Stevens 2019/2020

Lifts are turning and the grins go ear to ear.

Quick day to get the legs warmed up a bit, didn't want to mess up the next couple days. Plus, opening day is more about watching the zoo than actually skiing. Lateish start, in the lot at around 9:30 to a 3/4 full set of numbered lots (with huge gaps between cars). Lots of people, but no real lines. Longest wait might have been 5 minutes. 1-2 of which was an attempt at getting the scanner to work.

Snow was good but thin in places. Core shots were on sale, buy 1 get 10 while you free yourself, but even headwall was surprisingly nice if you were a little careful. Nothing in the groomers that wasn't easy to avoid. Everything skiers right off sky was roped off, a lot of the main sky terrain was gated.

The new brooks/sky line merger is odd, best avoided by heading right just below the park.

2/3 with the first-lift-modifier.

12/20/2019 Neutronium pow day. Any heavier and it'd collapse into a black hole. I've been known to exaggerate.

NWAC said 17" in 24h with 2" of rain at the end. Skied just like it.

Bit of a slow open, but not as slow as it could have been. Got a "DON'T DUCK THE ROPES!!!" speech before loading. Typical pow line at sky first lap (many disappointed after the first turn), but never another wait (unless someone fell off). Worst was a slow shuffle to the front, scanners still tend to be the bottleneck.

Above windy was good, the area below meadow's is still closed off. Now it's probably avy risk, might open? Good turns in headwall and off marmot. Tolerable in some spots below, but below ~4500 and the snow fairy kept pulling the handbrake on me.

Coverage improving dramatically, this was a great base builder storm.

2.5/3 mostly wishful thinking. If I believe I can make a turn in it, I can right?

Edit: Not exactly related but 2.91" of rain on the 19th (all after 3pm), 5.21" the 20th in Gold Bar. 8.12" in under 36h. Still raining.

12/23/2019

Mostly a groomer day, but my skis have no edge left to sharpen. *shrug* Guess it's getting time to retire them. Groomers were okay then less okay then too icy to carve with no edge, YMMV. Off piste was a buffet of refrozen avy debris, tracks, and cookies; sometimes something nice was around. Vis was foggy but okay for the bottom 300', mostly clear above it. Spots of really flat lighting.

Went to check out tye, which was great going down (though it still needs to fill in more) but took an extra 30-45 minutes going up. Gremlins kept me off it the rest of the day (and I think it stayed on hold anyhow). Frickin burrrrr. Second longest wait sitting on a chair. The other one was right above andromeda face so at least this was much less windy.

Ended the day with a lap down bobby chute, which was very nice. Top choke point needs a mowing, and everything accessible from sky was really bad but the snow up top was really nice.

1.5/3. Solid, meh day.

12/24/2019

Another day another groomer. Perfect vis, blue skies all day. Spent the day chasing sun. The new padded seats on Brooks are about as nice as the faster lift. Groomers did what groomers do, they started nice then turned to ice. Still a lot of dust on refrozen tracks mixed with scraped bobsled chutes everywhere off piste.

Frontside is getting into good shape, but still a low snowpack for x-mas eve. Showcase is a bit boney in the middle but oh that bottom half is just so much fun. Most bumps were cookies, ice and rock/branch troughs. The snow off Tye is still very good, but the boulders off the middle traverse are still in need of another foot or three. The top traverse is still roped off. Tye didn't even break on us today!

Started out mostly empty, filled up pretty quickly in the usual places. Got hit actually loading a chair today, that was irritating.

Maybe 1.5 to 2/3 today.

12/27/2019 handful of night laps to try out new-to-me toys. Picked up a pair of FIS GS sticks cheap. Skinniest things I've ever strapped on, whole lot of fun on an empty enough mountain. Yoda skis. Do or do not, there is no try. Conditions were typical holiday stevens night. Better than not skiing but groomers were shaved to ice, bumps and a combination thereof. Vis was good, crowds okay. 1/3 if you didn't have toys for shaved ice, 3/3 if you did.

1/2/2020 Was it the 10" that NWACs said or the 2" that stevens said? Either way, it was pow-enough. Then blue ice, then back to pow. Lots of fun, light snow but also a lot of wind during the night. I think 2" fell but looped through the meter 5 times before landing.

Day was clear vis, lightly snowing, not many people until 11-12 then not bad, and a lot of the terrain is filling in quite well.

