Mobile Pass launched at all 36 of Vail’s owned U.S. resorts for the 2023/24 season. Guests activate their pass in the app, keep their phone in a pocket, and the gates read it as they walk through. The app also tracks on-mountain stats like distance using GPS, and handles lessons, gear rentals and the My Epic Gear membership, which launched at 12 resorts for 2024/25.

Every failure here happens in public. If a gate missed a pass, a skier got stopped in the lift line. If stats or location tracking drifted, the app told people the wrong story about their day. And if a lesson or rental booking broke, someone showed up at the mountain without what they paid for.

We tested the app and the hardware together. At Breckenridge, we worked with the dev team and walked through the lift gates with phones and cards carried where skiers actually keep them, at different speeds and cadences, alone and in groups. We wrote test cases and documented everything.

Lift access

Gate scans by carry spot, speed, cadence and group size

Stats tracking

Distance and other on-mountain stats

GPS & location

Geolocation across the mountain

Bookings

Lessons, gear reservations, pickup and drop-off

Functional

Features and flows across the app

Visual

Design reviews against the designs

Regression & smoke

Existing features still worked after each release

My part was one piece of a larger team. I tested the My Epic app and the lift gates on the mountain, wrote test cases and documentation, and worked alongside the dev team.

1. 01Walked the lift gates at Breckenridge to test hands-free scanning
2. 02Tested lesson and gear bookings, pickup and drop-off
3. 03Wrote test cases and documentation for new features