What you won’t see when you drive by Everett’s Mt. Pilchuck Ski &Sport is something akin to an event that took place a few years back when skiers were waiting anxiously for snow.
Co-owner Ron Downing said he took a pile of skis and rods into the back lot, got a steamroller and, in the dark, started up the engine and set off a vibration that people could feel coming up through their feet. The steamroller moved forward and Downing flipped the lights on.
And so began the sacrifice to the gods.
It started to rain. Later that day, it snowed.
“And it didn’t stop,” Downing said. “It was record snowfall (that year).”
Downing, 58, and Doug Fraser, 54, are almost ready to hit the slopes, travel and complete to-do lists at home when they retire from Mt. Pilchuck Ski &Sport at the end of December. Outside the Evergreen Way specialty ski store are huge retirement signs, as colorful as the owners.
“I thought about it for a long time,” Downing said. “I’d like to go skiing, to play golf, to travel … before I die.”
The two men have spent almost 35 years as partners at the store’s location. When they met, Fraser was at Mt. Pilchuck, “chasing his wife, Nancy,” Downing said.
Nancy Fraser works at the store along with her husband and incoming owner, Francine Long, who has worked at Mt. Pilchuck Ski &Sport for 10 years. Long is also the owner of Clancy’s Ski School.
One of the things that both Fraser and Downing will miss is the staff. Many people have come and gone, and sometimes come back, through the years. It has been good to see kids come to work and leave and watch their progress in the ski world.
“It’s been an incredible challenge,” he said.
Both Downing and Fraser have watched as customers found the store, brought in their children and now are bringing in their grandchildren to shop.
All three of Jim Finley’s children ski, as do five of his seven grandchildren. The other two are too young. The retired Everett Clinic doctor and Everett resident has been a longtime customer at Mt. Pilchuck Ski &Sport.
“I’m not retired from skiing,” Finley said.
He wandered into the store shortly after he moved to the area in the mid-1970s. Since then, he has become friends with the owners and will continue that friendship when Downing and Fraser are retired.
Finley credits the partners for helping his son, a ski racer, get deals before being picked up by a sponsor.
“They’ve been very supportive of our family,” Finley said.
During last month, lots of people have come by the store to grab sale items and wish Downing and Fraser good luck, likely sharing memories, and to donate hundreds of pounds of food for food banks. In spite of the economy and late snow, Mt. Pilchuck Ski &Sport had a record November.
For Downing, the business has been a labor of love. He didn’t expect riches from the store; he just enjoys what he does. He cautions that ski stores can come and go as the snow does. If there’s no snow one year, it can be devastating to business.
One of the smartest things the partners did was buy the property the business sits on. They rent out some of the space.
“We basically got control of our own destiny,” Downing said.
When they first opened the store, Highway 99 was a major north-south commercial route. The Everett Mall hadn’t been built, there was surrounding forest and Seafirst bank was a trailer.
“Then it became Auto Row,” Downing said.
There were difficult times, but Downing and Fraser never gave up on their business. When things got gloomy in the summers, they would host Paradise Found parties and have cookouts for 150 to 200 guests. People met and married.
“The people are what have kept us here,” Fraser said.
Downing and Fraser are selling inventory to transfer the reins to Long. They’d like to get the stock down to as little as they can by the end of December.
Ask them what they need for their business before they ski off into retirement, and you’ll get a simple answer.
“We need snow right now,” Downing said.
Christina Harper is a Snohomish County freelance writer. She can be reached at harper@heraldnet.com.
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