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Stevens Pass 12-18-11

frapcap

Member
Joined
Mar 24, 2011
Messages
364
Points
16
Steven’s Pass

Packed powder, little powder, granular

Snow/rain mix. Excessive fog

45 degrees and climbing


My least productive day was at Stevens. I’m glad that I saved this place for last as it was the least technical and tough of the mountains I visited. A lot of the terrain was closed due to fog. The 7th heaven peak chair was shut down. I tried skiing on the front face of the mountain but visibility was, at best, 20 yards at any given time. The place was packed with people and some out of control, cute (but to young for me) girl slammed into me from behind. She didn’t even offer a reach around.



I got aggravated with this and made my way to the back bowl which was 50% open. There was a lot less fog, but the snow was hard packed and wind blown. Skiing in the trees wasn’t very much fun and the top 1/3 of the bowl was a sheet of ice- a far cry from the conditions the past two days. The locals said it had gotten hot the previous day (50 degrees) and when the cold came at night, just left hard snow on the mountain after it froze again.



I mostly skied in the mill valley, with only 1 of 2 lifts operating. Again, the top 1/3 was hard, windblown snow, but after that, it got better and more enjoyable. I did a lot of traversing to get to spots that hadn’t been skied in a while. This was mostly a practice day, little drills here and there, and I helped some small child find his parents who had accidently left him on one of the runs. WHOOPS.



In all, I ended up leaving earlier than close time and wandered around Seattle, Fremont, and Ballard more before going to the airport. The bridge troll no longer has a VW bug in his hand. Bummer.

Sorry, not many pictures because there isn't much to see.
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