Backside needs another foot or so to open. If this next system comes in decent, should be open by Monday! Maybe sat/sun but my pass doesn't work so it doesn't count.

2.5/3

1/6/20 Deep and thick with a slow start.

10am start, bad vis and very thick cement. Backside didn't open, tye and kehr's were late. With the number of cracks visible from the chair, that wasn't a surprise. The pass closing late also wasn't a surprise.

The snow was deep but ate a lot of skis. Speed was hard to come by, easy to lose. Except the bobsled runs on the flats, those were faaaast. Not falling was the smart move, which limits how much you're really willing to do.

Crowd was small, except for the first couple runs trying to connect anything steep enough to ride. Vis got a little better.

1.5/3. Still better than not, but actually a worse day than the rain soaked day earlier.

1/8/2020 Better late than never report.

A fine day on the frontside. Consistently mid-shin to knee deep turns, sometimes a bit deeper. Good vis, light crowd. Two downers: limited terrain (for damned good reasons) and windy knoll was really living up to it's name. Quit wind affected on the exposed western aspects. Lots of avy action through the resort. The crown on headwall ran from near the lift on lookers left to most the way down barrier.

7th was good but got hit hard pretty quickly since a lot was closed, so mostly spent the day lapping hogs since the crowds normally keep me away. Very nice snow, great coverage throughout. Just enough to make it a nice long series of lazy spaced 3-5' drops to play on.

2.5/3.

Taking today off since the backsides not supposed to open today and I haven't skied it yet this year, but the lift page says maybe it will.... grrrr..... oh well.

Hey thanks for the Stevens TR string. I'm sending it to a friend who like details before he heads up.

1/9: The backside was closed so we skinned up to the top of DD (I don't have a pass) after the flashing light was off. A couple patrollers had skied Southern Cross before us, but we found untracked snow all the way. Excellent knee deep pow - we both rated it our second best run down the backside ever. We were catching the rain crust below the pow on the steeps of the Orion face, but it improved again when meadow skipping the lower run. Groomers had laid an easy route up and out. Didn't have time for a second because of business obligations, but well worth the drive for that one run.

Cool - sounds encouraging...

6" more fresh pow this morning and the backside lifts began spinning by 10. Kehrs 6" dust skied heroic on the crust. 7th heaven accessed boulder field is much better skiing now with the extra cover. And everything on the back (except the wind blown short face Jim mentioned yesterday) was superb. Dumping all morning provided soft refills. Fortunately the visibility was good enough that even the senior set was safe from ourselves. Elan Ripstick 106 skis and Tecnica Tour Pro boots (and fresh powder snow) make bad skiers good! Tomorrow even better likely.  No more Euro and Utah fomo.

Thanks for filling in more details!

1/10/19 Please sir, can I have another? and another? And one more. Okay, three more.

nwac and stevens said nothing overnight (lies!?!), so we go started around 11:30-ish with the snow coming in very fast and basically no one there. Up and over 7th, rock garden skied mid shin to maybe knee between the bumps. Lower rock garden's boulders are perfect right now, easy to link a few of them up.

Backside was in great form, creeks at the bottom are filling in very nice. Spent most the time lapping southern, which kept having short hiccups but nothing major. Probably just people getting tired. Really nice mid shin cold snow, over and over and over. A few stashes were overhead. High powerline traverse above gemini was just silly deep. for 4 turns.

After the backside closed I took a chute to the tye bowl, which sloughed to the rain crust. Probably ran once already.

NWAC has the big red X out for tomorrow.

3/3

1/17/2020 Absence makes the heart grow fonder. And the pow deeper.

The pass is open!!!!!!!

After a week of constant refreshing DOTs page, the trees are cleared (enough) and the powerlines are secured (enough). Driving up, wow. That was a very, very busy week for DOT. Looking at the remaining trees, now I'm a bit nervous. Easily hundreds of trees got cleared, thousands left to clean up.

But anyhow, lifts loading at the now standard opening time of 9:15 (I think the manager's watch runs a little slow) with the standard 10" stevens measure (knee to waist, I know I'm short but...). Straight up and over 7th to the backside where many laps were had.

Today's write up is easy. Everything. Was. Awesome. High fives. Loud cries of joy. Drops were dropped. Light pow was slashed. Turns and turns and turns. White room all day long.

Lightish crowd that disappeared around 10:30-11 (you think I bothered looking at the time?). Vis was perfect bluebird until around 1.

