Patty Morrison ’83

Originally from Hillsboro, Patty Morrison ’83 started her collegiate career at Portland State University. She found that she was not a city person after taking so much time to commute using the TriMet bus system. She stayed through two quarters but when her high school boyfriend told her all about Southern Oregon State College (SOSC) in Ashland, she was sold and made the move.

On campus, she lived in Greensprings campus housing spring term of her freshman year. She went into the academic experience with pre-med ideas but soon asked herself “’When am I going to start liking this?’ The courses were difficult for me but I got hooked in a natural history course taught by Frank Lang that I really enjoyed so I ended up switching my major to biology,” said Patty. “Dr. Lang was really interesting and very accessible to his students. He was very easy to talk with and he took us on lots of field trips.”

Morrison had work-study and a Pell Grant to help pay her tuition, but taking a one credit class to be a counselor on a five-day hike on the Rogue River, really hooked her into SOSC’s Outdoor Program (OP). The OP Director Martha Bott, also a counselor for the same trip, invited her to use her work-study grant and work for the OP. “I really met my tribe with that invite, I learned how to raft, climb and ski, because of this group.  The OP did an annual ski swap for the entire region and when my co-worker asked me about skiing I said ‘I don’t ski’ and there was dead silence. They made sure that day, that I had all of the equipment I needed and it was off to Mt. Ashland multiple times per week after that,” she said. She skied every day of winter break that year, a total of 21 straight days.  “People in the OP were alive and fun and when you’re a broke college student and you get the keys to the toybox, that made it life-changing for me!” 

Patty graduated spring of 1983 with her bachelor of science in biology. She worked for Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife in Drain, OR, briefly, then later opted for the opportunity to ski and climb in the Jackson Hole, WY, region. She did vegetation surveys during the spring, summer and fall then skied in the winter. “All of it was not a great money maker but it was certainly a great lifestyle,” said Morrison. She also took a short-term job teaching environmental education for the Washington County Education Service District. Later, she made the move to work as a ski patroller at Mt. Bachelor in central Oregon. In the summer season she worked for Alaska Wildland Adventures guiding 12-day backcountry trips where she got to see and feel some of the most magnificent country on earth.  

One thing that bothered her was that the avalanche control part of ski patrol at Mt. Bachelor and most of the ski areas in the west at the time, tended to be male-dominated.  In 1994, she got the opportunity to do the same work at Stevens Pass Ski Area in Washington where all patrollers did avalanche control. She loved it so much and was blown away by the scenic beauty of the North Cascades that she stayed at Stevens for 29 years. She became one of the avalanche forecasters there for 15 years.  She was an active member on the board of the American Avalanche Association (AAA), for eight years.   She became a certified avalanche instructor for the AAA, as well as for the American Institute for Avalanche Research and Education. During her time as an Avalanche Forecaster, she also published a research study about the orographic effects of wind on Stevens Pass and avalanches.  She spoke about her research throughout the west. After a bout with fighting breast cancer, she decided it was time to leave ski patrol. She started the Stevens Pass Mountain Education Department, which offers multiple 3-day avalanche courses, throughout the winter season.   Now being cancer-free for the past decade, she has been managing the Water Systems at Stevens year-round, as well as being the manager/instructor for the Mountain Education Department in the winter.  The most important thing is that she still gets to do what she loves every day of the winter. “I feel blessed that I can step out my door every day in the winter and feel the crisp mountain air on my face as I ski!”

“The experience at SOSC changed my life in so many ways.  As a child, I grew up in suburbia, however, working at the SOSC Outdoor Program introduced me to my true passions.  I now live in the beautiful mountains and have had meaningful work to sustain my choice to be here.”

Learn more: Stevens Pass Ski Area