere on the home hill, with an adult patroller keeping an eye on you.

  2. 2

    Local Ski Patrolman

    Over eighteen. Twenty-six hours of first aid and a four-hour hill training session.

  3. 3

    Senior Patrolman

    Everything above, plus a skiing and toboggan test at another area. Ski any conditions at any area in the Northern Division.

  4. 4

    National Patrolman

    A Senior with avalanche school behind them, real leadership, a nomination from another National Patrolman, and a yes from a board of them.

Winter 1964–65 · five events

Take the test

Here's the test the patrollers took that winter. Each one was given a number and graded on points. Tap an event when you think you'd have passed it.

0 of 5 events · patroller no. —

One more thing from that column. It says four members went to Missoula, names four, and then says all five passed. Somebody couldn't count, or somebody got left out.

Worn, sold and hung over the door

Patches & mottos

GREAT FALLS SKI PATROL 1938 — 1988 SHOWDOWN SKI AREA 50 GOLDEN YEARS OF SERVICE

Golden years, 1988

Fifty years, 1938 to 1988, sewn on the patrol's coats. Stan King was still wearing his in 1999.

Redrawn from the patch in the photographs, with a plain cross where the National Ski Patrol's emblem sits. See Stan's coat.

The Ullr medallion, 1965

The patrol sold these to raise money. Ullr, the mythical god of winter, on one side with GOOD LUCK, and the new patrol cross on the other with BE SAFE SKI WISE. Tap it to flip it.

Redrawn from the Kings Crier's description, February 1965. Got one in a drawer? We'd love to see it.

Over the shack door

This hung over the door of the old first aid building. The patrol liked it enough to print it on their T-shirts under a black diamond and the words MOST DIFFICULT.

Re-lettered from the photograph. See the shack.

One cross, two patrols

Pros & volunteers

The volunteers

The Great Falls Ski Patrol is a unit of the National Ski Patrol, and has been since 1939, with a break for the war. It's the club's old patrol, grown up. Members give their days on the hill, their nights in training, and a lot of their summers to each other. They split into numbered teams with a day leader for each, and the friendships tend to last longer than the knees.

5 prosabout 60 volunteers

Showdown's count, July 2025.

The pros

Showdown's own paid patrollers. A 1963 brochure already promised skiers an experienced, paid ski patrol, so somebody was drawing a wage before Wayne Ellington's day. The paid patrol as it runs now started with Wayne and Dick Mosher in 1973.

People cross over both ways. Dick Mosher and Allan Rabbit both went from pro back to volunteer, and Allan has been on the patrol for more than forty seasons.

Stan King in an orange and navy patrol parka, goggles up, with a grey beard A painted garden gnome lettered STAN KING hanging on a pine trunk

1962 – 2023

Stan King

Stan King joined the patrol in 1962 and worked both sides of it, volunteer and pro. In 1976 it was Stan who signed Wayne Ellington's card as patrol leader. Chris Quinn first saw him in the late 1960s, skiing out of the trees beside Dick Mosher.

“About half Dick's height and covered with hair bristling out from his hat,” with a beard seemingly half the size of the man. Chris Quinn, in his own memoir. Hence the nickname, Hobbit.

Stan could not stand having his picture taken and would tell anyone with a camera to quit it. So of course his face became the patrol's logo. He reached sixty years on the patrol in 2021 and died in 2023. Now there's a gnome with his name on it, hanging on a tree on the mountain, and patrollers from his old team take new classes out to it to tell them about him.

Stan in 1999, Diane Carter Collection · the tree, 2024, Great Falls Ski Patrol.

The top of the mountain · 1996

Mike's Bell

Michael Bell joined the patrol around 1955. He was president of the ski club twice in the 1960s, and Bill Lay, fifty years on the patrol himself, remembers him as a mentor.

When Mike died, the Great Falls Ski Patrol and Showdown built him a bell tower at the summit. The plaque thanks him for forty-one years of service to his fellow skiers as a member of the Great Falls Ski Patrol. Kids ring it on the way past. So can you.

