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Snoqualmie PassSubmit a report
05/16/10 Hiked up Alpy early this morning. Pink algae is tinting the lower parts of the snow with coverage still pretty much 99% with a handful of dirt/bush/rock showing here and there. Once up to the top of Sessel it was 100% coverage for the rest of the way up into lower ‘Nash and Felsen.. Perfect hiking weather with light overcast, temps around 50. Texture had softened up to niceness for the ride down, which was the best of the post-season. TomK & Kerry, Chad & Karrie.
04/10/10 West for first chair at 0835. :-) Snow was a little chalky out where it had been sunbaked yesterday. Temps were in the mid-30s. Over to Wildside for fun in the trees where the snow was much nicer. Not a bad day at all. TomK & Kerry, and Chad.
04/09/10 Fri at alpy. Got crowded fast. big line on 2. snow very nice while it lasted, which wasn't long. Got a bit warm on the lower mountain. QF
04/02/10 4/3/10 – Snoqualmie Summit West was ridiculously good. 18 inches of fresh soft fluffy powpow, first tracks for the first 4 runs down 360 bowl, first turns on every run, Wildside greatness once it opened, face shots, and even a new-to-us tree run that was mega-fun. Best day of the season? TomK and Chad.
(PS: Heard that they were turning people away from Alpental due to completly filled up lots.)
03/20/10 Central and West in springtime sun. Three of us headed over to Silver Fir where the cover is really grim on Outback (rocks) and Hogs Wild (a hard place). Slowly worked our way over to West to join up with Tom & Ron. Tom just goofed off on the easy stuff at West for Ron’s 3rd lesson in the EZ123 plan and was able to talk the school into a first thing in the morning private since their count was so low. He really got a good workover once the instructor reconfigured Ron for regular and not goofy. Ended up with Ron on the Pacific Crest lift and ripping turns top to bottom down Dodge Ridge. :thumb: Was softening up to nice slush when we split at 1. TomK & Kerry, Ron, Nick, and Chad.
(Hoped the Saturday night storm was going to drop some snow, but it was 38 and raining this morning, so we're going to Crystal on Monday instead. )
02/28/10 Silver Fir was fun in the morning with firm yet carveable groomers. A few dirt spots and twigs are surfacing at the bottom, and the big rock band is showing on the face under the lift. Light overcast meant decent seeing, and there was no lift line to speak of. It’s my first day back on snow after 6 weeks, so bagged it after 7 runs just as the snow started to soften up. Shoulder feels pretty good, so we’ll be heading south to Crystal for Monday. Kerry did the grand tour over to West, and it was WAY too busy to be any fun, so we picked her up and hit the corndog hut. TomK & Kerry, and Chad.
01/24/10 1/24/10 – Silver Fir. Firm groom over hard pack, getting scraped out and ball-bearings by 10:30. Started to get crowded with 10-15 min. lift lines, so we bagged it after 9 runs. Kerry and Chad & Karrie. (Tom's out for 4-6 weeks with a shoulder injury)
01/23/10 Yuck! Tried Alpental at first and there was actual clear blue ice at spots in the cat track where the early season avies had come down. Expected to see fish underneath. What wasn’t ice was glop on top of crusty crap. Took the shuttle over to Silver Fir where it was not quite as hard and icy, but still not enough fun to make it worth staying for more than a couple of runs, so shuttled back to the Alpy parking lot and out. Snow was falling, but it would liquefy when it hit the goggles. At least the corndogs were fresh. Kerry & Chad.
1/10/10 After reading about the horrors of yesterday, we decided to risk first chair at Silver Fir anyway. Found the groomers had done a good job with what they had to work with, even making some passes on the face under the lift. Upper Outback and the face were actually nice and carvable in the AM, and we kept finding lines between the scraped out spots that other folks left behind. Off-trail was truly horrible – ½ inch thick hard ice crust over thick high moisture content snow. Patchy fog at the very top kept things interesting, heard that the rest of the hill was much foggier. As our runs added up, started to run into patches of ball bearings and ice patches, so called it good enough at 11. Parking lot was a skating rink, so watch your step. TomK & Kerry, Chad & Karrie.
01/03/10 Silver Fir snow was fast and speedy. Kinda scrapey on the top of Outback meaning caution was needed to prevent washing out, but nice and firm below that. Fog kept rolling in and out, but at least no rain coming down. Off-piste I measured 7 inches of thick pooh but it was too heavy to enjoy. Never a wait for the lift all morning. TomK & Kerry, Chad & Karrie.
01/02/10 Southside was snaining, so we headed north for some altitude. Alpental was covered in gloppy stuff about 2 inches deep with more wet flakes falling. The patrol was bombing quite a bit and had closed off the Cascade traverse, so we had to settle for sloppy thirds down Debbie’s. We only stayed for an hour of character building. – “Wet to the skin means time to go in.” TomK & Kerry.
01/01/10 Silver Fir with 5 inches of new the day before, and snowing in the parking lot unfortunately does not equal fun when there’s been 28 degree freezing rain after grooming the night before. So much ice was caked around the lift mechanisms that they couldn’t load us into first chair till after 10AM. At least the runs were fun to start, but it got scraped out pretty fast so we called it once the ice patches started to get too big on upper Outback. Bet tomorrow will be way better with another day’s snowfall. TomK & Kerry.
