Had expectations and visions in my mind of skiing lots of fav lines…Didn’t work out that way. Front side early had a fog bank lifting and lowering up to at least the top of Hogsback, groomers were smooth but definitely on the icy firm side, also pretty cool from what wind was blowing. Headed over to Tye Mill, looked promising, but once we got to the top we could see clear filtered sun in Mill Valley. Spent a while doing the new Jupiter Express (nice soft seats for old folks, better than whats on all the lifts front side), nice quick chair running fast (all the lifts were running fast, faster than Crystal anyway), more sun, more warmth, nice rides up Southern Cross. But early on the only skiable areas were on the groomers, off piste was a cut up mine field of ski trenches (apparently left over from Sunday sometime – heard tell it started raining around 4pm on Sunday, all night and then Monday was a blizzard of wind and nasty conditions with most lifts shut down). It was getting pretty grey with less and less sun till around noon. So we had an early social lunch while the clouds blew through and the sun got brighter. Back over to Mill Valley and life got better. Found (re-found) Orion run, had been groomed at some point in the last number of days, sun was warm, the slush was getting deeper. It was the run that saved the hamster day and a very nice sunny afternoon seeing big white peaks all around.
Other – Soup in one of the bars was Ched Broc (its everywhere). Crowd was pretty light, no real lift lines. Parking lots ? Who knows, lots everywhere, cars in many of them, but none full other than the A lot where we were parked closer than I ever get to park at Crystal. Bad things – the drive up this morning was okay but long (saw a number of Bald Eagles in the morning and also on the drive down). The drive back down is definitely a 0 on the new suck-o-meter scale, thankfully the car pool lane helps, but it was painfully slow on highway 2 the closer to Monroe you get. Glad I don’t drive up there very often. Lots of good things at Stevens, but it needs at least 2 or 3 feet of snow that is not rained on. Maybe next time, or in the spring if we get any snow before than. I do like the back side on a sunny warm day. Lookin forward to going back home tomorrow, with all the free kids under the age of 10.
