April 19, 2009, Stevens Closing Day

Just like last year, they are closing a mountain that has at least another 2 weeks of snowpack legs to it. But Stevens has never seemed interested in extending seasons and clearing the triple threat of FS lease, insurance rider, and rounding up enough staff to do it. Oh well.

Did see some dirt showing thru on Backside (Jupiter/Orion). Snow was sticky if not much traveled. Sometimes was even a backcountry-style untracked oversoft deep glop that needed more time to corn, and had to pull some funny stuff out of the bag of tricks to ski it, but it was still pretty fun snow. Best runs were the top half of Bobby Nancy or DD where the sun didn't hit as much, and Andromeda Face. Gut of Cloud 9 also pretty good. Good conditions for riding big but not too big slushy bumps. Shirtsleeve weather but not insane warm due to some breeze (at least while riding the chairs).

Festivities / Dummy Downhill: Well organized this year, started on time and they got through the entries efficiently. SpongeBob absorbed all adversity with his double-snowboard design and was the clear winner. Obama slowed at end and veered left. The RV wrecked and it took a while to clear the road. The Shark's lack of a hard backbone caused an early exit. Toilet exploded on compression, caused quite a mess.

Festivities / Other: Pond skim similar to last year, went on for an hour, crowd lost interest eventually. Some good costumes seen onslope, including Lizard and Cow (who were pals), a sandwich, a parrot.

Oh BTW ... the sleds have already invaded Mill Creek, and were highmarking on the burn slope and the powerline slope just NE of backside base.

Big Chief bowl was also really sweet, plenty of untracked, not too much slide debris, no one up there (they must have been too busy watchin the water ski event, good for the rest of us). Back side was cornin up nicely, I was expecting glop with the sun and high temps, but it was much nicer and skiable snow, yes Andromeda! … and the Waybacks & Corona bowl too, my Mantras were in heaven