February 22-23, 2003, Stevens/Snoqualmie

As most of you know from experience or reading this board, the skiing this weekend was very good.  Spent Saturday skiing near Stevens Pass in deep, faceshot every turn powder (we are tele skiers so this is a little easier, but it was excellent by any measure).  Watching the snowpack transition from our starting point near 3000ft to close to 6000ft was quite interesting.  The skiing got significantly better between 4500ft and 5000ft, going from wet slab to a stable density profile powder.  We heard whomping and settlement around 4500ft, due in part to the low angle wet wind slab we were on (perhaps on lower density snow that fell Thursday, loaded with rain/wet snow Friday?.. we never did take the time to properly investigate this) and the ski down produced shooting cracks on steep isolated road cuts.  Never did get anything to go though, even in places we thought would.  Above this we were evidently above Friday's snow line and the skiing consisted of deep treed powder and many smiles.

Sunday was spent skiing the backcountry near Alpental ski area.  Beautiful sunny weather most likely left a sun crust on anything receiving significant heating, but strengthened the snowpack.  There were strong east-southeastly winds (from the east/southeast) creating wind pack on the east facing slopes far above Source Lake and Kaleetin, Bryant, Chair, ect. had lots of spindrift blowing off their summits.  The skiing at and below 4000ft at Snoqualmie Sunday was an order or two of magnitude better than the same elevation at Stevens Saturday.