My idea this winter is to Cherrypick powder days at my old playground. Today was a remarkably good one. No lines at 9:00 and my Epic Pass worked on Big Chief. It was snowing hard the last mile from the east and I was impressed with 2-3" of cold smoke over a nicely groomed Chief. (I don't remember grooming at Stevens but maybe it just got better.) My son and I had a new skier with us so we then went over to Hogsback and eventually Tye Mill. A bit firm underneath the powder but everything skied well. We went under the power lines and skied some very large lumps and bumps with lots of
Powder over lots of old tracks. Black Diamond run for our new skier (ansnowboarder convert)
Jupiter was next so I left the newby and skied nice boottop to knee deep powder under the chair and to skiers right. I was thrilled with the new glades and thinned runs there! They are steep and the options are open so fresh tracks were easy to find. Though fine skiing for my son and I, it was by no means easy skiing as the snow underneath was a bit hard and everything was uneven.
My favorite chair had very few people on it, and nobody in the trees skiers left. I think it's been uncrowded for a while because I kept finding deep snow left over from Sunday. I only was able to ski one run there, but would have gladly stayed all afternoon had time permitted.Again, not easy powder skiing, but very fun and much deeper than imagined.
Was going to roll back down Double Diamond, but sensing fresh tracks on Wild Katz, I hoped on the quick herringbone up. A younger version of me would have liked it better. Nice powder and no new tracks, but seemed like most everyone in there recently was side slipping the steeps, and it made the crux pitches very firm and committing...I might have missed a few turns...☹ï¸
I can tell I'm going to love my powder days at Stevens this year. The thinning and selective logging has been very effective. The grooming is better. Some of the lifts have been upgraded! Great little resort with a few Big Mountain features and steeps.
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