Alpental Feb 15th

After extricating myself from Seattle rush hour I arrived by 9 and headed straight to the BC gates. I traversed for about 8 minutes and booted it up 100 feet to a saddle(sorry I dont know the names of the runs)and found the goods. Boot deep and very light, lots of fine lines to be had all day. The sun didnt affect it tooo much and th esnow stayed light all day. Certainly anything tracked to much was crap due to the boilerplate crust. Not evident in the BC for probably 2/3 the way down. I didnt even take a run down the front due to the firm looking conditions. Maybe I missed something good? All in all very nice turns considering we havent had anything else for the last week. I would think if it stayed cold the conditions in the surrounding BC would be great this weekend. Think Snow!!

That was the report I have been hoping to see. So there was enough snow to effectively cover the crust in the BC?

I'd say so -- we were up there last night and as long as there was something on the crust it was fantastic. Light, airy snow. The runs were pretty tracked up, but if you skied pile to pile and didn't scrub to much speed you didn't hit the crust too badly. BC should be real nice.

Though my trip was BC it seems like it might apply to this thread which seems to be weighted toward Alpental's BC:<br><br>I skied Red Mountain on the 15th and found about 7 inches of fluff on the upper SW (or maybe more West), facing slope. The base was smooth, consistant and firm. The base was not hard or icy but seemed a little damp from the warm temperatures earlier this week. You could easily stomp thru it to the old wet snow beneath which was comforting on this steeper slope. This dampness made for good adhesion to the new snow though this will be different with different facing exposures. It would have been good corn skiing sans the new snow, (but then without the insulation affect of the new snow this base may have frozen solid despite the sun). In contrast there was enough sun on the steepest part of the approach gulley to sluff about 2" of wet stuff when I made my way down. With the much heralded arctic front's arrival this dampness may/will freeze and make the run a little more exciting. I didn't make it to the top due to a 1:30 pm start. As I climbed higher the base became harder and made it more difficult to skin. I 'm pretty sure I could have boot packed the final 500' to the summit if I had a means to secure my skis to my pack, but I was out of time anyway. There were also 2 snow boarders on snow shoes, one turned around with me after he lost his footing and slid down in the minimal sluff about 75'. The other was below and I don't know if he made it to the top. The snow on this slope skied like powder with every edge set just skiffing off the old corn snow underneath. It was very good skiing. I skied a few other aspects before ascending Red. They were all inferior in new snow depth and base quality. The snow was still soft in Commonwealth Basin on the run out because of the earlier warm temps and the insulation of the 2 or 3" of new snow that made it thru the trees. If this freezes the run out will be much bother. Given more time I might have prefered an ice axe and maybe crampons for the final 500' to the summit. This might be more important in the next few days. Beautiful day and great skiing down. It will be interesting to see how the cold affects these conditions.