Nov 21, 2010, Steven's Pass

After some early morning debate my pals and I decided to make our annual pre-season ski, grill and drink trip up to Steven's Pass. It snowed pretty much non-stop from Everett to Stevens and we arrived to approximately 4 inches new on top of what appeared to be about 18 inches of loosely settled base. It snowed the entire time we were at Stevens and there was about 8 inches in the bed of the pickup by the time we packed up and headed home.

There was a pretty big crowd of sledders and jibbers hanging out at the bottom of Big Chief so we opted to head over to the Skyline lift. Given the intermittently decent track from snowmobiles and cats we decided to boot pack it up the hill. It was difficult at times when we go into small brush and post-holed our way up. Coverage is still fairly thin (18 inches of loosely settled snow in most places) -- no rocks, but not enough snow to really take the numerous bushes out of play.

It will take at least another foot or two before Steven's will be able to open, but the touring was fun.

Here's a bit of video near the base of the hill (the dogs had a good time).

yfrog.com/711yoz

We were also up there.  Skinned up near Tye and headed over to backside.  Skied Aquarius down to bottome of lifts.  Lots of creeks and holes, but good turns were found.  Quite the adventurous up-track out of the back put in by somebody, Thanks.  Front side was in surprisingly good shape near Tye chair and out to base.  A few sledders and other fun time enthusiasts out, but plenty of space for all.

Nov 24, afternoon 18deg, cloudy. Some runs down front side. Most interesting was upper DoubleDiamond, good powder between lots of exposed brush/tops. Rocks pillowed enough that I only felt 2 hits. pics r of upper DD run.

Hopefully more snow is on the way!