3.5/3 Yes, that damned good. I am happy today.

1/21 + 1/22 2019 Useless musings of a bored, but dry, ski bum

Monday was fine groomers, small crowd, bad to okay vis and a couple inches to play on. The vis reasonably clear in terms of distance but the light was so flat you couldn't see if you're skiing into fluff, a bump, or off a cliff more than a turn away, so we stuck to the lower half. The new training park off hogs is nice. Good line of smallish jumps, a few boxes and a hip at the bottom. At some point I'll actually commit downhill sideways on a box... but for now, my hip's sore. Only real downside to this location is you can't see the entire line from the top. You're not going to land on anyone, but you might have to skip features if there's an unscheduled yard sale. Finished the day lapping Kehr's. The trees were good and the boulders at the top fun if you like flat landings.

1/3. 'Twas a day on twigs.

Tuesday... yeah, so there's confidence inspiring snow, and confidence requiring snow. This 8-10" was squarely the latter. Get at it, it's a pow day. Don't and you're gonna have a bad time. A bit of unconsolidated debris lurking around. Vis was fine, crowds were good then gone. Faceshots were possible (mouth guard optional). One ski through and the snow setup solid, so it tracked relatively fast. Looking at the telemetry, maybe the afternoon shift was a better choice?

2/3. Negative modifier due to the recent storms. If I wasn't so spoiled recently, it'd be higher.

NWAC is XXX for today and most lifts are closed, so none of what I've said matters anymore. If fri gets any depth, expect a lot of hidden debris.

1/24 I'll take my concrete right side up, thank you.

Short swing shift today. Schmidt haus is just a little low to tell the story, claiming 1". The 5" on the stakecam is a lot more realistic; it's more than that. No one at all there today, full speed hockey stop at the rfid guns type day. A few inches of soaked snow covered by a few inches of wet snow covered by surprisingly decent refills. Just cold enough to be fast. Some of my favorite conditions; increasingly firm going down into the snowpack and tiring/questionable enough to keep the masses away.

Good vis, light winds. Hogs, tye and sky were all skiing well; hogs seemed to be running a bit slow. Tye bowl was a tracked mank "base" but the refills made it ski really well. The bobsled run out was a hoot. The bowl right side of skid road (that have a name?) was light on light, but very fun fast wet pow up top and mashers below.

Even after 4pm the traverse skiers right off skyline wasn't fully in (but was in the right place!), so the pitch with the now not-so-big rock was completely untracked, knee deep goodness.

Some debris, but not as bad as I expected and mostly avoidable. Tomorrow might be great, or it might all refreeze into a coral nightmare. I won't know since it's a weekend.

2.5/3.

1/28/20 Insert witty subtitle here.

10" of reasonable snow that warmed quickly. Did some shady laps on the frontside. The transition from barrier to headwall was about 2' tall. Followed my tracks into a small drop into it... turns out, if it looks like a kicker it'll probably act like it. Threw me a good few feet above the rim going in, if not the most air I've had under my skis ever it certainly was for this year. Did the typical land the air, blow up on the first turn routine. Gave the lift riders a good chuckle, so that's nice.

Up and over 7th to the back, which was getting hot and thick fast. I think we put up with 2 laps there... Did a lap down DD/Trapper through slightly tracked but very nice powder. Maybe witnessed a divorce. Finished the day poking around in the trees, which kept good snow but I need more laps through.

Vis was good until you sweated up your goggles, small crowds that disappeared quick due to the snow.

Soup of the day was a mountain full of clumpy potato chowder.

2/3 Good day.

Yeah there was great fun in spots including some mostly untracked decent length lines that took a little effort on a semi-sketch traverse and funky cliff/tree entrance to reach that were skiing pretty well if heavily until at least noon or so. But most of the mountain sure got tracked out quickly for a weekday - perhaps the good visibility was a factor but an active small crowd seemed to be as well. And by 1PM at least a few of us aging skiers were feeling more our age than our mental images like allowing for. By that point the semi-tracked was thick chudly stuff that took a LOT of energy to ski at all well, and the groomers were mostly hard and full of microbumps that send a lot of shock up the skeleton. I did find some still soft groomer shortly after 2 on my way down the boundary edge toward the Brooks base and my waiting car (gotta love being able to ski right down to the bumper!) but at that point the snow that had started to fall was behaving more like rain once it hit any surface including my goggles and I decided it was time to take advantage of the handy ramp to the bumper.

