April 28, 2019, - Stuart Cascadian/SE Shoulder

Went up the Cascadian and down the SE Shoulder yesterday. Plan was for Ulrichs, but we got shot down by weather. The day started out with perfect, windless bluebird skies and switched to a low cloud deck with few openings around 11 and then light snow by noon. So, we bailed at the top of the Cascadian, which was firm and had a bumpy, refrozen surface, and skied down the SE Shoulder, which gets more direct sun and was pretty smooth, but still firm. The run back down from Longs Pass to the sleds was quality corn. I'm posting this mainly to provide beta for anybody considering skiing Stu right now. Snowpack on Stu is lower than normal this year. There is currently no snow from Ingalls Creek to about 200' below the Cascadian, so you gotta walk that section both ways if that is your objective. Same with the SE Shoulder. Ulrichs gets less direct sun, so that would probably still go top to bottom for a bit longer. There was even some dirt walking going up/coming back from Longs, which was a first for me. The road is still blocked about 4 miles before the end, but that will probably be only 2 miles by next weekend as there were mostly just patches blocking the first couple miles.