The snow came for real last week. Randy and I took Friday off to ski the lift area at Stevens Pass. The day before we worried that it had stopped snowing too early in the day and that the runs would all be tracked out even early Friday morning. No need to worry. Plus the sky was bright, sparkly blue.
We got to the lift area right when the lifts opened. We took a couple warm up runs down the groomers then skied a double black diamond run from the top of the Seventh Heaven chair. We were pleased to find that the snow was still quite soft even though the run had been skied the previous day. After that run we found our friend Mark, with whom we often ski in the backcountry.
We spent the whole day skiing on and off piste, mostly off. We skied the backside until the snow got too crunchy then skied the rest of the day on the front, still finding pockets of unskied powder off-piste, especially in the trees. It was a glorious day. We ended on tired legs.
On Saturday Randy decided he needed to work to catch up on a project so I opted to go back to Stevens Pass and ski the nordic area by myself. I had borrowed some skinny skis from a friend and was anxious to try them out on a groomed track. Unfortunately the weather was horrible. The conditions were pleasant enough in the shelter of the trees but in the open the wind blew hard, it was snowing, my face was pelted with snow. Ow.
I was just about to turn around and give up after about 3 km but I saw some intrepid biathlon racers coming my way with their heads down, pushing hard into the wind. They were dressed in thin racing garb. I can only imagine they were more miserable than I. Somehow that thought was comforting and gave me determination to ski on. Besides, I had nothing else planned for the day so I decided to ski on in the conditions I was given rather than face a largely boring day.
After the biathlon competitors turned off the main run to shoot at targets, I went on alone. Snow drifts covered the track but it was clear where the trail went. I pushed on and on until finally I was back in the shelter of the woods. Better. Much better. At least the wind couldn't get me even if the snow was a little deep.
I popped out of the woods again and saw the chairlifts of the ski resort right in front of me. Above me I heard whooping and hollering. A few snowboarders came down the hill and had to boot-pack (i.e. walk) back up to the lifts. It wasn't far. I skied along until I reached the end of the trail, marked by a 7.5 km sign, which was just below the lifts. Then I turned around and had a glorious tail wind pushing me back to the woods.
In the clearing about halfway back I came across another intrepid skier, determined to ski all the way to the end in spite of the snow pelting his bare face. He tripped over a drift and fell to his knees but got up and skied on. I barely had to work on the way back in the open because the wind pushed me so hard. Then I came to the final stand of trees. The wind died down so I had to work to finish. It took half as much time to ski the final 7.5 km back than it did to get out there in the first place.
On Sunday we got up to snow in the front yard. I thought the conditions were going to be as miserable as the previous day plus the avalanche danger would be high in the backcountry so we planned to stick to skiing in the trees rather than on open slopes that might be prone to avalanches.
Again, back up to Stevens Pass — this is probably the only weekend I've ever driven through Gold Bar six times. We popped over the pass to find more bluebird skies. Nice. Plus we were the first new car in the parking area. There were a bunch of vehicles covered in snow. Obviously the drivers had camped somewhere out there.
Randy was full of energy so he broke trail through fresh snow. The track from the previous day was obvious but it had filled in. We skied up the road until the first switchback, where we cut through the forest to the upper section of road. We skied that for a ways until we found the uptrack through the trees to near the top of the ridge. Randy spotted the campers tents in the trees. It probably had been a nice campout.
Eventually we saw the campers. They were part of an avalanche safety course. Apparently there were a few groups out there learning about avalanche safety. While they went through the exercises of snow study, beacon searches, probing, and digging, we skied up and over the ridge. There weren't any snowmobilers over on that side (unlike the previous weekend) but we decided the slope wasn't worth skiing given that we'd have to cut a track back up to the top. So we opted to ski the treed slopes on the same side we had come up. Our first run was the same run we did the previous weekend on our way out from Jove Peak.
The snow was pretty nice and it stayed put on the slope (which we expected because it was anchored by a forest). We skied 4 laps — 700 feet down to the road then back up the skin track, repeat. We thought about skiing it a 5th time but the skin track was getting too slippery — it was hard to stay upright on the steeper parts. And the snow in the sun was getting crusty and heavy. Our final run was quite steep and nearly in the open but well anchored on both sides. The snow was still fluffy in the shade so I spent much of the run in there. The final pitch was on a slope that had been logged several years earlier, which made the snow more exposed to the sun. Turning was more difficult. When we got to what had been the beginning of our uptrack we decided to call it a day and skied down all the way to the bottom. At the end of the day we had skied nearly 4000' of vertical. And this on my third day in a row of skiing. I was pleased that my legs weren't entirely noodley, i.e. I still had enough in me to make the drive home.
The pictures are from the nordic area and the backcountry on Saturday and Sunday.