Wednesday 29 January. Once again "you don't know if you don't go." Expecting rain at Stevens yesterday morning we found perfect soft snow falling on well groomed runs for three hours before the warming weather.

1/30/20 sun shine and groomers

Nice groomers, some sun. Went hoping it'd soften up enough to pull out the snowboard and suck for a while but it stayed cold enough to keep the groomers firm but mostly edgeable. The leftovers up high setup thick, but not as bad as I expected. Took a lot of work, and I'm too lazy. The full insanity length traverse skier's left off skid road led to 5 very nice knee deep turns per lap, and a roller coaster bobsled run through the typical debris fields.

I should be out boarding in the rain, but chores win today.

Oops: liftblog.com/2020/02/02/stevens-pass-eva...wing-tower-incident/

2/5/20 What's heavy, wet, and sticks to your skis but not to the base?

With the oh noes about a late opening and heavy snow, we were fashionably late at around 9:45. Parked ~10 cars in from the lot 3 ramp, and walked up to a just spinning sky. Work continues on fixing 7th, an excavator and two cats were onsite. Sky is unloading to the right only, with everything above headwall closed.

Vis was fine, though sky was flat as normal. Light snow that didn't quit turn clear falling all day, but melted as soon as it hit anything. Snow was on the thick side of fun, about 6" on the hard layer. Deep enough that balanced turns kept you off it. Nothing too reactive or slabby, but a heavy turn on a 35d+ slow would kick off some heavy slough. Another XXX day.

Looks like the early crowd hammered Kehr's then up DD and SC, got tired and quit. People complaining of a slow opening and high avy risk.... Strong critical thinking skills there. So everything else that opened stayed nice through the day, with below ~4.5k getting a bit sticky.

2.5/3

Yeah, a day like yesterday has to have been a kinda hard day for the patrollers. You gotta respect the effort it takes to keep the mountain open in such conditions.

"Light snow that didn't quit turn clear falling all day, but melted as soon as it hit anything." I think of that as "white rain."

Yeah, a day like yesterday has to have been a kinda hard day for the patrollers. You  gotta respect the effort it  takes to keep the  mountain open in such conditions.

"Light snow that didn't quit turn clear falling all day, but melted as soon as it hit anything." I think of that as "white rain."

"white rain", I like that.

Climbing ~1000' up with half a foot of glop in the dark with high avy risk.... to intentionally make everything under you slide. If you do it well, you get to ski an ice sheet off some serious terrain. I do not envy that. I am very grateful for it, and I'm kinda masochistic enough to want to do it but they had 15 slots and over 90 applicants this year. "software engineer with no experience or qualifications" oddly didn't rank very highly.

"white rain", I like that.

Climbing ~1000' up with half a foot of glop in the dark with high avy risk.... to intentionally make everything under you slide. If you do it well, you get to ski an ice sheet off some serious terrain. I do not envy that. I am very grateful for it, and I'm kinda masochistic enough to want to do it but they had 15 slots and over 90 applicants this year. "software engineer with no experience or qualifications" oddly didn't rank very highly.

Alpy patrol could use a few more pros. Maybe they'd be able to open the mountain on time with that.

2/14/2020 A very white valentine.

Lots of wind overnight loaded the backside making a long day for avy, but the frontside opened around 9. Got some very small chunks to crack but nothing would really propagate. Just enough to make patrol's job hard.

Knee to mid thigh, very light powder. Occasional windswept ice patches gave a split second pucker before being past them. Lightly snowing through the morning, scattered sun after about noon.

Minimal morning crowds, good vis except for above windy knoll. Flat light and windy, as standard.

Lapped sky until the 7th crowd dispersed, then headed over to check tye which was crowded so lapped kehr's until DD opened. No crowds, the trees on both side skied excellent. When DD opened, we hoped to the back and got a very nice lap down the trees before Aquarius, and down that general area. The line on SC was long, and jupiter was empty so lapped and lapped and lapped some more. After the crowds left, SC was still skiing well and Tye had a lot left with a little work.

Fresh turns all day.

3.5/3

Yes it did not such today.

We were even getting excellent long lines of wind transport refills in a few strategic spots from about 2:30-4 when we finally had to leave to get back for an event. To which my wife was slightly late but she said it was worth it 😊

The snow was on the move this afternoon so there will be fine interesting layering going on in the next few days I think out in the wild snow