June 10 Alpental

We found about 7" at the base of Alpental which will buy a few more days of coverage this spring -- we were pleasantly surprised to have hard rain in North Bend and snow by the time we hit about 1500 feet.  We were first tracks (by car) into the upper Alpental lot.  I think we saw Trumpetsailer's tracks heading onto the Snow Lake Trail so he may have beat us with a VERY early start. 

Skinning was very easy on the wet snow--especially since we followed a single skier who turned 200' from Alpental summit.  Someone has dutifully cut a road into the snow up to that point with a snowcat which eliminated the need for high switchbacks and sped the ascent which we made in about 90 minutes.

Snow at the top was still sticky, but fun and kicked up with the ski tails though no face shots were recorded.  The moguls are still clearly formed up under the new snow.  The most exciting part was when we decided to go "left" instead of "right down International.  It began to cliff out and waterfalls appeared.  We walked our skis across some rock bands that had about 8" of new snow on them until we cliffed out about 10 feet above a good looking landing.

Mike was not intimidated at all and hit it immediately.  I was next and skittish, but made the jump.  George (the dog) took 10 minutes of coaxing to approach Daniel, who immediately shoved him over the lip.  Daniel dutifully followed the rest of us and we were back skiing again.  I have an interesting sore muscle in my neck from the landing.

Skiing the bottom half was sticky.

Daniel should post a photo or two since he had the camera.