12/27/14 - Stevens Pass

Forecasts indicated a substantial dump of new snowfall throughout the day, heaviest in the afternoon. Resort announced their first night ops of the year. What else better to do on a Saturday but sleep in then slide through fresh snow under the lights? While folks were racing off to Crystal and Baker, we were still tucked warmly in our beds knowing our treat would come later. 8 hours later, to be exact. An early afternoon arrival put us between snow showers with 5" of new to play in. The calm was short-lived, however, and it dumped 3" between 3pm and sunset, heavy enough to drive us into the lodge to dry out before the darkness fell.

We went back out just a hair before 5pm when the snow let up for another 90 mins and enjoyed the 4-6" of wind-affected fresh snow. I even got a surprise faceshot in a pocket under Skyline. Then the snow machine turned back on in earnest and we decided to hang up the gear for the day in the hopes it would dry out before the morning. Looks like the snow will continue to fall throughout the night, but it appears that the main event is over. Which is good, based on the number of cars off the road and accidents we witnessed on our way back down the west side. A lot of emergency vehicles passed us going the other way as we neared Skykomish, I hope everyone's okay.

Soup was of the ketchup variety around 4:20pm in the brownbag section of the main lodge. It complemented today's pocket PB&J nicely and there was even a white chocolate macadamia nut Clif bar for dessert Big Chief spun for a bit this afternoon but didn't load and we heard Tye Mill was open very briefly this morning for skier compaction. Tomorrow might just be worth the early wake up call.