April 10, 2010 Summit West

I slept in and at 7:35 I rolled over and asked Jill if she wanted to make some powder runs for an hour or two. After visiting her orthopedic surgeon yesterday and getting a cortisone shot, her response was "hell yes I'm ready". OK buddy We assembled the gear and pulled out of the garage in Redmond at 7:50. Now that's pretty quick for a couple of seniors in our mid 60's. We are sitting on the Pacific Crest chair at Summit West at 8:40 and below us are unskied slopes with sunshine and no wind. They did groom a lot of the terrain but 360 Bowl and the upper half of the slopes off the Wildside lift were untracked. There were a lot more folks working the terrain on the Wildside lift this Saturday versus last Saturday. For 2 hours Jill and I worked the nooks and treelines and had enjoyable boot deep powder. The sun affected slopes had a soft trap layer and there were numerous headplants in evidence. Wide skis made that a non issue. The northern and western aspects were soft and powdery during our 2 hour visit.

Afterwards, we drove to Hyak and the main slopes were receiving a lot of traffic. The slopes at Central had a few lines but there appeared to be plenty of terrain availble for easy access touring when we drove by at noon.