April 14, 2015 Stevens

A first for Jill and me this season – skiing in WA and on a powder day and driving our new Subaru Outback in the snow. It is the small things that get us old folks excited. There was 3” overnight, it was still cold and the storm clouds were heading for the pass. Dave P carpooled with us and when we arrived at the parking lot we decided that we didn't want to park at the end of the lot. So we made a new parking space near the entry steps. Very nice. We got our free lift tickets (loaded for 3 days) using our Timberline Powder Alliance Fusion passes and skied down to the lift gate; the lift tickets did not work. OK, we went around the blue net fence a couple of times and then went up to get a new tickets. They had given us 2015/2016 passes/tickets that did not work and had to reload them for this year! Jill and I skied around the Skyline Express, and Dave P skied 7th Heaven for a couple runs – he's younger than we are. The groomers worked on 5 trails that made the morning fun. Skiing the trails had good coverage and no rocks. It was a strange day – there was sun and blue sky, cold temperatures with wind, snow flurries, repeat. There were no crowds and no lift lines, except when the lift stopped for awhile. When we left the area it was sunny and snowing lightly, and as we dropped to 3500' it was snowing hard. The road was snow covered until we got to about 1200'. It was winter conditions with fresh snow and the Subaru was fun to drive.

You must've left before the free refills went into effect - 4" new in the afternoon at pass level, but not much more than that at the top. With the cold temps and bitter wind it felt like a mid-winter day and that was complete with the jackknifed truck blocking the highway just before Deception Falls on the way home. Fortunately WSP arrived in a timely fashion and directed traffic around the mess - not sure how it even happened since the road was just wet where the truck spun out.

Leisurely strolls along Cowboy Ridge were rewarded well today. Watch out for the sharks in Rock Garden.