December 21, 2018 Stevens Pass

Since our return from CO and MT, the snow report of 7" overnight seemed great. I had my Epic Pass and walk around the Plaza and found a worker that scanned the Epic Pass and I could start riding lifts. There were 2 long, long, long lines for getting your season pass or buying a lift ticket. The lift area got rid of the moving arm to move into the lift area. They use the Vail/Epic system and have one or two workers with the handheld device scanning around your jacket where you probably have you pass. It works. Jill and I were in CO for a couple weeks of powder and packed powder and all the Epic resorts have the same system. You will probably notice a similar style on the Epic resort websites.

No lift lines for the 90 minutes and the folks started arriving at 11am. The 7" overnight was noticeable in the ungroomed areas. The areas the packers worked on had a breakup of yesterday's frozen rain. So the groomed areas had a feeling of some "broken icy cubes". The ungroomed areas had a nice powder feel but it some areas it was hit by wind. Certain areas had lots of tree stuff. After 2 hours, it was time to get home a due the Xmas items.

We found the trees had our best snow today. Five untracked runs in 16" powder on the south side followed by a couple on the north side before lunch and then south side packed powder and one boottop powder run in the trees after lunch. Untracked snow in open slopes usually had a freezing rain shell from yesterday. Country club size crowd was pleasant.