A young skier in a helmet pulls the rope of Mike's Bell under its timber gable
Ringing Mike's Bell, 2021. Charley Willett Collection.
MIKE'S BELL

Wearing the cross

The roll

A start, nowhere near everybody. These are patrollers the old papers, newsletters and photographs name, a few rosters at a time. Underlined names have a Legend page.

1939 committee

  • Charles Pichette
  • Dr. F. K. Waniata
  • Dale Uppinghouse
  • George Adams
  • Bob Scott
  • Dave Zipperian
  • Jim Montgomery
  • Marian Current

1940–42

1946–53

1963–65

  • Mike Bell
  • Chick Nebel
  • Jo Ann Nebel
  • Al Olszewski
  • Dick Pike
  • Dick O'Reilly
  • Bob Olds
  • Gary Olds
  • Barry Rowe
  • Tom Cannon
  • Henry Jorgenson
  • Gary Stewart
  • Sandy Fraser
  • Carl Henry
  • Charmayne Bell
  • Bevy Ball
  • Art Havens
  • Dick Dailey
  • Howard Farley
  • John Murray
  • Terry Green
  • Jeff Emmett
  • Dave Walker
  • Lonnie Ball
  • Larry Morse
  • Mike Moran
  • Harry Birkenbuel

1962–1989

1990s

2000–today

Patrolled here and not on the list? Know who should be? Tell us.

Swipe through

In pictures

Patrollers haul a loaded toboggan through a blizzard1947Training in a blizzardHarlan Cory Collection A patroller in a red jacket with a white cross by a toboggan at the Ski Hut1960sToboggans by the Ski HutGeorge Willett Collection Eight patrollers cross a slope in a line1978Single file across the slopeGeorge Willett Collection A patroller in red sets a rope line through snowy trees1990sRoping off a slide pathGeorge Willett Collection The old first aid building, a dark timber shack1990sThe old first aid buildingDave Elmquist Collection Patrollers rig a toboggan at the summit1999Rigging the Bill Roberts ExpressGeorge Willett Collection A Polaroid of toboggan practice2004Toboggan practiceIdaho and Debaho Trenberth Collection Patrollers practice lift evacuation in deep snow2010Lift evac practiceGeorge Willett Collection A big group of patrollers in red jackets with white crosses outside the summit building2010The whole crew on topGeorge Willett Collection The 75-year reunion in front of Mike's Bell2013Seventy-five years, at the bellGeorge Willett Collection The patrol on the lodge deck in summer with the mountain behind2024Summer on the deckGreat Falls Ski Patrol Ten patrollers among frosted snags, most in red jackets with white crosses2026This winter's crewGreat Falls Ski Patrol
Stan King's face on an Uncle Sam recruiting poster, pointing at the viewerStan wants you

The patrol's own poster, 2017

Wear the cross

Somebody on the patrol made this poster of Stan in 2017, camera-shy or not. The ask hasn't changed much since 1939. Be a good skier, learn real first aid, and give up some of your Saturdays. If that sounds like you, the Great Falls Ski Patrol's own site is the place to start.

  • 2019Colleen Finch, the National Ski Patrol's Outstanding Ski Patroller of the Year
  • 2021Runner-up, National Outstanding Large Alpine Patrol
  • 2022Outstanding Large Alpine Patrol in North America
gfskipatrol.org

Where this comes from

The Great Falls Tribune and Leader from 1939 on, the Great Falls Ski Club's Kings Crier, Showdown's Showdowner, the patrol's magazine, Showdown's own posts, Jack Throckmorton's scrapbook, Wayne Ellington's papers, Chris Quinn's memoir, and interviews with patrollers who were there. The photographs come from the collections named under each one, and every one opens in its decade room. The patches, the medallion and the sign are redrawn, not photographed.

Spotted a mistake, or have a patrol story or picture we should see? Send it in.