May 28, 2005, Stevens Pass, Cowboy Mountain

After reading all of the big mountain descents from the past weekend, I could nearly get trip envy. However, given the nature of life with small kids/business/wife attention, there is still room (and snow) available for little shots, as well.

I'd been eying the east-facing snowfield on Cowboy Mountain via the Stevens Pass webcam for about a week, and informed the missus that "I'm going up on Saturday; be home by 10:30 AM." She always sniggers, since she thinks the addiction is a wicked necessity, so she said, "Sure; I'll bet!" Out the door at 4 AM, and in the parking lot at 5:30 AM. The only sounds interrupting the birds and creeks were the sounds of Seattle, en masse, racing to get the last campsite at Lake Wenatchee. They'll never learn; the time to travel is NOT on the biggest holiday weekends of the year, but, instead, during SeaFair!! Anyway, a nice hike up into the basin, and onto the snow in 1.5 hours. I decided against the skins, since I'd only be on snow for 20 minutes. Bootpacked up to the top of the farthest left "couloir" in the webcam screen, and mined 400' of vert twice on some relatively nice snow! I love skiing tight shots, because of the finesse factor, and corn just finesses it that much sweeter! Anyway, back to the car by 9 AM, munched on a can of sardines, plugged in 'Mother Love Bone' at high volume, and rolled into the driveway at, you guessed it, 10:30 AM on the nose. Enough time left to take my boy to see a jazz show in downtown Edmonds during the afternoon, and attend the 15th Annual Crawfish Boil, invited by fellow TAY'er Dave Metallo, also the proud new papa of Elias Charles. In this winter of our near-discontent (thank god for late season freak storems!), finding good snow below 6000' on Memorial Day weekend was a taste treat! ;D :D 8)