December 31, 2004, Alpental
12/31/04
WA Snoqualmie Pass
2533
1
News flash! There is skiing at Alpental if you are willing to climb a little for it, and dodge stuff.
David W. and I gathered our gear and prepared in the lower lot at a slow and leisurely pace…played with random dogs…chatted with folks, including a couple of guys headed back to Chair Peak and some secret powder stashes. Hope they had a good and safe trip.
We decided to stick to the ski area confines and figured we wanted to pretty much follow the cat track from the upper restrooms all the way to the base of chair 2. Then pick our way up through Edelweiss Bowl. This worked fine until we got to the bottom of Lower International where we figured we would take the upper cat track across to the top of chair 1. There is no cat track there…as far as we can figure that track is a temporary winter fixture gouged out of the snow by the bulldozer that is currently parked at the top of chair 1. Gotta love the temporal nature of winter snow and the things we do with it!
We continued our climb up the north ridge of Edelweiss bowl where at 5200ft we decided this untracked flank of the bowl looked too good to pass up. Dug a pit there on a south facing 40 degree pitch. There were 15 total inches of snow: 5 inches of nice, light powder on top of 5 crusty inches of consolidated followed by 5 inches of super consolidated. Got no movement outside of packing of the top powder throughout 30 strikes in a compression test. The column could not be budged in a shear test. Eventually managed to break it free from the ground with a good bit of leveraging.
Basically enjoyed turns in nice, floaty powder all the way back down, with conditions getting progressively thinner the lower we dropped. Of course, given the thin coverage there are many obstacles to avoid, but it makes for some fun skiing to work with the terrain and obstacles. Hey, they call them rock skis for a reason.
All in all, it was a very nice day with some sweet turns in freshness and a lot of good socializing. Oh right, another 4 feet of snow would improve things greatly!
Happy New Year 2005!!
David W. and I gathered our gear and prepared in the lower lot at a slow and leisurely pace…played with random dogs…chatted with folks, including a couple of guys headed back to Chair Peak and some secret powder stashes. Hope they had a good and safe trip.
We decided to stick to the ski area confines and figured we wanted to pretty much follow the cat track from the upper restrooms all the way to the base of chair 2. Then pick our way up through Edelweiss Bowl. This worked fine until we got to the bottom of Lower International where we figured we would take the upper cat track across to the top of chair 1. There is no cat track there…as far as we can figure that track is a temporary winter fixture gouged out of the snow by the bulldozer that is currently parked at the top of chair 1. Gotta love the temporal nature of winter snow and the things we do with it!
We continued our climb up the north ridge of Edelweiss bowl where at 5200ft we decided this untracked flank of the bowl looked too good to pass up. Dug a pit there on a south facing 40 degree pitch. There were 15 total inches of snow: 5 inches of nice, light powder on top of 5 crusty inches of consolidated followed by 5 inches of super consolidated. Got no movement outside of packing of the top powder throughout 30 strikes in a compression test. The column could not be budged in a shear test. Eventually managed to break it free from the ground with a good bit of leveraging.
Basically enjoyed turns in nice, floaty powder all the way back down, with conditions getting progressively thinner the lower we dropped. Of course, given the thin coverage there are many obstacles to avoid, but it makes for some fun skiing to work with the terrain and obstacles. Hey, they call them rock skis for a reason.
All in all, it was a very nice day with some sweet turns in freshness and a lot of good socializing. Oh right, another 4 feet of snow would improve things greatly!
Happy New Year 2005!!
We were there Friday, but didn't make it as far up as you did. The snow was nice, what little there was of it. Lots of bounding off submerged rocks and limbs, but it was fun. I certainly won't be complaining about Alpental not opening up. Looks to me like they'll need another 24 inches at least.
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