STEVENS PASS – Helping his 5-year-old grandson step onto a snowboard for the first time Wednesday, Dave Bruggman predicted a lot of people would call in sick for work today.
Dan Bates / The Herald
After almost a month of closure due to the poor mountain snowpack, the Stevens Pass ski resort reopens today.
“I wanted to beat the crowds,” said Bruggman, of Edmonds, as he guided his grandson, Max Hamack, down hills near the lodge.
Looking ahead to today, he said skiers “are just going to be going nuts. It’s just like cabin fever.”
Standing at the bottom of the slope after a run on his snowboard, C.J. Roberts agreed.
| Stevens Pass: Opens today, 37-inch base. Will give discounts to season pass holders from other resorts (25 percent midweek, $5 weekends).
Mount Baker: Open, 38-inch base. Crystal Mountain: Opens Saturday, 28-inch base. Snoqualmie Pass: All resorts closed, 121/2-inch base. |
“If it’s nice like this, there’ll probably be a lot of people,” he said.
Roberts, 18, of Skykomish works in the resort’s kitchen but had to find another job in Seattle for the past few weeks.
No chairlifts were operating on Wednesday, but some hard-core snowboarders were hoofing it up the mountain on their own.
A sustained storm last weekend dumped 22 inches of snow at the pass, creating a 37-inch base, enough to reopen.
Stevens Pass didn’t open until Dec. 28, a month later than usual, then closed three weeks later when “pineapple express” rains arrived and temperatures warmed up.
Crowds at Stevens Pass could be large this three-day weekend, considering that a number of other resorts in Western Washington remain closed.
Chris Rudolph, the resort’s marketing manager, went home to Utah during the down time. He got a call to come back last week, based on a snowy forecast.
“I drove 15 hours out here, no stops,” Rudolph said.
Arriving Friday, Rudolph had barely unpacked when “it started snowing like crazy.” He said he tried not to look at the snow.
“I didn’t want to think about it,” he said. “I didn’t want to jinx it.”
Skiers and snowboarders may well feel jinxed this year.
The state’s snowpack was only 26 percent of average in January, according to the Natural Resources Conservation Service’s Mount Vernon office.
Water managers and wildfire agencies have already begun fretting about a summer drought. They stopped short of predicting anything because a wet spring or summer could still turn things around.
John Gifford, the resort’s general manager, said that March often is a good month for snowfall. Some Stevens Pass employees remember 1977 and 1981, when midseason closures also were necessary, he said.
Then, in March, big snows brought skiers back – more than 150 inches in one of those years.
“If you’re going to be in the ski business, you have to be optimistic,” Gifford said.
Not everyone was optimistic. Taking a break from snowshoeing at the pass Wednesday, Joanne and Don Bjornsen of Bothell lamented the lack of snow.
“It’s too bad, not only for the skiers but the trickle-down for all the restaurants and gas stations,” Joanne Bjornsen said.
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