January 17, 2009, Alpental to Source Lake

Discouraged by recent reports, but motivate to get out for some sun, we waited until late morning to drive up to Alpental.  Began the tour to Source Lake after noon, met a couple headed up for a repeat today after finding nice corn around 5000' yesterday.   Skiing up and down through the many slide paths was not fun, a few hundred feet of smooth skiing in the sun on SW facing slopes around 2PM was pretty much it for us.  At least the snow in the shade was actually skiable, not solid ice today.   

Clouds were spilling over the pass from the east side until noon, when they receded a bit, then back after 330PM.  Strange and challenging days we are having.