Alpental - 04/29

Short Northern report – Great day, great morning, great nobody around early, great filtered sun, great no early morning lift lines on the padded chair ( 2?), great off piste early smooth soft spring down low…worth many hamster repeats. Lots of really fun stuff – for non locals…International was boulder field hell…but doable.

The way to many words report - AaaaHaaaa….Get ready…the waste the space Alpy  (almost new daily) thread is fired up…Fun morning…arrived way to early (Crystal early…finished reading the paper before anybody else showed up)…nice filtered sun early (dang high overcast moved in a little early – some would say it slowed the muck factor…probably…but it was grayish!)….Did a number or happy fun smooth untracked sweet off piste (groomers sucked from what I saw) casual to even happy small easy bump lines...repeat, repeat…okay gotta do the padded seat lift…no line early morning (good for my lift line pain tolerance)…problem is I got to do International if I ride Ch 2….Upper mostly a mine field of boulders…lower looked as bad…bailed into some gully skiers left of lower I – soft deep sun backed mank...pretty nice actually…heard Snakdance was prime – but not being a local….only been there once a long time ago when a very nice local allowed me to follow! And it was very nice then….so sad someone else will have to tell us how it was….Crowds perked up after 10am…Ch 2 had a line that I will not suffer even for PB!...Armstrong had a smallish line that I finally got permission to use the ski patrol lane as a singles line! Bonus! Alpy lift opp’s are (like Crystal) nice folks when you get to know them….Went in for a very nice Alpy Taco meal! With great beer (? What what it?) Always enjoy being on vaca at Alpy and getting to eat and have a beer on that great outdoor area.  Skied a little more after the to much food…snow lower down on Armstrong off piste was getting sticky, crowd on Armstrong was reasonable, crowd on Ch 2 kept me away…Left probably to early…temps seemed to be getting cooler (or winds on top of Armstrong), energy level seemed to have been fadding for me – hiking and biking this last week)  Fun day, great food, great skiing Alpy late season….My first real Hawaii Shirt Day of the season! Ouch!  Hoping for a few more.

Other – Got front row parking at the bridge early…no clue on the soup du jour today…drive was fast and furious both up and down and very short…dang! If I wasn’t a Crystal bigot….More fun days to come…Snow pack is way massive…Alpy will not close do to lack of snow pack.
The upper parking lots were primed and fired up when I drove through as I was leaving....party city!

Thanks for the report!

Biggest turnout all spring made for some classic line waiting - no biggie, I've had plenty of ride on, ride off days lately. Snow remained corny all day, right side Nash + Adrenaline both rode great and you couldn't go wrong with Snake Dance or Felsen. Excellent day - even the rain held off until well into apres!

There was more bright new clothing than usual in the lift lines today. Almost like a whole new crowd showed up...

Skiers right down upper I was quite fun. Fairly smooth. Snake Dance was a blast.

Did they run the little beginners chair, St Bernard's?

It was running Saturday, I presume because they were doing races there. Sessel was dormant.