Spring just didn’t want to arrive this year. By mid-May, bluebird days are usually the rule rather than, like this year, as rare as originality on American Idol. Luckily, the incredible amount of snow that still covered the Cascades meant excellent skiing, even if you had to squint hard to see what you were sliding down.
Occasionally the clouds would lift and we’d have fleeting reminders of what Spring skiing should be like. We even had the luxury of a couple of hours sunshine at Bachelor one Saturday morning. A strong northwest wind had solidified most of the upper mountain, making even the groomers off the summit a proposition best attempted with courage and razor-sharp edges. But as the sun turned ice to cream, we had three of those hallmark Bachelor runs, carving fresh tracks through snow-laden lava gullies until the boundary rope at the bottom of Cows Face put an end to the decadence.
On May 22nd, Crystal was still skiing beautifully top-to-bottom for our final day of the season. At 3pm, I dropped off the top of REX in the dense fog, carefully picked a path through the well disguised moguls in the bowl below, and followed the gondola line all the way to the bottom for a steep season finale. 2000+ vertical feet of sheer excitement is a great way to end a ski season. Is it November yet?
Skiing stats:
4 days: (Bachelor) 7300m, 8900m, (Crystal) 8300m, 8200m vert
Final Season totals:
74 days, 23 powder days, 637, 700m vertical
Pacific Northwest Ski blog (and a few other places!) 
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