The middle end of March rolled in with a storm for the ages, dumping about six feet of snow over the previous Saturday and Sunday, and it stayed cold for much of the week. After getting out the previous Saturday for a non-patrol fun ski day with Andy, I was back on duty on the 22nd and captured a few photos of the mountain looking absolutely buried. The snow stake was holding steady at about 138 inches, which is about as high as I’ve ever seen it. Someday I want to see the Boundary Pass sign completely buried!
Since we’d had about 4-6 inches of snow overnight, we decided to run the avalanche route, but my suspicions of nothing moving proved out after we ran the ridge and setup the belay to ski cut the meadow. Nevertheless, it was good to run the route because you never know what you’re gonna’ find.
It really was amazing to see all the snow at the Pass, and the backside truly was buried. When I got to the base of Peak 2 after doing the avy route, I had to snap a picture of the Peak 2 base sign nearly buried!
The rest of the day went played out like most patrol days had this season, we had a few incidents, a few sled rides, and some good turns. I snapped a picture of a few of the P2 crew in the patrol room when I came in to put the avalanche pack away, and then took the camera off for the day.
A couple of weeks later, I was back at the Pass for a day of patrol, this time with out Shaun since he ended up taking a baseball to the eye and was on light duty for two weeks. The weather was a start contrast to the month of March, and it was sunny and nice. I headed up to help open EPA and it was super icy and firm. Naturally nobody wanted to open RTS, so I volunteered. It was scary icy, and after making my way down, I ended up opening most of Twilight since the lift was having problems.
After doing equipment and weather, and stationing the sled near the end of the unloading ramp, I opened Swoosh, West Rough Cut, and Rough Cut, I headed back up to the top of EPA hoping to come down RTS and get the other runs before anyone else was able to get up Midway. My plan didn’t work out as folks topped on on the Midway lift just before I made it back to the top of EPA, so I enjoyed the view before heading down to help with the ski tests.
It had been a year or two since I’d helped out with the ski testing, and there was a slew of folks signed up for testing this year. We had about 12-15 ready to go on this day, so I headed out with Joe, Andy, Ian and jenn, and we made our way to the top of Twilight (via Midway) for a run before heading to EPA to spin a couple of laps on Eagle’s.
We put the crew through the paces, evaluating long, medium and short radius turns, as well as overall skiing ability and the ability to follow simple directions. The folks did well and we wrapped up just before Jen was done grilling burgers. Ultimately, we ended up passing 4-5 folks.
By the time we were done I was definitely hungry, and Jen’s burgers hit the spot. She was happy to grill for everyone and we were happy to eat! I snapped a few pics before taking my burger and chowing down with the crew in the patrol room.
The afternoon was filled with more sun, and it was nice to get out and make some turns with Patrol 3. I headed over to Peak 2 after lunch and enjoyed some good turns on the backside before heading up to the top at 3:30 for sweep.
Peak 2 sweep went smoothly, and soon I was hiking to EPA for upper mountain sweep. When I arrived at the top, I found Dan, Ian and Sarah all hanging out waiting for last chair.
I also snapped a few pics of Asa, Adair and Asher before we started sweep. It was just a good day for shooting some pictures with the beautiful weather.
Upper mountain, and then lower mountain sweep both went smoothly, and Toby held a quick evening meeting so we could jump in and enjoy some chips and salsa as well as some hard earned beverages. I had a cold Pale Ale from Ninkasi Brewing on the snow that I was looking forward to drinking, and that’s exactly what I did.
I hung around the patrol room for another half hour or so, enjoying the company of P3 and the rest of the crew. Eventually, it was time to head home, feeling good after having spent another enjoyable day at the Pass with good people.
