Stevens Pass, Winter Chills and Packed Groomers, December 6, 2009

The day started off with a lot of odds and ends going wrong, like having to hike down 200 plus stairs and a 1/4 mile down the beach just to pound on Morgan's door to get him up. Then we finally got to Sultan and he realized that he left his shell jacket and seasons pass at home... So I was able to get a hold of a buddy in Snohomish and borrow a shell jacket.... The temperatures before wind chill were in the low teens, so a shell jacket with plenty of layers was essential.

We finally arrived after all the fiascos by about 11:30, mind you I arrived at Morgan's house by 6am and it is only a 2.5hour drive to Stevens from there... Luckily conditions were so-so and it wasn't a powder day, otherwise I would of left him cozy at home while I went and rode the powder. The day started in the mid teens with some serious gusts from east to west. I headed to the lodge and picked up a set of Skull Candy ear flaps for my helmet, Morgan grabbed a new pass and we were on the way to the chair lift. The runs were ice to firm packed snow off of the left side of Hogsback. We decided to try the backside first... and what a mistake. They hadn't groomed it in a couple weeks, so it was a solid sheet of ice, and off trail it was a lumpy wind blown ice mixture... When we finally got back to the ridge top, we rode down skid road on tye mill, and surprisingly it was firm, but not a solid sheet of ice. We rode Tye for awhile, than headed to the park to play around for awhile. This is where we were going to take a few videos, but since my camera has "tap control", which I normally turn off, since when you move it keeps turning the camera on... So my battery went dead at the start of recording a video in the park... So there isn't any pictures, but the trip was a success, and the conditions in the park and on trail off of Tye Mill were actually pretty good. When we left without the windchill it was barely 10 degrees now if you add in the 10 to 25 mph winds... It was freaking cold...