April 24, 2007, Alpy (again)

Slammed by the need to get some work done over the weekend, and smarting with shame and disappointment at bailing on a partner with whom I'd planned a 3 day ski camp outing, I at least wanted to get up for a half day of turns. I pondered slightly wilder options, but ongoing reports of mushy conditions combined with a desire to bring the gimpy dog (fine for hiking, not at all fine for postholing) led us to the very handy roadside consolidated lower slopes of Alpental by mid-afternoon. We skinned up to the top of the quad and noted that, as reported by some picnicing snowboarders below, the stuff on the upper half was still on the manky side. So we debated views vs turns, and decided on optimizing for turns, had a quick snack, and took a run back down toward the lodge. Nice turns on the steeper of these intermediate slopes, but the telltale pollen-drag was indeed present. The pollen scraped off pretty easily at the bottom, and we headed back up, this time aiming for the bottom of Snake Dance, where we stopped on a sunny knoll just below where the slope steepens into a mix of cliffs and now-narrow shots. I left Yanna and the dog napping in the sun while I took a quick run back to the base, which was much more fun than the first - a more consistent fall-line combined with mostly shady snow made for much quicker turns the whole way. After a little more pollen scraping (less than from the first run - perhaps less pollen on this north-er side of the lower slopes, or perhaps it's just that the goo is less sticky once the snow goes into the shade?), re-skinning the skis, I turned on the turbo-jets to get back up to the nappers before they could get any REM sleep in, and we all headed back down. Yanna agreed that this line was good fun, and the dog was happy with it all.

As Wolfs noted, the stuff up higher appears to be getting toward cornification, but is still not quite there. Looks like we have a nice set of melt-freeze cycles over the coming week - I wish I didn't have to fly out of town next weekend. Damn work... But on the bright side, I love living in a place where you can put in a morning of work and then put in an afternoon of hanging with the cascading waterfalls and corn snow.