Jan 14-15, 2017, Summit East

Despite repeated notice that I-90 EB would be diverted to the express lanes this weekend, I plumb forgot this morning and had to negotiate the 3-way merge making my way onto the highway. Ultimately it made for only a 5 min setback which I easily made up slicing through traffic at sunrise all the way up and over the pass to East. Pulled into the lower lot at 8:30, headed-up the hill around 8:45 and hopped in the back of a line of maybe 30-40 people right as the chair started loading at 8:50

Much to my surprise, everyone dispersed nicely once at the top, leaving lots of options available for the taking (also surprising, the chair didn't slow once during my initial ride ;D ). Took 3 laps through varying routes down the main face before heading to the Hidden Valley side for some mellow laps in the trees and a few forays to the powerlines on both edges of the boundary. Snow was a consistent 8-10" with a scratchy surface underneath, but if you kept your angle of attack mellow enough you simply floated along effortlessly. Migrated over to Rampart around 10:15 and enjoyed a handful of great laps with zero waiting. Headed to the car around 11:50 after putting in at least a dozen runs and ventured through the pass for afternoon back bowl laps at Alpy.

I don't get to say this often about Snoqualmie, but the grooming today was amazing!

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The Jan. 15th report:

Another great day of ripping around Summit East beneath mostly sunny skies with a calm breeze but temps at the bottom struggling to climb into the teens. HV slopes had received more warmth and sun yesterday and as a result were noticeably crunchy, esp. when compared to the cold, north-facing chalk accessible via Rampart & East Peak. My old (enough to qualify for the senior ticket rate) man's in town for the week so we did some "family" skiing (aka no tight trees or serious steeps) and only got mildly rad on the bumps and in the trees. He hated the carpet loader on Rampart just as much as me - so that's keeping the rate at 100% of experienced skiers/riders I know who dislike that thing. We took the crossover to Silver Fir around 1pm for soup & coffee (they're offering both Chick Noodle & Tomato Bisque currently ;D ) and did a few laps on some amazingly-still-in-acceptable-shape groomers with only mild deviation into SF's "off-piste" offerings. Wrapped everything up with a few high-speed end-of-day laps in HV, where the light doesn't get flat after 3, then skittered our way down Hyak Face to the car and were back in the city by 5:15. A fne Sunday, indeed!

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