Saturday, April 11th was slated to be the final “patrol” day of the 2025-2026 ski season, and though the mountain wasn’t open and there wasn’t any skiing to speak of, it looked to be a fun day of pulling gear off the hill along with hanging out with fellow patrollers. I made plans to head up to the mountain with Dan, and we loaded our ski gear in his truck just in case there was an opportunity to get turns. Our motivation, in addition to getting the gear off the hill and to see folks we hadn’t seen during the year due to the lack of patrol days, was to be able to possibly make some turns on Peak 2 depending on what the conditions looked like.
We arrived at the Pass a few minutes before 9:00 am, and quickly divided up into multiple teams to be most efficient with the day’s work. I headed up the Midway lift with Hutch, Dan and a few others, and within an hour or so we were able to pull all the pads off of both lifts and drag them down to the nearest access road so the mountain ops could pick them up with the trucks.
Next, several of us headed up to the top of EPA with the goal of pulling gear from the top lift shacks there and also at Peak 2. Dan and I headed up in his truck (with ski gear along for the ride), and followed the Pass truck full of a few other patrollers to the top.
Driving to the top of the Pass is always fun, but driving to the top in early April means only one thing – it was a very unfortunate snow year. Once at the top, we pulled all the gear from the lift shack and bump shack, and loaded it into the back of the pickups. Ironically, the skies clouded up and it began to snow hard for 10-15 minutes.
Once we had all the gear from EPA loaded, we headed over towards Peak 2. After getting parked and situated, we pulled gear from the top of there. After a bit of persuasion, I was able to convince the lift op that it would be best if they fired up the lift and let Dan and I ski down and get the patrol gear from the shack at the bottom.
Stoked that our dream of lift-assisted turns were about to be realized, we grabbed our gear, donned ski and snowboard boots, and stepped into bindings to drop in. I headed down first, and captured several shots of Dan as he headed down.
We worked our way down Northern, and then per usual for late season conditions, we headed skiers left to farm some turns down Down Under. The turns were surprisingly good, and we made the most of our “free” lap on the backside.
From Down Under, we skied the lower half of June’s Run, and then worked our way over to the lift to finish out the turns down to the bottom. There were quite a few obstacles on the lower half of the run, but both of us were pretty happy with the turns.
We were able to milk the turns all the way to the lift, having only to walk the last 1o feet or so to the lift shack. It was awesome to have the entirety of Peak 2 all to ourselves, and we snapped a few photos at the bottom before getting to work.
A few minutes later, we had the gear pulled out of the lift shack and secured on the chair, and I radioed up to the top that we were loaded and ready to go. The lift started a minute or so later, and we were on our way back to the top. On the ride up, I was able to look back at our turns from the chair and snap a few photos, including the shot below.
At the top, we unloaded carefully and then unloaded the gear that was loaded on the chair behind us. Once everything was in Dan’s truck, we headed back over to EPA and then readied to head down to the base. Dan dropped me off at the top of the tree farm so I could get a few more turns (and picked me up at intersection of KP and Lower Rosary down below) and then we drove the rest of the way down to the base. The turns along the ribbon of snow on the tree farm were run, and I was able to slide most of the way to where Dan picked me up.
Once at the base, we unloaded the gear from the truck, and headed over to the grill, where Jon Ewing was cooking up salmon burger (with bacon) for everyone to enjoy. They hit the spot, and paired nicely with my tasty beverage for the day – a smooth drinking Poolside Blonde from LaQuinta Brewing Co. that I’d picked up a few weeks earlier while vacationing with the family in Palm Springs.
A bit later, we had all the work of cleaning up the patrol room complete, and to cap off a good day we got a group shot for the patrol newsletter before departing for the day. Laurie (I think) snapped the photo of the crew, and that was a wrap for a fun April day at the Pass and (thankfully) for the unremarkable 2025-26 ski season.
Until the snow flies next season and we return with our crosses and red coats, below are a couple of shots from the day!
