May 21, 2005, Pineapple Pass

Jason G and I left the upper Alpental lot this morning at 8:30 in full sunscreen mode and returned at 2pm in rain gear.  Fortunately the rain didn't really start falling in earnest until we were fairly close to the car at the end of the day.

All in all it was a beautiful day.  The skinning was a little slick at first, but once ski crampons were installed everthing smoothed out nicely.  Jason opted to bootpack most of the way up since his split-board seemed to slip out pretty easily on the climb.

The coverage is still good all the way (we skinned from the car) but it's melting fast.  The tree wells on the slopes have opened up an present some pretty deep pits that I for one didn't want to find myself in:

Many seasonal waterfalls are flowing:


We had the Pass to ourselves and enjoyed watching several teams climbing the Tooth:

The skiing snow was "firmish corn" with small, plowable suncups.  It was fun skiing.