May 7, 2013, Pineapple Pass

Following an non-skiing-related, rude awakening at 4am, I decided to skip work in the morning and see how the snow was looking up at Pineapple Pass. I was pleasantly surprised to see how much things had consolidated in the past two days. There were still some hollow spots, and small bits of remaining cornices were still coming down, but it was nothing like the slushfest that was Alpental this past weekend. The main pitch of the pass was near-perfect corn in the shade, necessitating several laps to adequately affirm the quality of the snow. Things started to get pretty soft once the sun hit, so I bailed around 11. I was expecting the trail back to the parking lot from Source Lake to be slushy by that point, but it was still in pretty good shape. Things are setting up nicely down there.

I didn€™t see any action on Chair Peak; it looks like most of the bigger cornices came down this weekend. The Tooth was spitting rocks down all morning though. With all of the rock explosions, it sounded like hiking in the Middle Fork Valley!

The upper Alpental parking lots were still open, but when I left, they€™d planted a big, €œNo Vehicles Beyond This Point€ sign in the middle of the road by the FS bathrooms, so they€™ll probably gate it soon. Also, the snowcat drivers had built a giant booter in the middle of the front face of Alpental. That definitely wasn€™t there this weekend!