February 16, 2005, Alpental noon patrol
2/16/05
WA Snoqualmie Pass
3420
10
khayak and I met at the Alpental lot shortly after 10:00, and followed a group of 6 snowboarders (bootpacking) and one lone snowboarder (MSR snowshoes) up a heavily used track. The heavily pockmarked trail made for fairly easy travel but uneven traction on some steep sections, fortunately the bootpackers stopped before the final Edelweiss face. Snow had consolidated substantially since Monday, with a pretty coating of surface hoar at lower elevations and a well-developed sun crust higher up on Edelweiss.
International was worth two runs; tracks from the previous two days had been filled in partially by the wind. There was anywhere from 6" to 15" of wind-affected soft stuff on Upper Nash and Adrenalin, slightly less on lower I. No real rocks until we got to the bottom and skied out under Sessel.
Looked for Lowell Skoog and alpentalcorey, both of whom were rumored to be coming up late, but didn't see either . . .
Glad to hear that the snow is still soft up there. Nice photo!
Greg: lookin' good. that's a nice photo!! but it looks like you need fatter skis ;). btw, Kelvin and i are thinking about laying up a pair of 140mm (at the waist) with zero camber. wanna test ride 'em for us ?? ;D
Uhhh . . . sure! Do I have to tele?
Uhhh . . . sure! Do I have to tele?
..unless you want to pay EXTRA to cover the "AT" tax. ;D
Kam, can you guys come out with an insert pattern that fits Dynafits, Fritschis, Silverettas, and tele bindings? I'll buy some if/when you do. ;)
Paul: Kam, Kelvin and i are actually thinking/working on that. the idear is to build a standard base plate that mounts to a ski, and the top plate (with whatever binding) "slips and locks" in place. it'll make sharing our skis more convenient. any idears you can offer will help. like what color? ;)
-kam
-kam
Nice photo.
Yeah didn't end up skiing Wednesday, I've been having back problems and strained it a bit on Tuesday. But the awesome conditions Sun-Tues have me pretty stoked. I'll hopefully be back on the hill on Sunday, and I'm on vacation next week if any of y'all might be up at the Alp.
Yeah didn't end up skiing Wednesday, I've been having back problems and strained it a bit on Tuesday. But the awesome conditions Sun-Tues have me pretty stoked. I'll hopefully be back on the hill on Sunday, and I'm on vacation next week if any of y'all might be up at the Alp.
Skiing was bad today. Skinned to the summit in 1hr 10 minutes, courtesy of Dynafit. Circumstances prevented me from skiing upper nash, so I 'skied' Edelweiss bowl instead. 2" sun crust. Wild jumps to buttchecks were the order of the day.
The snow beneath the Armstrong Express is getting better but still quite bad.
I made five powder turns though, so it was definitely worth it.
I made a momentous discovery today: the lighter the gear, the better it goes uphill, and the worse it goes downhill. Pretty cool, huh? I even got a blister, thanks to the TLT4s.
The snow beneath the Armstrong Express is getting better but still quite bad.
I made five powder turns though, so it was definitely worth it.
I made a momentous discovery today: the lighter the gear, the better it goes uphill, and the worse it goes downhill. Pretty cool, huh? I even got a blister, thanks to the TLT4s.
Skiing was bad today.
Who care about the skiing, skinning with Dynafits beats any good day of skiing!
I even got a blister, thanks to the TLT4s.
Your Dynafits will prefer if you call them "love marks".
PS: Excellent photo Greg!
Yeah, I noticed the crust developing on sun affected slopes like Edelwiess but North Facing is still super nice, or at least it was on Tuesday. I'm sure that crust will be corn soon enough with the forecast we have.
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