On winter mornings at Big Rock Mountain in Mars Hill, Maine, the first light doesn’t hit the slopes it reveals them. Long ribbons of corduroy stretching over a near 1,000-foot rise that feels bigger than it looks on paper. Before skiers shuffle into lift lines or families spill out of SUVs, a different ritual plays out at the base of the mountain: three men in red jackets, longtime fixtures of the hill, begin their quiet sweep.
For over five decades, Conrad Brown, Tom Griffin, and Stephen Higgins have ridden the first chair, skied the first laps, and checked every corner of the terrain. But most importantly, they made sure the little mountain, the one tucked against the Canadian border, is safe to ski. Each has given 50+ years to the Big Rock Ski Patrol. Together, they represent more than 152 years of volunteer service, a milestone rare in the ski world.
“We never planned to do it for fifty years,” Conrad says, shrugging as though half a century is the kind of thing that just sneaks up on you. Stephen chimes in, “cause if somebody's hurt on the slope, they're really dependent on volunteer ski patrol…it's not like an ambulance is gonna come get them, there isn't a number they can call.”
Backyard Beginnings
Conrad and Stephen started skiing young not off chairlifts, but on backyard hills and improvised trails long before grooming machines, snowmaking systems, or formal instruction came into the picture.
Tom recalls that he didn't ski when he was young - “my family didn't ski. My father was in the snowmobile business, so that's what we did: we rode snow sleds. By the early 70s it seemed as though being involved with skiing might expose me to a new group of people. I realized you'd see three or four ski patrollers together, and then you'd see them come out and do something worthwhile… bring somebody down.That seemed like a worthwhile way to be involved in doing some good as well as skiing.”
Conrad remembers those early days clearly. “I started when I was about 12, skiing the back hills around Westfield. We used to sidestep up the hill and ski down the track we made. None of us really knew how to ski, we learned a lot of bad habits!”
Their equipment was crude by today’s standards. “My first skis didn’t even have steel edges, and my boots were the old ankle-high lace-ups,” Conrad says. “But it was pretty good equipment for the time. ”
When he finally made his way to Big Rock as a young adult, the patrollers on the hill caught his eye. “It just looked like fun seeing the guys out there doing their thing, made me want to join them.”
He joined the patrol in 1973 in a moment that mixed happenstance with preparation. “My girlfriend was working with the patrol director, David Corvo, and she learned they were looking for new members. Dave asked if I could ski. I said, ‘Well, kind of,’ and we took it from there.”
Tom and Stephen followed a couple of years later, drawn in by family ties and the same sense of purpose Conrad felt.
The mountain needed them.
The Skills That Built a Patrol
Over the decades, each man contributed unique strengths that helped shape Big Rock’s modern patrol.
Stephen Higgins, a natural athlete and gifted skier, became an OET instructor and mentored generations of younger patrollers. Conrad, who still describes patrolling as a “passion” , wore nearly every leadership hat; including as one of the first OEC instructors,” he goes on to say. “It’s been a lot of time and work. My wife really kept the home fires burning while I was off teaching or patrolling.”
A former Patrol Director, Tom Griffin, brought master craftsmanship to the patrol’s physical space. The sunlight from the large windows, the foldable benches, the front deck, and even the wood stove that anchors winter mornings are all products of his hands.
Training in the early days was demanding. You had to pass the Red Cross Advanced First Aid course for about 40 hours and you had to ski any trail in control. Conrad explains. “Toboggan handling, lift and load patients, all of it. Honestly, it’s not all that different today.”
Tom's first toboggan run is forever etched in his memory. Tom didn’t feel ready to take someone’s life in his own hands, but Phil Harmon gave him the go ahead to take it. Tom remembers one thing from his first year, and it’s hardly a flattering story. “We’d practiced a little with an empty toboggan, but I’d only been here a day or two when a guy got hurt on the Family Trail. Everyone rushed up, and I followed. He was a big guy about 215 pounds and I was just observing as they bundled him up.”
Phil Harmon, the oldest patroller at the time, asked if Tom ever run a loaded toboggan. Tom said no, thinking that would get him out of it. Instead Phil said, ‘Good, this is a great chance for you to get experience.’ The injured guy heard the whole exchange.
They’d strapped him in, but of course Tom had only practiced with the toboggan empty—so the handles weren’t hooked. Phil told him, ‘If it gets going too fast, just throw the chain down.’ Once you do that, you can’t pick the handles back up, so you lose all momentum.
