April 18, 2010, Stevens closing day

Well, hell, since no one else is going to write it up, I guess I will for those that don't know because they didn't go.

Definitely a fun spring day. The warmest day of lift skiing I've experienced since May days couple years ago at Alpy. For the most part the snow behaved well so long as you were not on a green run below 4500 feet (in those cases the snow was supersticky). Still had great coverage front and back (a lot of good that does them now ...) Lots of places to find prime slushbumps. Best snow IMO Cloud 9 side 7th, and Tyemill. Lost some sunglasses on Little Tree last run, doh!

Biggest disappointment was that apparently the buzzkill king of all assholes had vandalized the liners in the pond skim pond overnight, such that all the water drained out. I talked to one of the 'lifeguards' - they had tried to repair and then get a firetruck tanker load up there to refill, but the high pressure hoses wrecked the repair again. So, no pond skim. Damn shame. They had dug the thing DEEP, 6+ feet, to make sure that liner tears wouldn't have happened during the event. It would've been awesome.

Dummy downhill was OK, somehow not quite as fun as years past. Best audience participation event may have been when a dude with a convincing Batman costume rode by the dummy track on the Bigchief chair. (Well, it was convincing except for fact that the costume consisted of mask, cape .... and nothing but a black Speedo.) Rather spontaneously the assembled unruly crowd of Justice League haters decided that Chippendales Batman deserved a Speedo full of snow, and the entire lineup along the hillside pelted him and his hapless uncostumed female sidekick with a veritable barrage of snowballs.

Costume watch: Uncle Sam playing a banjo (I'll try and put a screengrab up later); a dude that had attached about 100 Beanie Babies to himself, like a mobile midway prizewall; a salmon (my fave); a cheeseburger.

Lots never filled up but was close. Temps warm, occasional wind in places.

Stevens should be a fine dawnpatrol destination for next few weeks. Hopefully they will do what they've done in years past and rent the board park out for filming, and thus have some watchful eyes out on the hill to keep rogue snomos from tracking up the entire frontside.

Good report, Wolfs---except for the mental image of the Speedo. :
I wish my thumb had been working; I would have gone up for sure. We did some cragging at Exit 38 and I climbed with a cast on.
Did you say someone had purposely damaged the pond liners??? argh
Maybe I'll hit the area for May Special Olympics turns.