1/21/09 Alpental

It was a suprisingly great day of skiing on the Alpy slopes today. There was a big-time inversion. The base was about 20F and up top it must've been in the mid-40's. A vast fog layer covered the valley floor and created a cascading affect of clouds rolling over the ridge of Summit West and Central below. For a minute I thought I may have accidentally eaten some good fungi. It was very surreal. As for the skiing it was spring conditions above and super fast and smooth corduroy below. There were just a handfull of us up there. I stashed some choice brews at my "chill tree" and savored the vista.

you sound like my kind of skier! driving home from rainier on monday was dang surreal as well... and from rainier we could see the inversion filling the columbia... my nose is all irritated from the disgusting air. glad you had a good day, tho'!

Anyone have data on the Alp side country access & conditions from upper nash? I’ve recently (last 2 weeks) toured a couple times out to Source Lake area (& up around Great Scott’s Bowl area) and found lots of partial exposed rocks, creeks, cracks, runnels, etc and then there was all the frozen-over avy debris... all making skiing "interesting". Is the nash gate to the traverse even open and if so is it worth making runs down to the cat track?