April 9, 2010 Stevens

I was ready to head for Crystal when some ski friends had to cancel. It was a real hard decision as to where to go powder skiing today. Many of us find this type of decision maddening when we have tons of data to review. Jill had a doctors appointment so her brief comment was "stop starrying at the same computer screens and go skiing". I arrived at Stevens at 8:25 knowing it would be easy to find my ski buddies on the mountain. WOW, the place was busy. The line for Kehr's chair extended to the old lodge. I made some temporary new friends near the front of the quad and headed for Tye and the backside. There was 6" reported overnight but the backside had a lot deeper areas due to yesterdays high winds. I found my buddies at the base of Southern Cross on the first lap. They're very predictable "snow sluts". It was easy for a short period of time to ski fresh lines but eventually the crowd arrived on the back and so did the sun. We headed to our stashes and and enjoyed the peace, quiet and deep powder runs in the trees. The crowds disappeared by 11 on the backside. At 1pm, I made my last untracked run to the road and found a 6 foot snowbank shaved by the snowblower that I had to descend. We ski cut a southfacing bowl which slid about 100 feet and left a one foot crown. Other than that, everything we skied was soft, deep and stable. My last day at Stevens this season was wonderful.

Thanks for the report, Zap. I too couldn't decide btwn Crystal & Stevens. Went Stevens due to easier transportation, and a forecast of more snow and less wind.

It did get skied out as you said. There were some lines off and on like you said. But on Fridays in March where we had the same conditions, it was way way more crowded. Maybe people got their powder dump pent-up demand fulfilled in last few weeks so don't feel as compelled to head up when there's new snow. Or maybe they see April on the calendar and blow it off, despite how good conditions might be.

More for the rest of us. : o )

Had a terrific day at Stevens yesterday!  I was expecting white-out conditions, and instead got spectacular clouds and bursts of sunshine.  Oh yeah...the snow was not bad either.

Unfortunately, this is NOT telemack writing, but his wife Lisa, because he has his right arm in a cast--"skier's thumb", which has temporarily put his turns on haitus.  He was very gracious about my leaving him home...nary a grumble to me, so his TAY friends should give him praise for social niceties.  He did go climbing yesterday, so I don't expect him to be out of commission for long.

The pictures above are terrific, and capture the essence of our day. 

Lucky me/unlucky me
I took the day off and was there about 20 back for first runs on backside /Darn I woulda like liked to say hello but we were all so busy !We burned out around 130.