February 14, 2004, Heather Ridge

Upon reaching the top of stevens pass, we decided to stay there and bail on our original destination (Cannon Mtn couloir), because the weather was worse that expected, and the snow had been coming down hard since the town of Index.  We figured it might turn out to be another "very wrong forecast" day, like that day in December.  3 inches had already accumulated, and maybe more was in store, and maybe there was still good snow on north slopes.

Well, the snowfall stopped soon after, and everything that had seen direct sun was horribly crusty, but the shaded-by-trees areas on the way up indicated good snow would be found.

And it was - the conditions were much better than expected, no crust on north aspects, and no tree bomb damage in the old growth.  We lapped a section of the north bowl, exploring a little new terrain.  On our third run, it was obvious that things were warming up - the new snow on top was wet - I think the thin clouds and filtered sun were warming the north slopes too.  But the skiing was still very good.

The snow new (3-4 inches) was poorly bonded to the old snow, and sloughed off very easily on steeper sections.

We skied out to the PCT, and lower down the snow was still quite dry (cold air pooling in the valleys?), until we rounded the ridge to the east-facing slope above the highway, where it started balling up on our skis.