Feb 10, Summit Central (and skin laps at East)

Yanna was teaching kids to ski at Central yesterday afternoon, so I headed up with her. We got in an hour on the lifts before class started - pretty OK groomed corn conditions on Central Express runs. When she headed to class, I headed to Hyak/East for some exercise. The snow was a bit firmer/crispier there, but still very edgeable even if a bit noisier. After a few laps on both front and back (where I had the mountain entirely to myself for the afternoon, all the better to enjoy the very beautiful changeable weather), I headed back to Central to ski another hour or so with Yanna before we opted to bail after one too many hard-ish rain squalls, though the snow was staying quite nice throughout, particularly on the upper mountain (it was a bit firm and fast on bottom). All in all pretty good and mostly rain-free fun!

There was a black skeleton of a burned snow cat with a rope line around it and lots of blackened snow at the bottom of the first pitch of the Alpine run at Central. Must have been an interesting event!

You are one tough guy. I have noticed a few words that I enjoy: "a bit firmer/crispier, very edgeable even if a bit noise, one too many hard-ish rain squalls, a bit firm and fast on bottom and mostly rain-free fun."

I have kept some of these words for our trip report when we notice the texture has changed. 

Re: the snow at Hyak - we used to pay good money to ski worse on the lifts in New England! And with good clothing, those rain squalls were nothing compared to -5F with high winds that we often endured while skiing that "frozen granular" with the periodic bits of boilerplate (which back east only applied to water ice, and it didn't count if it was at all soft or slushy!).

30 years ago, a high tech firm offered me more money to leave Syracuse, NY.  My ski friends in the east asked me when I would return to Syracuse-NEVER.