"A foot of snow in the past 3 days!" It sounded too good to be true, but having a mid-week day off with freshies up at the Hood - who could resist?
Arriving at 8:30am to see only a few rows of cars, I thought it would be epic! Then I got out of the car and realized it was r**ning. "Well, maybe its just drizzling a bit here in the lot...I'm sure its blower pow up high!" Then I saw the liftie with his yellow rain slicker on, holding the long-handled squeegie for clearing the deluge off the chairs. Again, I was optimistic, "Well, at least the coverage is better now, and soft snow is always fun!"
I jumped on a groomer off Hood Express, hoping to get a taste of what looked like awesome untouched powder just around the corner. Then I hit it...the new stuff...the "untouched." My skis nearly stopped in their tracks, but my body kept on a goin'. It was over the handle bars for me, and I had a nice upclose look (faceplant) of all 11 inches of that wet sloppy toothpaste. I spent the next coupla' hours hunting for colder snow on north facing aspects. Above about 6300' was pretty fun and still somewhat lighter, but the lifts today topped out at around 6500'. No Cascade Express. No Vista Express. And the rain increased as the morning went on. I called it at around noon, once my Gore-Tex was soaked through and I considered the merits of owning goggles with automatic wipers.
I'm thankful for the new snow though. It would be great base-building stuff if it were still early season.
