TL;DR: Stevens Pass employees should not steering ...

TL;DR: Stevens Pass employees should not steering corporate offsite attendees towards unsafe snowshoeing trails. Never returning to this place again.

I work for a large tech company, which is generous enough with its employees to sponsor an annual ski offsite. This year, it was held at Stevens Pass.

I signed up for snowshoeing in the afternoon because I m a risk-averse middle aged guy who isn t really into high-risk activities. I assumed, from past experience, that snowshoeing would basically involve walking around in the snow wearing high-traction shoes with minimal danger.







The only safe bypass from the trail had prominent signs saying that snowshoers were not permitted, so I assumed we couldn t go there anyway.

We reached a point in the trail in which there was a steep descent by a riverfront, in I felt uncomfortable proceeding. But I was more uncomfortable abandoning my coworker and trying to make it back without a cell phone coverage in the wilderness. So I just followed him, while simultaneously assuming it would probably be OK if Stevens Pass staff were pointing inexperienced attendees at a corporate offsite in this direction.

That was, of course, incorrect. Following him down that steep climb in the trail, I fell and injured my shoulder, requiring a doctor s visit and pain using it for an entire month. I nearly fell into the freezing river, but he grabbed and kept me from falling further.

When we returned to the Nordic lodge, staffed by a lone high school student, when I asked if there was a nurse or anything around he was nice but completely useless. The employee who pointed us in the direction of the trail didn t seem particularly apologetic or responsible in the least leading me to question whether Stevens Pass has a responsible safety culture.

In conclusion, if it's not clear how to perform a safe loop on one's own -- Stevens Pass needs to fix their signage. In the case of a corporate event like ours, they should have sent a guide -- in fact, one was included with our contract, but none was offered to us.

I will never return to future offsites at Stevens Pass.