Miss Kari Koos skiing down from the top of the Nordic trail system at Stevens Pass.

I skied at Stevens again today. It wasn't groomed yet but they took out the piston bully to start packing down the trails for the opening day Saturday. I had forgotten my watch so I ended up skiing way longer than I had planned. I think that's a good sign if you over-ski your time target when you're guessing your time. I also had the first really sweet face-plant of the season. I went down a hill and upon rounding a bend saw that the Piston Bully tracks ended unexpectedly. Being on cat tracks I didn't have much of an option for stopping gracefully with a nice tele turn so I thought I'd just continue straight and let the powder slow me. Except the powder was hip-high and slowed me much more quickly than I had anticipated. So I dove head first into the snow. It felt like I was falling into a well. (This is on a downhill, remember.) It took me a couple of minutes to turn myself right side up again and clamber back onto the packed snow. I was also retarded by the underbrush because I managed several times to get both the tips and tails of my skis under branches so I had to kick back and forward to disentangle myself. I'm sure the groomer will laugh when she comes back to that spot and sees the pit that my thrashing created.