Stevens Pass Day 7: Picture Day and Fruit Cake Snow!

I headed up to the pass after school on Friday, solo. Chelsey warned me that the snow was bad on Monday, but I was not deterred. The sun was shining and I brought my camera in hopes of getting some good sunset pictures from the top.

I took Big Chief up to the Double Diamond chair, but just as I got to DD, the lift closed for the day. The lift operator suggested that I head back down on the groomer, because "Skiing off the groomers today is like skiing on last year's fruit cake." I was tempted to prove him wrong and drop down the bottom portion of double diamond, but I relented and hit the groomer. I strayed off course a few times to test the snow and the lift operator wasn't lying.

We had a ton of snow in mid-December, then it rained 13 inches in 48 hours, then it warmed up to 40 degrees. We had a weird weather inversion on Friday as well, where down in Seattle it was 35 degrees, but up in the mountains it was in the 40s--which did not make for good skiing. The snow is a mix of slush on top of ice. I forgot my ski goggles, but luckily did not need them in the sunny weather. I slip-slided my way down Tye a dozen times while I waited for the sun to set, but the sun set behind 7th Heaven, which means no good sunset shots. I did catch a parachute-skier lift off right as ski patrol was closing up the back side, so that was pretty neat. I also shot a few pictures for the ski lift math problem I posed a few posts ago. I'm thinking about adding visual aids to the math problem and trying to pose it to my class either this spring or next Fall :)