Pacific NW/AK/BC 2020/2021 PNW news, weather, conditions, stoke.

[pchewn]

Days 51,52,53,54 of the ski season. April 3-6

Saturday: Warm and slushy at Skibowl in the day. Nice firmer snow Skibowl at night
Sunday: Cool and firm at Timberline in the day, turning slushier. Nice snow at Skibowl for night skiing.
Monday: Cold and wonderful at Timberline, turning to soft mogul skiing. The perfect spring ski day.
Tuesday: Some more spring skiing at Timberline.

Skiing with Hunter, Archer, (grandsons) and Scott (son) Their spring break.

Easter Sunday Archer and Hunter shaved my beard off for the summer. We stayed at my friend's condo in Government Camp. Hunter took a jump bigger than he expected and crashed shortly after I took his picture. I found the perfect ski outfit for my daughter Lisa: Metallic polychromatic reflective, with gold purse, gold shoes and a reflective face mask to match.

We had a great time on spring break. A day of rest and then off to the beach Wed-Sun. So only now can I post about this. No crowds for skiing.

Here's some Videos:

Pat: Mustang Sally: https://youtu.be/UpKIPgPDs6Y
Scott, Archer, Hunter : Ski arms-out https://youtu.be/vK5uVm-jjhY
Archer and Hunter: Ski tree edges https://youtu.be/uKGxyAskH7I
Archer, Hunter, Pat: Shaving beard off https://youtu.be/CLYa_jQSPMA

 

[CascadeConcrete]

That all may be true, but they still show April 25 as the last day on the calendar.

They play this game every year. Mountain management is very conservative about promising late season days, but they almost always get to early May. I expect we'll see an announcement in the next couple weeks. They've extended the official closing date once or twice already.

 

[dovski]

They play this game every year. Mountain management is very conservative about promising late season days, but they almost always get to early May. I expect we'll see an announcement in the next couple weeks. They've extended the official closing date once or twice already.

Completely agree with this, and give our snow pack which seems to have grown this week we likely have enough of a base to keep us going well past early May, the only question is how long Mountain management is willing to go. Curious if anyone has any inside information on this

 

[noncrazycanuck]

All three of Vancouver's North shore hills closed Sunday, all cited the rapid spreading Covid variants as reason for the early closure.
Like most years they have deep snow packs.
Cypress is quite often second to Baker in North America for snowfall - both are at the same elevation and have same snow conditions but Mt. Baker is certainly the bigger cloud magnet.

 

[CascadeConcrete]

Cypress is quite often second to Baker in North America for snowfall - both are at the same elevation and have same snow conditions but Mt. Baker is certainly the bigger cloud magnet.

You sure about that? Cypress claims they average 245 inches/600 cm. That's just over a third of Baker's 663 inch average. The Cypress cm and Baker inch figures are similar

 

[dovski]

You sure about that? Cypress claims they average 245 inches/600 cm. That's just over a third of Baker's 663 inch average. The Cypress cm and Baker inch figures are similar

As a Canadian who now lives in the US I can attest to the fact that Cypress being coastal gets a ton of precipitation, unfortunately most of it is in the liquid form so when it comes to snow, even if it got the same snow fall as baker (which it does not) it also gets a lot of rain that minimizes the accumulation of the snow. The numbers in cm may be the same as the numbers in inches, but even then the actual base is going to be significantly less because of the climate it is in. My point being even if annual snow fall was the same, which it is not by like 2/3, snow accumulation for the base is what really matters and Cypress loses that battle 8 days a week.

That aside real shame that all the BC resorts are having to close early due to Covid, 6 months back we were all worried about the situation in the US and just wishing we could sneak into Canada where they seemed to have things under control, now it appears the situation has flipped and it is the other way around.

 

[Bad Bob]

Mt. Spokane, Schweitzer, and 49° North closed for the season yesterday. Lookout is still operating and Silver is on weekends only. It is not from any lack of snow, more from golf courses bikes and yard work.
It has been a good season.

 

[Kiki]

All three of Vancouver's North shore hills closed Sunday, all cited the rapid spreading Covid variants as reason for the early closure.
Like most years they have deep snow packs.
Cypress is quite often second to Baker in North America for snowfall - both are at the same elevation and have same snow conditions but Mt. Baker is certainly the bigger cloud magnet.

I believe Grouse is open still and has announced plans to stay open until May 2nd, with a new offering of a spring pass. The closures of Seymour and Cypress were according to previously announced scheduled dates.

 

[noncrazycanuck]

I haven't skied anywhere with out having some wet days including the Rockies.
But North Shore Mt Washington and Baker and I imagine Stevens and the local hills outside Seattle certainly get more than their share.
On the coast above 4500 feet most of used to fall as snow in winter, that 4500 foot level seems to be rising. It's very evident at mid point on Baker's Honker. Unfortunately most hills top out below 6000 feet.
Just checked, current base at Cypress on closing was over 17 feet.

 

[Posaune]

On the coast above 4500 feet most of used to fall as snow in winter, that 4500 foot level seems to be rising. It's very evident at mid point on Baker's Honker.

This is true, except Lower Honkers is more like 4000 ft. Heather Meadows is at 4200 and LH seems to be a bit lower than that. It skied pretty good today. It was beautiful up there, and they will be open until May 5.

 

[noncrazycanuck]

Lucky guy. Love spring bumps.
Honkers, and the skis outs on Creekside are my happy place in April

Baker used to stay open much later in the season than they have recently.

