Ongoing Alpental snow and conditions reports.
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Ongoing Alpental snow and conditions reports.
12/10
No Alpental is not open yet, but I did push out to Summit West tonight to check out the snow, get in some runs and some passes in the park.
In general, the snow was of a nice quality for Snoqualmie. On piste was groomed, cut up, and then some snow fell on that which was then also cut up. The new stuff definitely has some fluff to it and just a pinch of grab. (Wrong temp wax on my skis maybe...) Off piste was generally the same, but with some deepness to it (though there is still a hard layer down about 5-10" you can hit.)
For some odd reason, only the Pacific Crest quad is open at nights. They used to open Thunderbird, but I haven't seen it open at night in a long time.
It was also foggy. But hey, It's the Summit. It's always foggy. :D
They took Thunderbird out. They run Wild Side at nights now.
12/14/03 Day skied at Alpental. Fresh powder, not just new. Caught lots of above the knee turns and pitches all over the place off-piste. With the very light and fluffy snow, watch out for tree wells as the usually stable edges wouldn't hold you out. Chair 2 was opened after morning avy control, but then closed again when the phoneline between top and bottom went dead. Grrrrr. All in all, one of the best snow days in the last 20 years at the pass.
12/20
The freezing level has obviously gone up in the last few days. Way up. The pass surface temperature is in the mid 30s, and felt warmer than that. All chairs running today. Lower mountain started off like snow cone shavings and got progressively wetter as the day went on. Off piste is very heavy and grabby. (Use warm temp wax.) There are plenty of bumps off the groomed as well. Chair 2 ran today. The Ededlwiess Bowl has some slightly refrozen balls and firm patches. It might be the best bet if the warming trend continues. International was somewhere in between: not as globby as down below, but not refrozen either. Adrenaline to Lower I seemed like the best bet: It had the nicest snow and the least bumps.
12/30
Today we got the leftovers from what was obviously an epic dump (I've been in the midwest so I missed out :( ) Today the upper mountain is pretty heavily bumped out. Most bumps are soft, but there are some harder icey ones in the heavily trafficed areas. There are a few little pow stashes leftover in the trees near breakover and in other places. The lower mountain has been groomed extensively and is actually in fabulous shape (you know, for groomers...) As long as the very low temps hold, theings should be about the same. Met up with Dr Crash, his sis, and the AD.
1/3/04
Started snowing outside the Quah. Chained up at FSRD 9030. Hit the parking lot at 9:15, in the line at 9:20. Hit chair 2 right off. Starting to get tracked out but still fresh snow to be found. Bailed at 2 but the rest of the day was spent lapping Upper International (upper entrance is still rocky.)
Dumbass drivers on the way home.
1/8/2004
Lets see. I-90 closed yesterday. Puking snow all over the Puget Sound all day yesterday and a good chunk of the night. Still nice low temps in the pass. Should be a killer day, right.
It was. :D
We got up for first lift (not quite first chair.) Lots of folks with Big Daddies, Axioms, etc... First 4 runs on the lower part of the mountain are all a blur of deep, not-quite-light-but-certainly-not-heavy untouched powder. Debbies Gold and Ingrid's Inspiration were their buttery best. An hour in, the closed sign came down from chair 2 and the second mad rush began. We found the temps warmer up top, and a good wind buff in effect. It was still beatutiful untouched deepness. We hit Rollen, Breakover to the trees, and Upper International to Snake Dance (best snow of the day in Snake Dance, but I nearly got creamed by a gaper snowboarder who drop a small clif: to a heavily used cat track with no spot. Guess who was down below...)
Finally, we took a couple more quick shots down the lower mountain for the slightly better snow and to take some pics on the little cliff below Debbies Gold. Meister still had nice fresh turns as well.
1/9/04
Hit the parking lot at 3. Conditions: groomed or mogels. Temps around freezing, thus lots of slush/soft snow. Overall, good, fun.
