March 21, 2007, Heather Ridge, Stevens Pass

The telemetry suggested that Stevens Pass might have some good powder, so David and I drove up to meet David and Eric (two Davids, one on skis, one on splitboard). It was calm and fairly cold at the pass. There had been clouds in the east on the drive up but the sun rose above these as we skinned toward the radio tower, so we hurried out and did an east-facing run in "Sunlight Bowl" before it was too late for powder.

Eric on first run:


The snow was very nice, about 12 inches of cohesionless new over a re-freezing but not yet solid granular layer, with a good bond between the two. We turned around in the trees where the surface snow was already starting to get a little moist, and on the skin back up saw that a point release near the ridgetop had already set off a small slide in the new snow. We decided to head for more shady slopes to the west, and ended up doing three runs on various NW to NE aspects in the beautiful gladed forest.

David on third run:


In the morning all of the snow was loose and powdery, but by early afternoon the sun had significantly moistened the surface snow where it could reach it. The snowboarders got the whole layer of new snow to slide on a short steep ~east facing section. By the time of our final north-side run, the surface snow had become a bit moist even on shady treed slopes. It had been clouding up and started to snow lightly on our last climb out, and we weren't really looking forward to the south-facing run back to the car, but this had not started refreezing and was fine (if not great).