Nov 30, 2007; Alpental - dawn patrol

Powder for breakfast made the 4:30 am wake-up and under 4 hours of sleep fully worthwhile.  Daniel, Tim, and myself skinned up to the top of the Armstrong Express lift at dawn.  We were greeted by about 7-to-10" of mostly low density fluff overlying a faceted crust above a thin snowbase, but just enough coverage for fun turns (without bottoming out on the crust) with some brush dodging (we weren€™t too concerned with the faceted crust/buried surface hoar on the slopes we skied as there was extensive vegetative and terrain anchoring still in place, but up higher things could be more spicy; heard a small €œwhompf€ while skiing through some flats near a stream bed, possibly buried surface hoar collapsing).  An excellent powder morning and still made it into the office by 9:30.