January 05, 2005, alpental .... and Jan 07.

Hah, we were writing and posting the trip report at the same time.  Here's mine copied into this thread for cleaniness:

I'm finding early morning ski trips are a great way to break up the work week, get some exercise and turns, all while avoiding the suspicion and watchful eye of bosses (though I hardly think mine would object, but rather approve;  Kam's might have a different take).

Kam and I headed up to Alpental to ski some of the unconsolidated sugar over the December rain crust.  We left Seattle about 5:15am;  were skinning by 6:45;  at the top of Chair 2 before 8:30 and back at our offices about 10:30.  Ski conditions are reported elsewhere so I'll give a few other highlights:

There is some beautifully huge, but potentially deadly surface hoar forming at an alarming rate.  Watch out when the next snows falls.

Recent easterly winds had their way with a bit of the higher terrain.  All the slopes below the top of the quad were wind packed and scowered (easterlies at the pass often use the minor gap at the top of the quad/bottom of chair 2 to escape to western Washington..  this is often the top of the Snoqualmie Death Fog).  International had varied conditions from the wind.

The sunrise was beautiful from Edelweiss bowl and the top.  We both continously marved at the quality of the light.  Nothing beats a winter sunrise.  All the peaks were out with a tiny bit of fog over the interstate as a bonus.

Where was everyone?  It was a great morning up there.

Almost went there this morning, but opted to give basic skate ski instruction to some women rower friends at Stevens . . .

Great pictures, Kam, looks like powder to me!

Looks like a great way to spend a morning! 8) Nice photos.  Kam!

That sunrise shot is one of th most beautiful ive ever scene.  a keeper for sure.

Wow those shots make it look like a great day.  I went out that afternoon and skinned up to the top of international.  Unfortunately the crust action made the international turns pretty crusty.  Lower International would be great except for all those rocks lurking just below the surface.  The snow is so light and sugary that you go right through it and hit rock.  From the bottom of Lower I to half way down Sessel was okay, not too rocky, fairly skier packed.  From half way down Sessel to parking lot was unconsolidated snow with more lurking rocks.  Hope this storm coming produces something good.  Although I wish it would warm up, so that we could get some of that quality Pacific NW Glop to cover up the rocks.  This light stuff is not doing the trick.

It was a great day up there!  Tons of snow isn't always an elixir for covering up rocks.  Just last week I managed to blow out an edge at Alta on a true dumpage powder day, when they had a 90" base.  Here are some more pretty pictures for your viewing pleasure in Kam style links:

moon surface hoar 1 surface hoar 2 dawn patroller 2 fog

wow Matt!  those are some really nice photos, as usual.  the surface hoar exposures are my favorite, with the warm morning back-light.  thanks for sharing.

kam

Hey Kam - Looks like you were lookin' out towards us in the N. Cascades (shhhhh).  ;)

January 07 (dawn patrol II):

Skip, Cass and i went to alpental for an early morning stroll and found the pow that dropped last night to be very tasty!  as of this morning, the new snow is fairly light and unconsolidated, but it will move over the buried hoar-layer on relatively steep and convex terrain. we ran into a handful of other dawn patrollers.

Cass having pow for breakfast Skip eating the breakfast of champions

(Charles, i hope you don't mind the second photo post; i'll remove it soon.) -kam

Great shots Kam!  That sugary powder breakfast was definitely worth it for waking up at ~4:30 am!  The bosses didn't seem to notice my slightly late arrival at work today  ;)
--Casshole

Did you ski Nash?  If so can you give a little more detail on the snow conditions?  It looks inviting but the words "step down" in the avi report make me think twice ...  How did the mellower routes down around chair 2 look?

