Worst Ski Season Ever?

I'm having a real hard time reaching back in memory and finding a more dissapointing ski season than this one. This will be the first year in 10 or so that I haven't skied at least 30 days, and with no exceptional quality days. Lucky for me I guess I've had a lingering construction project to work on over the weekends, but it sure aint skiing the pow.<br><br>We still got March, but I get the feeling its over.

It's certainly the worst in the 11 seasons I've been in Washington, yet we found all the powder our legs were willing to ski the weekend before this past one, and I've had some other great skiing this season (and the pull of a warm bike by salt water and some ski-induced joint complaints were all that kept me from a corn hunt this past weekend). Granted, I've had more damage to my ski bases than usual, which reminds me of a *good* year back in New England (I kind of forgot how to use the p-tex!), where a bad year meant no skiing other than on the man-made ribbons of "snow" at the bigger ski areas. <br><br>And if memory serves, sometime late in March is typically where we see the peak in the snow accumulation curve for the season, so it ain't over yet...

I've managed 20 or so days in the PNW this season so far, and at least 15 of those have been quality powder (and often bluebird!). We've certainly had the quality (dawn patrols and elevation are your friends), just no quantity (rocks are your friends too).

I think we're getting pretty complacent with recycled powder days. whatever happened to 2' of fresh!

Half empty, or half full?

This is the worst snow year since I started backcountry skiing in 1979. During the drought of 1976-77, my journal says I snowshoed to the ridge above Big Chief at Stevens Pass in March and dug a snow cave, just for practice. I think you'd be challenged to find enough snow up there right now to do that. Maybe things will change in March.<br><br>I think the lift areas may have been open more this year than they were in 1976-77, but that's probably due to better grooming today.