1/15/2004
Met up with the whole crew 'team powdermaggots' for 'qualifying' at City League tonight. The snow was packed and groomed slush with some moguls. Not much else to report in terms of conditions, other than the light drizzle, the warm temps, and no end to either in sight. :rolleyes:
edit: The actual racing (as opposed to snow) reports and results will go here: http://tetongravity.com/forums/showt...&threadid=5484
Nice inversion today
Temperature Bottom 28°
Temperature Top 38°
Jeez,
Temperature Bottom 28°
Temperature Top 42°
1/22/2004
Night racing agian at the summit. The lower mountain at Alpental is the very defintion of "hard pack and granular." The hardpack is actually bordering on ice now and the granular shavings are showing up everywhere. Off piste looked frozen solid.
The visibility was clear (I think we were under the fog due to char's inversion.)
It did, however, start to lightly snow at about 9pmish. I think about 1/4 of an inch fell in about an hour and a half. Bring it on. We need it, Ullr!
Alpental was outstanding today. Not as cold as had been forecasted,, but the pow was excellent.not too heavy, or too light. Some substance to it was needed to coved the crusty base. We skiied 8 backcountries which provided great freshies, 8-16 inches of new...plenty of faceshots. Good enough for pleny of airtime. Including yours truly dropping a 20 footer.
Pics will follow on another thread. I skiied with the Hummel telemark twins I'd heard so much about. It was one of their first adventures to 'tal, and thy're stoked for a pass here next yr. These rippers have laid down by far the raddest first descents yet in the PNW....www.cascadeclassics.org
This morning they're reporting 8 new and building fast, versus 1 to 5 at the other areas. As usual, alpy produces the goods! And the forecast is for major dumpage all week, with 2000-3000 snow levels, with only one brief blip to 5500 feet on Thursday.
I'll be up Tuesday. By then it may be too deep for the bc....
February came in with a roar... and about 15 bazillion other skiers too. Only good thing about that is lot's of them brought their dogs too...
We arrived at 8:45 to find the lifts already spinning and all 4 lots almost full already :eek:
And after the day we had at Crystal Sat, (best turns of the year) we didn't expect much out of Alpy and we were content to take our time hurrying up to wait in line...We were right about the lines, but the snow was less than disappointing by far!!!
Waits at chair 2 were 20 minutes at the longest... Funny how there was still so much untracked though!!! All we got were 5 laps on chair 2 before the final one down shot six and to the car, but they were all freshies. Even as late as our last ride up at 11:30, there were still fresh lines on pan face, or whatever that run is right under the chair. I am convinced everyone was OB or skiin international, because we had the goods to oursleves up top. Took one last one down to the car through shot 6. Really smooth through in the trees all the way there, and once inside, there was no wind effect, no crust on top, just boot top blower on top of another 15" from the last couple days. Warmed up right as we wound down which was perfect for snowball chasin. I guess Super Bowl sunday is everyone elses favorite day to ski too judging from the size of te crowds. I bet Hyak was the place to go today.
BF,
Went to Alpy the day before and had incredible snow in the backcounty and on Shot 6. Found some great natural rollers in the trees with plentiful 5-10' small drops with only the softest of landings. Would loved to have hit something bigger, but didn't really know where to go. Skied Chicken shot which was unskied with waist deep on it. I had the second set of tracks in the whole shot and skied a great line. It doesn't happen for me often enough, so it is great to look up the mountain and see that you skied the exact line you originally looked at from below! Awesome conditions and a great day.
2-5-2004
A low fog held on to the upper mountain. Thus the lower mountain was very much under the freezing level. It was still reasonably firm and made for decent soft moguls and groomers. The race courses, didn't hold up so well... :mad:
Thurs nite was great packed powder. Yep the race course was soft, which resulted in rutted near moguls at a couple gates, which sent many folks spilling.
As it rained Friday, and we were slated to prune tall birches and maples, no fun in slimy conditions, I gave the crew the day off and buzzed to 'tal. Met my bc bud Corey, got up the lift at 10:45, and proceeded to make 8 trips to Piss Pass. Skied untracked all day and the 5 new during the day was a bonus. Skiied a 55 degree fluted ramp that twice slabbed off the top 10 inches, meaning I had to jump turn the narrow slot, in less than fluid style. A friend was at Crystal Friday which sounded good but a bit inconsistent, due to wind and warm weather.
