A day after eating too much turkey at Thanksgiving dinner, and two days removed from a sweet powder day on Redtop, I was stoked to be heading up to the Pass for a day of patrolling before heading on to Mt Thielsen to get some backcountry turns on Saturday. With my truck loaded down with gear, I headed out and made good time up the highway to the Pass, pulling into the parking area under clear skies. A few minutes later, I was gearing up with members of Patrol 4, along with Dan, Shannon and Brian who were also up for the day.
I knew that Patrol 4 needed some help, and with this being the first day that EPA was spinning for the public and with Peak 2 planned to open the following day, there were plenty of tasks that needed attention. The first order of business was getting gear up the lift that needed to go to Peak 2, so we dragged out several sleds, the evacuation gear, and various other equipment to the base of EPA. While we waited for the lift to spin a complete rotation, I snapped a few photos of our crew…
A few minutes later, we loaded the chair and headed up to the top under bright sunshine and beautiful blue skies. Brian and I had the first official EPA chair of the season, and took up the evacuation gear along with some carabiner boo.
At the top, we unloaded gear and readied to open the mountain. I wasn’t unhappy at all when I drew the assignment of opening RTS, and with the other runs covered, Dan joined me which afforded the opportunity to snap a few pictures as we skied down.
We skied the top safely, making a couple of ski cuts, and then I headed down to setup to snap a few photos of Dan. The conditions were excellent, and the both the snow quality and the coverage were excellent. It was hard to believe how good it was, especially considering it was still November!
After we opened RTS, we stopped at Twilight and did a gear inventory for opening before heading down to the base to get a role of duct tape that was needed back up top. That led to one more run on RTS before heading to the lodge to pull out a bunch of tower pads that needed to go to Peak 2.
We lugged all the pads to the base of EPA, and then recruited some additional patrollers to get them to the top of the lift where we staged them for mountain crew to take them to the top of EPA via snowmobile. Once we had all the pads up top, Brian, Dave and I headed over to Peak 2 to run the first avalanche route of the season.
At the top, we checked in with the lift ops and decided to each grab a tower pad and get 4 pads on the top towers prior to running the route. After stashing our packs up top, we headed down and started the work…
The snow was surprisingly good, and after getting the pads on the top towers, we enjoyed some sweet turns down the lift line to the bottom. Turns out getting a lap in before working the avalanche route was a good choice.
At the base of Peak 2, we had to wait a few minutes while one of the lift ops retrieved a couple of seats via snowmobile from the top of Peak 2, and then we enjoyed a slow chair to the top where our avalanche gear was waiting.
We quickly donned the packs, did a beacon check, and headed out on Waldo, regrouping on the ridge above June’s Run. We spent a little time showing Dave the ropes, literally, since he hadn’t run the route before, and after cutting a few cornices on the ridge, we set up the belay on the Nose. Brian belayed Dan while I snapped a few photos…
For the second belay, we had Dave on the sharp end of the rope, and he worked all the way to the end of the meadow without getting anything to go. After that, Brian and I headed down to continue working on tower pads, while Dan and Dave headed down after us to go back up and run the lower route to be sure it was controlled. At the bottom, we had to wait a few more minutes until our chair with a seat spun back around, and then we loaded the chair and headed back up.
The rest of the afternoon (about an hour and a half) was spent getting tower pads on the remaining towers, and right about 3:30 we got the last one on. Riding up the final Peak 2 chair of the afternoon, it felt good to get a significant amount of work done while at the same time enjoying some good snow with the backside all to ourselves.
As we arrived at the top of Peak 2, Brian really wanted to drop into SDN and enjoy an out of the area run back to the base, and thought we could do so in time to catch the last chair up EPA to help with upper mountain sweep. Since we were on Peak 2 with no one around, we stashed our patrol coats in our packs, climbed up to the top of the ridge, and dropped in. The upper turns on SDN were fun, the down in the trees there was a pretty good crust, and by the time we got to the bottom we were all second guessing our decision. After getting stuck and having to hike a short bit since there wasn’t an out track yet, we finally made it to the bottom of RTS and then down to the base just in time to catch the lift to head up for sweep.
Once sweep began, I decided to take advantage of the setting sun and shoot a picture of the beer I planned on enjoying a little later after we were done for the day, which was a tasty Crux Stout from the Crux Fermentation Project. Additionally, it was just Joey and I remaining up top, so I asked him for a favor and he obliged, and took a shot of me with the sun setting over Diamond Peak from the top of EPA. It turned out great….
After the quick photo shoot, I headed down Success and cleared the run, and then down By George when lower mountain sweep started. While waiting to meet up with the crew coming down KP, I snapped one more picture of my beer.
A few minutes later, it felt great to get out of snowboard and ski boots and enjoy a cold beverage in the company of fellow patrollers. I hung around for a half hour or so, and then headed out. At the exit, I was stoked to be turning left instead of right as normal, and made my way towards Mt Thielsen in anticipation of a great day of turns the following morning. All in all, this was a great day at the Pass, and by far my best ever patrol day in November! Here’s a parting shot from the day of our crew in the morning.
