Tuesday, November 25th, 2003 ~ Steven's Pass ~ 1
10 inches of snow a day for 7 days gave Washington ski resorts a chance to open before Thanksgiving Day for a change. On Saturday, Mt. Baker opened and Ken was there. Today, Steven's Pass opened with 40 inches of base and deep powder snow. I picked up Ken and Todd in Lake City and we met Doug in Monroe and headed up the hill. It was snowing hard and the roads were covered by Sultan. The driving was a bit hazardous because the studs arent on the GMC yet. We were delayed about an hour for another injury accident near Baring and didnt get to the mountain until after 10am. The upper lot was full but we parked there anyways and got in a fight with an incompetent equipment driver and had to fall back to the middle parking lot. We all ran fat skis because the powder was deep. We hit Barrier first and between the flat light and not skiing in 7 months, it wasnt that much fun. We headed to Hogsback to get out of the wind and took Rockin Blue into some powder. Ken went in and got stuck so I followed him. Once we got going, it was face shots...it was only hard because I am so outta shape. We decided to head to Tye Mill and on the way up we heard Speed on the radio. He made it up, minus his pants, jacket, ect. We told him to just get what he needed out of my truck, but instead he met us at the top of Tye wearing a fleece pullover on top of a tee shirt. It was around 30° and a 25 mph wind was making it pretty nasty on top. He was obviously freezing his ass off, so we only took about three more run on Tye and then headed to the trucks for lunch about 1pm. The conditions were good and the snow was great, but I was done. My legs were burnt and I broke a rib about 3-4 weeks ago and it isnt fully healed yet. It didnt bother me skiing, but once I sat down and started to tighten up, it did. Everyone else went back out and skied another 2 hours.
Wednesday, December 3rd, 2003 ~ Steven's Pass ~ 2
Ken, Todd, and I went up for a day of skiing at Steven's. About 4 inches of new snow over hardpack and ice. Groomers were nice but off the runs was unpredictable and bumpy most of the day. Broken clouds with some sunshine in the afternoon and 30°. Met an old friend of Ken and Todd's on Tye Mill and skied with them for awhile. Ken still having problems with his boots so we went down to Alpine Hut and gave them to Ron to fix. Skied 5+ hours.
Saturday, December 6th, 2003 ~ Steven's Pass ~ 3
Ken and I headed up planning on staying the night at Dave's cabin in Skykomish. Not much new snow, but decent weather....broken clouds and 30°. Speed met us in the upper parking lot. Took many, many runs...hit Seventh Heaven and the backside for the first time this year. Still trying to get into shape....lots of top to bottom runs and spent a lot of time in the terrain park watching Dave huck 360°s. Ken's boots are treating him much better....it looks like Ron's work was what Ken needed. Brats for lunch in the parking lot. Skied over 5 hours again and headed down to the cabin. Speed had to go home, so it was just Ken and I. We figured out how to get the water working and then sat around watching old ski movies from the 1970s. Made a big pot of Hamburger Helper stroganoff and Ken spilled his 3 or 4 times all over the place. Other than that, it was a quiet night. Ken fell asleep around 9pm and I went to bed at 11pm. Ken was up early and cleaned the place up and did dishes and around 9am, Todd and Tim Hart showed up with Speed in his new Silverado and we headed back to Steven's.
Sunday, December 7th, 2003 ~ Steven's Pass ~ 4
On the slopes a little before 10am with Tim, Todd, Speed, Ken, and me. About the same as yesterday....not much new snow and a little icier. Weather more overcast today with light snow flurries, 27°. Did a lot of the same things as yesterday....a bunch of runs from Barrier to the top of the terrain park. One run on Seventh and a couple on Chief. Speed and Todd took Tim on the backside and then down Double Diamond. Today is Tim's first day skiing this year and he was on his Olin DXK's. He did pretty good, though. We didnt make breakfast at the cabin this morning, so we had Jimmy Dean sausage patties and fried eggs on english muffins along with brats for lunch. I took one run after lunch and my legs were toast so I went back to the truck and slept for 90 minutes while everyone else skied. Left about 4pm and endured the traffic all the way home.