News Years again at Cascade Powder Cats Yurt

 Link to photo album

Just like last year, Mica, Andy, Anastasia, Marcus, Mary, Chad, Becky, and I had a New Years ski trip to the Cascade Powder Cats yurt up near Stevens Pass.   Early Friday morning we all piled our gear into the company's snowcat for an hour ride up to the yurt tucked into the north bowl of Windy Ridge at about 4600'. Once we got our gear unpacked, Ryan and his assistants ran us through a multiple beacon search scenario just to make sure we had our heads on straight before briefing us on their observations of what the snow/avy conditions were and giving us some recommendations of the best spots to tour to...then they cut us loose to run amok for the next three days.
Conditions were wonderfully stable given the quantity of the snow...finally a storm came in warm and left cold which gave us a 'right side up' snowpack, and we did our best to track the heck out of the terrain over the next three days.
Friday we had off and on snow showers that picked up overnight and dropped another foot of powder, Saturday was perfect...great visibility, light wind, tons of new snow,  Saturday night the wind kicked up and stayed strong through Sunday so our skiing on Sunday was an exercise in finding the least wind-affected terrain but we still got plenty of good turns.
A great way to celebrate the new year!