John Metrione

It started in 1978, when they were building the triple chair. I was twenty-three. I worked for Joe Pinski. I think Mac was the head carpenter, but Joe ran most of that whole project. Jimmy Hoxter was there, and he was pretty young too. Idaho was there, and Steve "Cobweb" Theisen. It was a whole slew of people I'd just met. George would bring Margie up now and then. I think that was before they were married.

Here's a little secret about the triple. When we poured the walls of the terminal, we had vibrators down in between the rebar to settle the concrete, and one of them got stuck. We couldn't get it out, so we cut the hose and left it. It's still in there. The front wall, I think.

Then it got cold. Me and another guy on the crew, Jim, had the job of cutting firewood and keeping a fire going inside the terminal, right around where the loading ramp is, to keep the walls warm while the concrete cured. We did that for about a week. You'd work all day, and then you'd be out there all night till morning, keeping that fire going.

Fritz Schmutz was there from the lift company. I remember he played something like an accordion. I've got a picture of him somewhere, from when we were splicing the cable.

The towers went in by helicopter that October, and we worked all the way into November. We had a nickname for George on that crew. We called him November George, because he always waited till November to get a lot of the important things done, right when the ski area was ready to open. They load-tested the chair a few days before Christmas, with the Forest Service up there watching, and it opened that Saturday.

That first winter I went to work in the Hole in the Wall Saloon, in the old lodge, and in the ticket office. Mark Miner, Micky Rat, had tended that bar a little before me, and he and I worked it together. One of Ted Cogswell's boys, Ted, bartended with us too. He was really into running. He'd get dropped off in Neihart, or sometimes even Monarch, and run up the pass, and then work his shift.

There's a picture of me behind that bar in 1978, with the price board on the wall beside me. Forty cents for a glass of beer. My hair was a little long, and there wasn't any gray in it. Lyle Cigler says that's how it went when you were new up there. You met Johnny K in the Cook Shack, and then you met me in the bar.

I bartended full-time until maybe '86, and part-time after that. By then I'd gotten a fairly steady winter job with the Forest Service. Showdown was closed Mondays and Tuesdays, so I worked for the Forest Service those two days and still tended bar the rest. I think '88 was my last year. Damn near ten years behind that bar. Jim Tice came on after me.

I stayed with the Forest Service the rest of my career. In 2005, when Showdown got the go-ahead to replace the old Poma with a beginner chair, I was the Forest Service's contact on it, at the Belt Creek district in Neihart. The last ten years or so, administering Showdown's permit was my job.

We'd have inspections, and the people from the regional office would come up, and they always talked about how good Showdown was. The reason, and I've told George this, is they held on to Joe Pinski all those years. Joe did everything. That's what made Jimmy Hoxter so good, too. Jimmy learned it from Joe. He was there when we put the triple in, and he's still there. He's tied every wire, every harness and every sheave on those lifts. That's what makes Showdown different from a lift inspector's point of view. It's the same people, all those years, and the records they keep.

In June 2018 a group of regional Forest Service people came up for a training day in the lodge, and I led a meeting. That August the double chair got a new motor, and I was on hand for the load test, with George and the others. This time I was the one watching for the Forest Service.

I retired in 2020. Kathy and I have two boys, and we're still down the road in Monarch.