March 1, Stevens Pass, backside closure? huh?

I made it up to Stevens today for a rare chance for me to ski this season.  The snow was pretty good, on the dense side, most of the hill was tracked out around 11am.  Except for the backside, which never opened today as far as I know.  I left at 1:30 and there were no signs of life back there.

I'm a little puzzled about the closure, there were signs saying "Backside closed for Heli Avalanche Control Work"  First of all, I never heard a Heli or a bomb go off back there all day.  Second, it was skied on yesterday with 3" of new overnight.  On the chairs, I spoke with several folks wondering the same thing, What's really going on?.  Some thought maybe they were saving the snow for the weekend.  Others thought maybe it was a ploy to save money.  But a couple thought maybe the avy danger was super bad.   I'm left wondering what really happened?   I think I'll call BS though on the Heli-bombing...   

Anyone else have an opinion?  Or an answer?

Well the heli bomb thing has precedent. A few years ago, they heli bombed the two ridgetop areas on top of Rooster Comb/Lumiere that very obviously pile up a big cap of ridge-over slab as the year goes on. That is really the only spot I can think of at Stevens that justifies paying the big bucks for a heli run. When they did bomb that I think they were a little surprised by how far down into the trees it ran. It didn't quite make the Outer Limits hairpin but got close. When they did that run couple years ago they did it early in the AM so didn't have to close anything. Maybe just a bad combo of not being able to schedule as early this time, and then their bird getting grounded cuz of viz or some other reason?

The last time they did it was March 2009. If I recall correctly, it was the Steven's pro patrol chucking the bombs but BPA paid for the heli time as they were concerned for their transmission lines in the area. The fear was that a big slide could take the out, esp. out of bounds off the backside of Steven's. The video's impressive and available on YouTube:

I was there that day and they helibombed areas for the highway as well. I believe they closed all hiking routes for that round of control, too.

I have a friend who talked to Patrol yesterday morning.   They really were planning on doing some heli-bombing where they had identified a problem in the  Fleur de Lys area.    Although that area is outside the ski boundary they have seen it go big before and funnel down and cover one of the cat tracks.    Can't say whether they did the bombing or not as it was based on weather etc.   

Thanks for the info all, I guess I'll retract my "BS call" for now. Where is the Fleur de Lys located? I'm guessing it's the area to the west above the power lines.

Thanks for the info all, I guess I'll retract my "BS call" for now. Where is the Fleur de Lys located? I'm guessing it's the area to the west above the power lines.

Fleur de Lys is the chute that is located south/southeast of the base of the two backside lifts.  Nice chute up top that opens up up at the buttom for some high speed turns. You can either get turns down to the Nordic trail or traverse skiers left on the open face and get back on the outer limits cat track.  The power lines run right under neith the slide path of the chute and it seems when ever this slides, it propergates along across the whole face right below tree line where the chute opens up.  Was not with this group, but here is TR of the area.  Nice photo of the top of the chute. 


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