Alpine Pilot

Very true. If you can't handle being outside in the winter for up to 30 minutes during a onload/offload, and also long enough to properly preflight the plane, you probably need to rethink going to cargo. You will definitely spend at least some time outside on the ramp. When it occasionally rains you will also get wet, unless you bring an umbrella or rain coat. I happen to keep both in my truck so I have them if I need them.

In Denver if you need to warm up you can jump in the mx truck that has heaters running, you can also wait there for the loaders if they aren't out yet. In Salt Lake we have an old airport shuttle bus converted to a crew bus that you can sit in. Fortunately, even people like myself that grew up in the deserts of Southern Utah and really don't like snow, can usually handle the ramp in the winter. Just dress warm and use layers that you can shed if you need to.

I mentioned what wear before and here it is again, some of the other pilots think it's overkill but like I said I'm not a big fan of winter.

In cold weather I wear fleece lined black pants under fleece lined snow pants. I also wear a big black bomber style jacket, over a light down jacket, over my work polo. On my feet are Merrell arctic grip boots with an ice tread that can handle the ramp at Jackson, which is one of the slickest ramps I've ever dealt with because they don't treat the ice on the ramp. They basically just maintain it like an ice rink and more than once I've left a retarded coffee stained snow angel on the ramp after taking a fall. In the winter I also wear a warm Russian ushanka (made in Russia, complete with Soviet pin) on my head because it's warm and fun to wear in Idaho where people either laugh and love it (especially in Hailey), or look like they want to scream "RED DAWN!" which in turn makes me laugh.

I'm back to working on the line full time during peak, I'll be taking some pictures and maybe some video of what it's like.