Corey had been out till 10:30 pm Thurs evening, above Source Lake toward Snow Lake, waiting for first descent rad guy Sky and his partner to make it back from an attempt on the unskiied NE Buttress of Chair Peak. Good thing they had headlamps. They had to bail on that route, but Sky still skiied the South couloir, that may have never seen ski tracks. Here's his webiste, click on Chair Peak.
http://staff.washington.edu/skykilo/lines.html
I'm headed up tomorrow. Wild man Brad has a couple gnarly lines and drops planned for the camera..
Looks like a couple inches fell today, hoping for a couple more but it looks like that high pressure ridge is building....
2/7/2004
Gave VTskibum the inbounds tour today. We had lots of cut up pow, which got progressively soupier and sticky down low as the day went on. The day started off overcast and a touch foggy but the sun broke through later int the day which also helped warm things up. We didn't make it into the b/c, but we certianly saw lots of folks headed out that way.
Brad delivered the goods, now to send off the Fujichrome....
We shot two runs on the Edelweiss side, then went out back for the goods. B Rad aired a sick 45-50 footer near Sucker Chute, landing 8 feet from one rock, and 20 feet from another. He stuck the landing in 4 feet of soft stuff. We hiked to Pineapple Pass, opted out of the Witkowski route, chatted with a couple youngsters, who were climbing up the 55 degree couloir right next to The Tooth. Didn't want to wait around to film them, so we had a great totally untracked Great Scott ego run. Plenty of pow lines to be had out there still, and still very skiable.
9 friends climbed Snoqualmie Peak and did Slot Couloir. Some of them have done it 4 times already. My turn next soon!!
http://staff.washington.edu/skykilo/...logically.html
2/12/2004
Racing was excellent tonight The snow was firm and fast and stayed that way all night. I think it must have gotten just a little wet today and then refroze in the evening. Recommendation if you going to Alpy: until we get some new, bring your carving skis. It's still super fun, but it's probably not worth it to bang out turns in the rock hard moguls off piste.
2/19/04
Coupla inches new, lots of windblown. Shot 6 was sweet around 1. Overall a good day.
2/19/2004
It must have warmed up during the day, becuase it was just starting to freeze at night. That left big solid man eating moguls, crud, and on the race course ruts that froze up big enough to qualify for statehood out east. With the melt-refreeze on, it might be good to stick to south facing stuff in the morning, or just not get a very early start.
2/22/04
The ropetow hill was in excellent shape. It was sunny and warm with pleasant corn. The backpack was reasonably comfortable for the wearer, but the occupant did complain of some groin discomfort after about 15 laps on the rope tow.
The occupant exhibited varying degrees of glee as well as horror and fear. The most frequent remarks included "slow down daddy" and "ski...ski". Given that I could not determine the goals and objectives of the scenario, I took it upon myself to exercise what tenuous authority I could. So I put some skins on and skinned up the Source Lake trail about 1000 feet and then skied back to the car. Almond butter sandwiches and water were enjoyed as well as some killer white and milk chocolate chip cookies and apricot cliff bars. A short sledding session ensued with further confusing directives from the management.
Enroute back to the office, the couterie of mousies as well as whether or not they inhabited boots and whether they liked blue strawberries or cheese better prevented premature sleep. Upon arrival at the office, the infinitesimal scrutinization of the local napscape was successful.
2/26/2004
Yup. It's mashed potatoes time. Last night's mash was on the firmer side of the mash. It's sort of early in the mash cycle. It makes for nice softy bumps and areas that are a little sticky than others. It rained early in the night, and then settled down to a nice mist. Looks like it's going to have to cool down some before we can expect to see any new, until then use your warm temps wax.
Tampa, Fla.: Driver Terry Lee Crouch, 29, accidentally ran over his 6-year-old son while, he told police, playing a game in which the boy tries to cling to the rear bumper while Crouch starts and stops the car attempting to dislodge him (November). And in nearby New Port Richey, Fla., a 400-pound man fell to his waist through the floor of his home at the Orangewood Lakes Mobile Home Community and said he had been trapped there for two days; a neighbor had called on him during his ordeal, but the man declined help (October). And in nearby Largo, Fla., according to police, a 41-year-old woman offered to pay three teenagers $20 to come beat up her son (but told them to be careful with the furniture) (January). [St. Petersburg Times, 12-2-03] [St. Petersburg Times, 10-16-03] [St. Petersburg Times, 1-8-04]
Frozen mashed potatoes become mushy mashed potatoes. Ugh. Beautiful day but the snow was definitely too wet and yucky. I want a big dry storm. OK, any storm that is not made of rain.
drC
3/14/04.
