Quick report
Went out to (where else) BT again yesterday, was hoping for some decent pow after the little refresh Wed. Started early thinking it would likely get hot and manky pretty quick. Pretty clear on the sled out there that there was much less snow than the storm last week. Several sleds at the sled parking early. On the skin out across the flats, saw two guys already skinning up towards Pucker, looked like they switched to booting early. Ran across a guy set up with an *analog film* camera on the flats, set up to film those guys, so got their radio channel so I could know their plans/stay out of the shot etc. Definitely way less snow than last week’s storm, and on the skin up to the ridge I saw why the guys up ahead switched to booting early, it was dust on crust in a lot of places, so switched to crampons and just booted straight up to the ridge. Got near the top of Pucker and watched the two guys drop… and wow - they SENT it! 😱 Found out later it was Ben Ferguson and Jared Elson… which explains a lot! Pretty impressive to watch pros drop a line that you’re familiar with, and see why they’re PROS. Ben dropped from the upper “big balls” entrance, which hasn’t been filled in all year and has a mandatory cliff band. I dropped from the main entrance (much more slowly 🤣), and the conditions were variable. Some sections of good smooth snow, and some spots where there was cornice/previous slide debris covered by a couple inches, not the greatest riding. Watching those guys just barrel through that stuff was impressive. It was actually staying fairly cold, so decided to climb up the ridge by A La Mode and check out the ramp. From the bottom, the ramp looked like it had more of those cornice chunks in it so planned to ride A La Mode instead, which was just barely filled in enough after the refresh, and actually looked smooth. But decided to peek into the top of the ramp, and it actually looked great up high, so figured I’d try it anyway and hopefully the lower part wouldn’t be bad… well the lower part was still pretty bad. 🤣 But turns on Smiley were perfect cream cheese, and it was perfect and not sticky at all, all the way back to the flats. On the way out saw something you don’t see every day - a skin track with ski tracks on MOON!! 😱 Usually it’s all tracked up by sleds, but not this day. Speaking of sleds, a note on access. Cascade Lakes now looks to be pretty much completely plowed. Rumor is it might open in a week? At that point trail 7 from Todd might still be an option, for now trail 8 is it. It’s bare dirt at the entrance and is thin around there, is super whooped out on the first hill, and has some bare spots on that hill, but aside from that it’s still holding. Weirdly cold the next few days, so probably a bit before back to regularly scheduled spring conditions…