January 31, Alpental

Russ and I got up early to enjoy the 18 or so inches reported. They opened chair 2 at around 10:30, and we got a few runs in on Schluct and Rollen before they were tracked up. About 12 inches of new snow, a thin rain crust, and 4 or so more inches on top of that. Ran in to Jason mid-day. Elevator gate was open, but reportedly pretty crusty down low, so we didn't venture there, just hit lower Intl, felsen, and snake dance. Great day! Moderate snow coming down as we left at 1:30.<br><br>

I headed up from my consulting job in Snoqualmie for a couple hours of night skiing. Epic weather--snowing and blowing hard. Very enjoyable skiing--soft and forgiving. They closed the traverse around 7:30 pm due to increasing avalanche danger. But Debbie's Gold was plenty of fun.<br><br>A real winter sure is good for the soul...

Just got back too.... sorry I didn't bump into you there Lowell.<br><br>Conditions were really good... wind-buffed powder. Very uncrowded, especially later on. That was some dense "base building" snow coming down.<br><br>We got last chair, and ended up spending a little more time than expected on the run down - some guy went off a jump over on Ingrid's, cratered and lost his ski. 6 of us looked for it for 10 minutes or so, until patrol needed us to leave. Then a few hundred feet below, as the guy was "single-skiing" down, one of his buddies skied over the missing ski... somehow no one had noticed it zooming down the mountain after he landed.

As far as those 18" went, we thought it merited a three, or possibly four "C" rating: Cascade Concrete con (Crappy) Crust. Elevator was pretty nice for the first few hundred feet, and pretty crappy down lower, especially once it got tracked up. Perhaps my favorite thing about skiing at Alpental is how strong that snow makes your legs. Is there anything more difficult than skiing tracked up snow that becomes absolutely solid after it's been skied?

Just got back too.... sorry I didn't bump into you there Lowell.

<br><br>Maybe next time, Phil...<br><br>I expected it to be wetter than it was, so I bundled up for the weather. Hard to recognize people under those conditions. If you saw a yahoo wearing a garbage bag around his hips, that was me. Cascade haute fashion!<br>