Steven's Pass - 12/3 - 12/4

Warm-ish and sunny most of the weekend, moreso Sunday than Saturday. Thick valley fog made for slow-going on highway 2 both mornings, can't wait to shake this high pressure system and get back into a more typical winter weather pattern.

Did more hiking and sidecountry sliding than in-resort riding. Anything north facing which had avoided the sun and Saturday's winds was superb. Concomitantly found good turns in lower Rooster Cone, the northeast aspect of Highlands Bowl and along the Tye Stick end of Cowboy Ridge. By lunchtime Sunday areas receiving sun had softened-up nicely and we had good lines in Hollywood Bowl and along the ridgeline which separates Polaris and Highlands bowl.

Didn't get to exploring Big Chief or Tye bowls, as both had limited entrance options and didn't look very appealing. Never went up 7th, fearing icy moguls the whole way down. The planned lap through Grace Lakes was also shot down in favor of a round of pints at the bar and an early departure Sunday afternoon.


Panoramic of Hollywood bowl and environs.

How was exit from Highlands? The snow cover's still pretty low on the backside (alder still sticking out on the last part). Sometimes that means the parts through the forest are really awkward, particularly the couple creeks you have to cross?

I was up there Sunday for a little bit. Had late start plus fighting flu bug (plus fighting the drugs that were fighting the bug) slowed me down. Deprived me of the energy needed to do even the mild slack hikes. Otherwise I probably would've been doing a little hiking too.

As far as inbounds backside, often very icy. Better if went to areas less traveled eg Pegasus, or anything that's not really obviously a run where you just linked open areas as you came to them. Snow where softened was sort of OK spring snow. But lots of various species junk if not sun softened: froze chunks; trap crusts; scraped ice. Also a lot of rock sharks. Was much better back there before the lifts opened ... they've probably lost 10" of snow since.

Only about the top 1/3 of Highlands was worth the effort. Most of the snow in the trees was covered with pine needles and branches from last week's wind and was very crunchy and pockmarked from last week's rain event. With care you can pick your way through more open areas and find soft, spring-like snow. Coverage at the bottom is certainly low with lots of alder poking out. Care needs to be taken around creekbeds below 4k as numerous holes exist. We only had slight difficulty following the edge of a creek drainage out to the nordic trail which connects to the Mill Valley lifts. In general there are enough tracks in there now that you can follow the more traveled paths through the woods and make it out OK. Be careful if traversing back in bounds through the natural halfpipe along the Andromeda boundary as it closes-out higher in elevation than expected.