Mike Edmonds, who joined the same time Tom did, was on the tail rope. They stopped once after going over a knoll and they were not prepared. They skied right around the toboggan, Tom recalled that “Mike knocked my hat off, and I thought, we’re not showing ourselves off very well. We couldn’t push the guy uphill to hook the handles because he was too big. It was a good education.”
A Mountain That Grew With Them
Big Rock has always been a community hill affordable, beloved, and shaped by volunteers as much as by terrain.
Big Rock mainly had the Comet, Family Trail, and Waterfall. Grooming was sidestepping with your skis. They’d even give you a free lift ticket if you helped pack it after a storm. The installation of Uncle Bud’s pomalift, the Plunge, the Elbow, the Hooch, and eventually the chairlift in 1993 marked milestones in the mountain’s growth. Snowmaking and grooming transformed the experience.
The patrol itself was different, too. “We had a big group of thirty-plus people. But we had to bring the toboggans in every night. There were no stations. Every morning we’d ski them back out to their spots.”
Through all of these changes, the three men became fixtures steady, reliable, and deeply woven into the culture of the mountain.
The Calls That Stay With You
Ask any patroller about memorable calls and you’ll hear a blend of chaos, learning, and moments that settle into you.
Conrad recalls vividly a serious incident from the mid-1980s, “Someone went down the Hooch in marginal conditions, hit a stump, and blew out his hip. It was a bad one, hard to get him out. We knew it was life-threatening. He survived but never fully recovered.” Stephen nods as he recalls the same incident, when they were both on patrol that day.
But the memory that affects them most is the night they found a missing 12-year-old boy, “It was 10 to 20 below. His mother showed up in street clothes, determined to search. We almost had to restrain her, it was so dangerous. When I heard, ‘We found him,’ I went up on a snowmobile and brought him down. She didn’t know whether to hug him or shake him.”
Stephen pauses.
“That’s one I still get emotional thinking about.”
There were lighter moments, the kind that become folklore. Powder days were rare and precious, “One time, after a big storm, Gary was going to pack the snow, so we all hopped on the back of the packer. We threatened his life if he packed it before we got to ski it,” Conrad laughs, “People at the bottom said our first run looked like a Pepsi commercial.”
Why They Stayed
Remaining on patrol for fifty years is not a commitment to be taken lightly. It means freezing mornings, long afternoons, constant training, and stepping into stressful situations at any moment.
For the trio, the reasons are simple.
“The community makes Big Rock special,” Conrad says. “It’s truly a family mountain. The Pierce family treated the patrol like their own, and that’s continued through every ownership change. Seeing kids with big grins on their faces that’s what makes it special.”
What kept him personally going is even simpler, “I love skiing, I love patrolling, and I love working with the younger generation. You don’t start thinking you’ll do it for 50 years. It just happens because it’s all so good.”
Friendships are a major part of it, too. “I’ve met so many wonderful people from PhD chemists to lobstermen to loggers like me all bonded by skiing and service.”
Stephen recalls, “one memory that really sticks with me was a spring day when it was about 40 degrees and snowing hard—one of those rare warm powder days. Most of the patrol was here. I remember standing at the bottom of the Jump Trail or the Black Hole with John Milhouse and a few others. It was dumping snow, 40 degrees, and we were having an incredible time. We all remember that day.”
Tom accounts for it as if it was yesterday, “every run was fresh tracks. Light snow, warm temps—it was crazy. Just a perfect day.”
The Slow Shift Toward Legacy
Conrad, Tom, and Stephen don’t advertise their longevity, but their impact is felt. They are the living memory of the mountain, a link between the past and whatever comes next.
“We’ve had a good run,” Conrad says. “But the next fifty years belong to whoever’s coming up behind us.”
The men hope the new generation carries forward what mattered most in their era, “dedication to the skiing public, pride in representing Big Rock and the National Ski Patrol, and treating people with respect.”
The advice for young patrollers is straightforward, “Be the best you can be. Know your strengths and weaknesses. Your best defense against mistakes is training and competence. And enjoy it; this work should be meaningful and fun.”
What 152 Years Really Means
Numbers tell only part of the story. The meaning of “152 years” lies in the countless small moments accumulated over decades: early-morning coffees in the patrol room, trail checks under cold February skies, radios crackling to life, the shared weight of a toboggan, the laughter in between.
It’s found in the mountain they’ve watched grow, the team they’ve helped build, and the people who trust them without ever knowing their names.
When the lifts spin each winter morning, Conrad, Tom, and Stephen are still out there sliding onto the first chair, scanning the snow, quietly doing the work that keeps the hill running.
Some mountains are defined by their terrain. Big Rock is defined as much by the people who have watched over it for half a century.