hankj-  We didn't ski nash...a different "dawn patrol" party that we saw back at the parking lot said they tried to ascend up near Chair 2, but didn't go all the way up owing to poor visibility.  We ascened via "sessel" up to near the top of Lower International, so we didn't really scope out the Chair 2 area. We didn't go all the way up to the saddle at the top of Lower International as the somewhat steep and open slopes were a bit un-nerving in the current conditions; and skinning became more difficult as the slope was littered with several open holes in the boulder field near the top of Lower International.
Some of the best turns of the morning were actually found lower down on "sessel"; although not very steep the fresh pow was ~6 inches deep on average...I kept expecting to hear that dreadful smack of a shallow-covered rock on my ski bases, but surprisingly none of us hit any rocks on the lower portion.
--Chris

Tony and I were the "dawn patrol" party that came down lower Edelweiss, Cascadefreak.  We actually turned around b/c I had a deadline today, but it worked out great b/c the skiing in Edelweiss was really difficult.  Both Tony and I were flailing around trying to ski by brail - the clouds were thick and a misty snow fell randomly.  Any higher than we got wouldn't have improved anything...at least when we were there.

We started smiling when we hit the top of Quad...from there it was good visibility and a nice half foot of light and dry.  Obviously we need more snow to not worry about bottoming out, but what's there is fine skiing, for this Ne'er at least.

That buried surface hoar layer was very prominent in a cursory look at the pack in Edelweiss.  It is alive and well.  Look out, mama, until that dissappears.  Not to mention the rain crust...and the depth hoar.  eee-gadds, is this Colorado?  

thanks guy --

sounds like playing it safe this weekend won't be much of a compromise fun-wise!

Heya MW88888888!  Thanks again for setting the up-track that we used on "sessel"  :)  The clouds on the upper mtn looked thick from our vantage on Lower International.  That fresh sugary pow sure was great!  Though I'll be sticking to low-angle mellow terrain this weekend.

MW88888888: it was nice to meet you and your friend!  again, thanks for the uptrack on Sessel.  it was a nice surprise to see fresh skin tracks early in the morning. ;)

hankj: MW88888888's comment about the hoar-layer being "alive and well" is smack on.  i'm no expert, but from what i've seen and with the addition of new snow, something is bound to go.  anyway, if you're venturing into the BC, look for the hoar-layer and also the Dec raincrust.  when ski_photomatt and i were out on Wed. morning, we found very large crystals, and if buried undisturbed, the "unstable" layer should be relatively thick and easy to spot; it'll probably shear pretty easily.  anyway, keep your eyes open :).

It's really AJ that deserves the thanks - Jah was conspiring against me this am and everytime I took point something would go wrong.  First discover both lights are on the dashboard when we leave the circle of light around the baselodge, then my skin comes free because of the wonderful job my new re-glue has done in stricking to the new wax job from last night.  Oh well.

I'll be seeing all on the powder filled slopes this weekend.  But be safe out there - the wind is really kicking up out here in the foothills!

hankJ:

We skied 'Nash today, got to the top at the crack of 11:30 AM and somehow were first to ski it (there was a skin track all the way to the top, apparently a patroller who was ensconced in the patrol shack at top of #2). The "drop" in was no problem at all, just stomped out the fresh little cornice and traversed in.

The impressive hoar crystals from a couple of days ago seem to have been buffeted by wind/temp/natural settling; the foot or so of fresh was well bonded to the layers underneath and only an inch or two would move even on fairly steep aspects.

What they do need badly is a couple of feet of snow - we hit several big rocks on every tasty-looking pitch (good snow, though) - one core shot and one instance of snow sticking to bottom of skis after stream immersion.

The top of Nash was pretty wind hammered on Wednesday and I think a lot of the surface hoar on it got destroyed.  Edelweiss had a bit of hoar because it is more wind protected.  We skinned up Edelweiss and skied down Nash this afternoon.  The bond to the surface hoar layer is better than I expected.  The warm temps helped a bit, as does the lack of a clean sliding surface.  The surface hoar is at the top of a fairly deep layer (~8") of facets and sugar snow above the Dec raincrust.  The transition from slabier new snow to weaker old snow to hard crust is fairly broad.  Shears on the rain crust were pretty hard to get today, but the one shear I got was clean.  Pretty good skiing on Lower International where the wind hadn't hit the snow.  Enjoy.