You've mentioned some the lines have returned to old days, is that part of the reason why they are staying open longer this year?
Unlikely closures are normally for lack of snow.

 

[Posaune]

Baker says that they are staying open longer as a pay-back for closing early last year.

The longer lines (no such thing today) are anybody's guess. Mine is that folks were tired of staying home all of the time because of the pandemic and it was one thing they could do almost normally, but you could only ride with the folks you came with, so lots of chairs went unfilled. Also, with remote learning and work-from-home there were a lot more families out on weekdays.

Another thing that led to lines specifically at Baker is that they are the only ski area serving the west side of the WA Cascades (at least as far as I know) that didn't require reservations, so people could go whenever they chose. This led me to quit even trying to catch a powder day this season. HUGE lines, too much hassle, and the freshies were gone in a blink.

 

[pchewn]

Today was a weird day at Mt Hood Meadows. It was very windy on the bottom and then not so windy at the top and the middle. The day started very firm, but not icy. It SLOWLY warmed up all day long with each run getting softer and softer. It never got super slushy even when the temperature rose above freezing. Pretty darn good spring skiing.

This is the last week Meadows is open on weekdays. They change to a Fri-Sat-Sun schedule and their calendar shows an end of season on May 1. SCHEDULE

 

[Tom Co.]

Stevens Tue 4/13 Mediocre

This was our last day at Stevens and it ended on kind of a ehh note. There was a pretty strong east wind blowing and it kept things cool. The wind shirt, gloves, hat stayed on. Off piste was firm almost everywhere. Some of the pure north faces had winter snow that was just OK. The groomers were edge able, but for the most part they were a bit firm but at least fast. The best skiing was Seventh Heaven which was a bit chunky to start but got better. There was a pretty good turn out. Some brief lines on both Sky and Hogs. Today had the potential for a stellar day if only the backside was open. I hate to sound like a broken record but thanks again Vaill for your bean counting stupidity. At least it was a beautiful sunny day.

 

[Coomba]

Going to get one more day in at Lookout tomorrow, weather is looking good for spring conditions.

 

[Tom Co.]

Crystal - stupendous spring day

I got stuck behind a road striping truck on the way up. That was 15 miles an hour for about 5 miles. It was worth the wait though. I spent the morning all over, from Iceberg, a warm-up run, to Memorial, which needed more skiers, to Sunnyside which skied pretty well. Green valley Gondi Face was pretty good the one time I went down it early. Snorting Elk to Kelly's to lower E was nice about 11:15. I took a break about 1130 on a picnic table outside of the Campbell basin lodge. After the break it was all chair six and Powder Bowl skiers left. This was by far the run of the day. I couldn't stay away and did it five times in a row and I had that side all to myself. A final run out Kelly's gap polished off my ski day. Of course a nice cold one sitting on the patio at the Natchez Tavern. It was so hot there that I had to move my chair into the shade. Thanks to chair 6, the day was just stellar.

The top of my chair 6 run



Looking up the crux


Looking up the whole thing

 

[Tahoma]

The problem with most of the Cascade ski areas is that there is little to no close-in lodging. These are not destination resorts (even though Vail seems to think they are) but ski areas catering to the hordes from the coastal lowlands (mostly).

And Alterra too, in terms of Crystal.

 

[pchewn]

Well, day 56 of the ski season at Mt. Hood Meadows was "interesting".

The weather prediction was for very strong winds at Timberline, so I went to Meadows. The actual wind was very strong at Meadows, causing several lift standby's, some lift closures, and some places where tucking in the shade still would not result in enough speed to make it to the destination point.
Then, to top that off, my RF ID ski pass failed. (The gates to the ski lift sense your ski pass electronically to let you on the lift). So I went down to the base area where they re-programmed a new pass for me. Then it worked perfectly.

When I was getting my new pass, they asked me for a picture I.D. I don't usually ski with my wallet, so I unzipped my right side jacket pocket and produced my picture on the "Fusion" ski pass (a competitor to Mt Hood Meadows). They accepted that ID and gave me the new pass.

At the end of the day I'm heading back to the car to go home and I reach into my right-side jacket pocket (the one with the picture ID), and I notice it's unzipped. OH NOOOOOO!!! That's the pocket I keep the car keys in and it's been unzipped all day long. Luckily, the keys are still in there. It must be my lucky day.

Losing car keys at the ski area is a really bad way to end your ski day. You have to hitchhike back home, get a set of keys, hitchhike back It's a real pain in the rear.

So I took a few photos. The weather was great except for the wind. There were no crowds.

 

[Bill Miles]

Bachelor Report:

Skied Tuesday through today

Bluebird weather, starting off coolish on Tuesday and gradually warming up

Snow conditions started off firmish with some slush appearing as the week progressed. Getting thinnish on the lower portions of runs on the west side.

Windy the whole time though. Northwest never opened and Summit only opened one afternoon. Outback, which is normally closed in favor of Northwest this time of year, was running slow decreasing to painfully slow today. They say it is the wind, but a chairlift companion says they have been having problems with it all season.

Crowds not bad, but the more popular lifts had 5-10 minute lines today.

Overall OK, but I wonder if I should have sprung $499 for a Snowbird spring pass instead.

Heading home tomorrow.

 

[DanoT]

That aside real shame that all the BC resorts are having to close early due to Covid,

Only Whistler closed early due to Covid. All of the resorts in the B.C. interior close in early to mid April every year for lack of skiers/borders, not lack of snow. This season was no different.