Member Reviews: Stevens Pass

Posaune

A Great Cascade Area

Posted
Featured Review
By Posaune

Pros: Stevens is close to the Seattle urban area, it usually has plenty of snow, and it's elevation is higher than many other Cascade areas.

Cons: The ski area is very crowded on the weekends from Chistmas unitl early March. New management has been closing parts of the mountain without notice.

If you can ski on weekdays during mid-winter, then Stevens Pass is a great place to go.  Weekends From Christmas through February are a zoo with wall to wall people and traffic.  Before Christmas and after March 1 the crowds disappear.   There is plenty of great terrain for all levels of skier from beginner to expert.  The grooming is very good on the blue trails.  There is no grooming on most of the black runs.   The front sides of the mountains generally face north so they tend to keep good snow the longest.  There is every kind of skiing available there, from beginner runs to cliff drops.   The back side of the ski area is...
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skibunny24

Year Round Fun :)

Posted
By skibunny24

Pros: Diverse terrain, awesome BC

Gotta love Stevens.  Always a solid mtn to play at :)  ...and now with the bike aprk in the summer, it's awesome year round!!
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DesiredUsername

Good day/night area

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By DesiredUsername

Pros: consistent snow, good terrain (especially the backside), easy to get from one part of the mountain to another

Cons: sometimes wet snow, weekend crowds, takes about 2 hrs to get there

Stevens Pass is my home area.  It is not a ski resort, in the sense that there is no lodging on the mountain.  It is right on US Hwy 2 and takes about an hour and 45 minutes - 2 hours from Seattle.  It's located on the crest of the Cascades, so it gets a lot moisture from Pacific storms (or just everyday precipitation, the kind that we Pacific NW'ers have to put up with all the time).  OTOH the winds can shift and bring cold air from Eastern Washington, along with some dry snow.  We sometimes get temperature inversions as a result, where the base at 4061' is several degress colder than the summit at 5800'.  The annual snowfall is 450" and since it's more...
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iWill

Great mountain

Posted
By iWill

Pros: Good terrain, good snow

Cons: Crowded on weekends

Lots of nice tree skiing, steeps and bowls for the experts. Decent groomers, good beginner terrain. Good park. No on slope lodging, nearest is Leavenworth.
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Blackgriffen

My Home

Posted
By Blackgriffen

Pros: Varied terrain, backcountry access

Cons: Crowds and crowd control, Harbor Resorts

I've skied Stevens every season since I started walking, and it's only gotten better for me every year. This season they upgraded to RFID(Radio Frequency IDentification), and this caused some headaches. Also, Harbor Resorts management makes bad decisions occasionally, such as letting employees go during slow times. This season, these decisions led to no crowd control at the high-speed quads, making the normal crowds even more hindersome. Besides this, Stevens has always provided me with a ton of varied terrain, from bunny hills to double blacks. It's quite easy to ski an entire day without too much interference from beginners. Backcountry access is also quite good, although not as good as...
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