- Winter Highlights
Sam and Sutter
If you’ve skied Bear Valley before you may have seen a black and white border collie with a ski patrol uniform. That’s Sutter and he is our avalanche rescue dog. The ski patroller you see him with is Sam. Sam and Sutter have been working together since the Fall of 2004. Sutter’s job is to find people buried under the snow following an avalanche. In the unlikely event that someone is buried, Sutter and Sam will get to the scene as soon as possible and immediately start searching the area where the person is likely to be buried. To do this, Sutter is trained to use his incredible sense of smell to locate the person under the snow. He searches the avalanche area with the direction from his handler until he locates the buried person. When he locates the person he begins to dig and bark. With the help of rescuers with shovels the person is uncovered and tended to. After a rescue Sutter is rewarded with much praise and lots of play. Sutter’s favorite thing is to play. If you see Sutter and Sam on the hill please feel free to say “Hi,” but please don’t pet Sutter because he is working.
Bear Valley Mountain Resort is operated under special use permit on the Stanislaus National Forest
