April 11, 2004, Chair Peak circumnavigation

I guess this tour would have to be the Alpental version of the Spearhead traverse, covering a lot of ground and starting/ending at the ski area.  We (myself and Cyril, a longtime friend from highschool who now lives in Oregon) wanted to start out with a lift assist since we have passes and the lifts were still running.  We woke up really late after staying up late playing cards, but since they didn't open the Internationale side of the hill until later in the day we didn't lose too much time.  Of course this tour could be done without the lifts - they save some vertical but the amount of time saved is probably only 30 minutes or so when you count riding the lifts, skiing Internationale, traversing the BC etc...

Anyways, we skinned over pinapple pass and left the skins on for a short downhill section and travesed as high as we could, ending up 2-300 feet above Melakwa lake.  For a while we tried to maintain as much vertical as we could, but in retrospect we agreed that skiing down and then skinning along the valley floor would have been easier and faster than the laborious side-hilling.  Soon enough we were at Melakwa pass where we rested a bit in the shade before skiing down and across Snow lake, up and over the divide (went to the correct spot this time avoiding the "sporty finish" from last weeks' slot coulior trip), and back out to Alpental.  We were a little late for the perfect corn, but the mush was still pretty enjoyable and the scenery was grand.  There were a few small wet sluffs but they were not large in scale and easily manageable.  We made it back in time for another trip up to the top, where our thighs had mixed feelings about the 2,200 feet of bumps, but it was still pretty fun.  A great day!