November 16, 2003, Snow Lake

This was primarily a hiking trip with friends, but with the forecast I figured I ought to bring the board, and I wasn't disappointed.  We left the Alpental parking lot at 10:30 or so with an intended destination of Snow Lake.  There was ~5 inches new snow in the parking lot when we left.  As we got higher the new snow eventually started to overlay the now bombproof snow from the storm early last week.  I dug a hole at about 4400' on the Snow Lake side of the 4800' foot ridge that divides it from the Alpental Valley and found 18-20 inches of icy old snow under 8-10 inches of fairly light, dry powder. Coverage was good enough and the snow powdery enough that a few turns sent snow into into my face. I rode my board about halfway back to Alpental on the trail.  The car had a good 3 or 4 inches of snow on it when we got back.  However, rain was staring to fall at pass level by 3:30.  Overall a good time.