January 15, 2006, Alpental

Food poisoning and a sickness that will not go away brought our possible group of four into a ski tour with just Holly and myself.  Our hot date started with a skin up to Pineapple Pass.  Half way up I thought I would set the mood by digging a romantic snow pit on a 30 degree northeast facing slope.  I dug down to Tuesdays rain crust.  That was about 5 feet down.  There were no significant layers above the crust.  The first shovel sheer test resulted in an uneven ;.  The second sheer test resulted in an uneven 3.  Both broke on the top 12 inches of snow that had fallen overnight.  We felt pretty comfortable about continuing up to the pass.  The light snow showers and fresh untracked powder in Great Scott Bowl created the perfect mood lighting for the ski down.  We could see just enough.  The snow was fluffy and nice.  We continued on down to Big Trees.  Much to our surprise there were very few groups out skiing today and Big Trees was still untracked.  At the bottom we had an intimate meal in the trees of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, hot tea, and Newmans Ginger Os.  Then we repeated our first run.  More fun stuff.  Still untracked.  The night cap to our wonderful date was one more lap on Big Tees.  Then we kissed and went home.