December 12, 2018, Stevens Pass

Kids these days!   With their flexible schedules Stevens was a madhouse until they skied off the 10-15" cream (cheese) by noon. Then it was no lift lines in the japanny storm. Chains required up and down highway 2 for 2wd. Great opening day, perhaps epic?

A bit more information on opening day at Stevens.
Skyline and Hogs opened late so big lines on each. They were weekend big lines. There was a ticket checker standing out in front who was checking seasons passes. We bought hours from Stevens before the Vail takeover and they did not work. We went up the service tow to a tent where a Stevens employee gave us paper tickets in exchange for a piece of ID like drivers license or credit card. If we would've gone into guest services it would've been at least a 45 minute wait. There was pretty good coverage, however there was limited grooming so everybody was crammed in. The off pisted skiing was tough. The visibility was tough. About 11:15 we took a break to see about getting the correct seasons pass and found big big lines again. I checked the ticket windows outside to see if I could at least get my drivers license back and was able to get my new pass from the ticket window lady with a minimal wait. We all three got lucky with that deal. The lines did thin out as Silas says, but we only took a few more runs and called it. Vail really blew it with this seasons pass deal. There was no advance notice that our passes wouldn't work and it was a big PIA to get it squared away. Oh yeah food prices are up, how surprising.
Visibility=0.5
Crowd=0
snow=0.5
1/3 day. So far Vail Corp. gets no stars

musta been epic if Silas had to get out and put on chains.

Chains legally required but not remotely needed, which is pretty common early season. Low clearance FWD with snow tires worked just fine. Never more than .5-1" of compact snow when I drove it.

Look for an e-mail "Pass Holder Checklist" from Stevens, sent out a couple weeks ago. Everyone seems to have dismissed it as spam. It tells you the old passes don't work.

Food is sitting out and overpriced. $10 for a tiny dish of cold fries and a small coffee. But the menus are now big fancy screens!

The crowd wasn't actually very large. Hogs just kept breaking, no one's pass worked and loading was horrid. 2-3 stops per ride seemed common through the morning. Each lap had an RFID gun failing (network problems from what I overheard).

Skyline wasn't loading until after 10:30.

Overall, eh. I guess it beats skinning?.... I'm pretty amazed Vail handled an opening this poorly, but the people working did great and got things moving after a couple hours.

Overall, eh. I guess it beats skinning?.... I'm pretty amazed Vail handled an opening this poorly, but the people working did great and got things moving after a couple hours.

From what I have seen here and on Facebook, I have the feeling my days hiking/skiing this July through early October will far surpass any day I will have at Stevens this year. Oh well, I have bigger priorities this winter like trying to get a steady job at a community college or at Boeing.