Steven’s Pass, WA – I admit, we get spoiled sometimes with the abundant snowfalls here in the PNW--it can get easy to just wait for the inevitable storm and go get it on powder days. But with an unprecedented run of cold temperatures and high pressure on the heels of our formidably deep early season, the shred bug started to gnaw at the back of my brain and I made for Steven’s Pass along with Meghann O’Brien and Sky Risvold this past Saturday.

As it turned out, hard pack isn’t all that bad--despite my recent aversion to using my edges outside of the banked slalom and traversing back to pow lines. Sun and a solid grooming effort made for high speed laps and fun times jibbing around the mountain--including milking pseudo-white-rooms out of groomed runs with the help of a few friends. In addition, the crew had a good park set up, with three mellow kickers and an array of jib options. Indeed, we rode until last chair, riding side hits and rediscovering the fact that snowboarding, no matter what, is fun. Hard pack: not that bad after all.

Thanks to Chris Rudolph and the crew at Steven’s--we’ll be back soon.