12/30/09 WED NITE Finally a nite worth writing about- NEW SNOW!! Snow on the road at the last corner on I90 and snowing all the 2.5 hours I skied. Triple 60 was the place to be. The scrapies couldn't keep up with the new snow fall making for some good lines. The ice is still there but can be avoided. The stuff falling was a bit wet, glad for the Gortex. Nite skiing is better than no skiing QF PS Alpy opens for nites Friday!
12/26/09 Summit West for an early morning of wide open turns on fresh groom. Great coverage still, and some interesting bits here and there. Forgot the camera, so no pics of the sunshine, the inversion line on the surrounding mountains (frosted trees below, green ones above), or the short liftlines. Racers were out running the first race of the year. TomK & Kerry.
12/25/09 12/25/09 – Silver Fir first groomers for a Merry Christmas! Ho Ho Ho! Great grooming, nice and wide down every one of our dozen plus runs. Fun rollers in lower Inspiration and nice lay-it-out arcs whenever you wanted. Broken clouds that started to yield some sun by the time we split at 11. TomK & Kerry.
12/24/09 A cool sunrise and first chair on Silver Fir = :-) Was able to have top to bottom fun for the first three, then just dealt with the scraped out stuff up on the bulge and enjoyed the smooth sailing down the lower 2/3rds of Outback. Never a wait for the lift, and the fog at the top lifted away by 10 AM. Cold though – under 30F. Outtabounds was an inch of dust on concrete. TomK & Kerry.
12/18/09 FRI NITE at Central To busy to hit Crystal this weekend so made use of the Summit Night Pass. The snow quality was good- spring like. Some rocks here and there, but not to bad. Only a minor line on the quad. 360 was empty and had some nice softish bumps, although there was a fare amount of pucker brush. Visibility was poor as the summit fog bank was in. Just a nite to keep the legs in shape.
Nite skiing is better than no skiing. QF
12/18/09 Silver Fir – Temps in the mid 30’s with plenty of fog, so the Braille method of skiing came in very handy, especially at the top of Outback. Snow was soft and easily carveable if you stuck to the groomers. Off-piste really sucked, thick rain crust on top of glop. We got in eight runs (Kerry stuck to Outback, Tom did the face under the chair and Wildcat where he found out about the ¾” crust) and called it a day after 2 hours as we will be up on Sat. and Sun. TomK & Kerry
12/13/09 Summit West – Chilly (At 25, warmer than yesterday), mostly overcast, and a little snow started to fall later in the morning. Again, mostly slide right onto the lift due to a pretty light crowd. Lots of instructor clinics, but they are easy to slide around since they clump up onhill. Nice having most of the hill groomed and untrammeled first thing in the morning. TomK & Karrie.
12/12/09 12/12/09 – Summit West first thing in the morning. Broken clouds and very cold (like 20F) made us happy to have bundled up. We got a bunch of wide sweeping high speed groomer runs down the Dodge side (5 of them before official opening time) before the schools of teachers showed up. Off-piste was just as hard and crusty underneath as expected, so it was…unpleasant. They were running Dodge Ridge lift in addition to the usual suspects, and then we finished off with a handful of Wildside/T-Bird runs. TomK & Chad.
12/06/09 Summit West again for another fun morning in low-angle-ville. Arrived at opening to 2-3 inches new, with an inch an hour flying sideways. Light and fluffy over yesterday’s hard set snow gave up nice boot-top turns, even though vis was flat enough to cause surprises till it got cut up. Fewer folks out than yesterday of course. The drive down was interesting. Never seen a double milk truck sliding sideways before. TomK, Chad & Karrie.
12/5/09 Summit West for a take-it-easy morning from 9 till noon. Blue skies, a full moon, and cold at first but it warmed up from 20 to 35 by noon. Snow was pretty hard, but not icy so it was surprisingly carveable on the groomed and I could open it up and have some fun. Off-piste tossed you around like a cork in a tempest though, so not much fun out there. The Adventure Zone above Dodge lift was roped off and you could not blame them. Never much of a wait for the PC lift as long as you timed to miss the mobs of new instructors getting training. Ski School parking lot was getting filled up nicely, and the corndogs were fresh, so a fairly good day. TomK
11/29/09 West was wet, but gortex-able. 40 degrees with Heavy Mist™ coming outta the cloud deck for most of the morning. At least it wasn’t foggy. Snow was surprisingly non-sucky and carveable on-piste, with the expected NW mank out in the twigs. A few holes thru to dirt already under the PC lift which was slide right in and sit right down. Hey, rad dudes, drinkin whatever…police up yo cans, man. No need to thrash anyone’s p-tex. TomK
11/21/09 11/21/09 - Snoqualmie Summit West. Not too busy over there with zero liftlines from opening till we left at 10:30. Snow had been rained on and groomed which made for some unsmoothness, but freshies could be found here and there too. We've had worse first days, but last year's was way better WX. TomK, Kerry, and Chad.
11/22/09 - Snoqualmie Summit West was still pretty empty this morning - never had to wait for more than one chair to load at PC while we were there, but we didn't stay very long - only 2 hours or so. Arrived to 4-5 inches of new and snow still coming down fairly hard. Light was really flat out in the open, much better back in the adventure zone trees. Gave it up after 2 hours and found a couple more inches on the truck. TomK & Kerry + Chad & Carrie
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