Drizzling and crowded due to some junior race. But I took my 2 year old son on the chairlift for his time on his own skis.
I'm sky high happy. Dreams desublimating into reality. I'm amazed.
3/16/04
Triple yucky snow. I know I shouldn't complain, having skied 3 days out of the past 4, but still. Ugh.
The BC didn't open when we came in, so we went down to Lot 1, crossed the road, and skinned (me) and snowshoed (my friend) up towards Guye Peak. We then skied down in the wettest snow I've been in for a while. Then back to Alpental's Lot 2, rode up Chair 2, and then did a quick run in the now-open BC (Wall Street). The ride was even worse there because it was changing a lot, and the closer trees didn't help.
Lunch outside, sun-soaked. That was good.
It is definitely spring. We need a big cold storm.
drC
Sounds like you need some fatter skis tiger.
Came gurgling up out of the depths to the drone of the alarm someplace above and out of the fuzzy place. 5:00 alarm shut down, groggle on the longies, pants, vest, stumble down to make coffee and call. Crystal hasn't posted. Slurp...wait...drowse...call again...still no update. Scope website...nope, no update, jump to summit...4 new. Game on, Crystal finally reporting same, but much bigger drive.
Weasels Ripped My Flesh up there with some Moby Play thown in. On go the boots and over to the lift and lift 1, Armstrong quad is not running. So ripped a few on Sessel, it's dust on crust, very hard crust at that. Saw an old bitfactory pal, exchanged hi's. Then lift 1 opened and the scramble was on to chair 2. Breakover trees was thinner than I had thought, so went over to Shot 6 and got in there before more than 10 otherfolks had. Shot 6 delivered the goods: face shots bopping around those scraggly alpine firs. Nice soft snow on top, enough to bounce and rip some nice big boater turns. Farted around up in Edelweiss bowl, mining minor stashes of 300 vert, but it was more sweet soft face blasting snow. Then is got really horrible and ugly: the sun peeked out and started to glop the snow. So I headed down to work.
So you're saying that Baker would be a much better choice tomorrow morning before the sun and heat destroy what's left?Quote:
Then is got really horrible and ugly: the sun peeked out and started to glop the snow. So I headed down to work.
What about the Alpental backcountry? Will that hold up for tomorrow ya think?:confused:
Go North to North facing, but by noon, it will all be tatees.
3/19/2004
Best snow in the past couple months! A *fresh and dry* (for Alpental) 5"-8" layered on top of crust or wet snow. Great skiing, especially my favorite places, Breakover and Shot 6. We need one such storm every week. Got my 6 yr old and a colleague and we skipped school and work. Definitely worth it!
drC
3/21/2004
And of course two days later we're back to slush, mush. Uck. Gotta hate those high temps. We didn't last long there, yesterday.
drC
Well, what did you expect at that time of the year? Cascade concrete, hell yes! Lots of it. Snow is very patchy, streams are exposed, but some good turns are still to be had.
drC
Went up late (~11) and got the last little tongue of snow that's continous down to within 30' of the lot.
Skinned up the racecourse part and it started to rain, so I hung out under the exit ramp until it abated about 12:00. Then skinned up to where lower Nash in the mash gets steep and booted it up to the top of the snow. Sliced one run down that and then over to the cattrack, then skinned over to Debbies Gold and up along the ridge viewers left to catch some nice steep slushers back to Debs. Had to jump a good sized glide crack on the way. Snow was serious slop by 1:00.
The snowpack is really thin, as bad as I've seen. We're supposed at about 70% of normal, but it doesn't seem like it. I don't think Alpie will be worth it again this year.
Didn't that table that someone listed show Alpental at 7% of normal, not 70%?
I'll be there Thursday night, will update on the conditions.
drC
What time Thursday?Quote:
Originally posted by Dr. Crash
Didn't that table that someone listed show Alpental at 7% of normal, not 70%?
I'll be there Thursday night, will update on the conditions.
drC
Went tonight. Showed up in the parking lot at about 6:15pm. Char, I didn't see your question until tonight, sorry. PM me if you want to meet next Thursday, I'm likely to go again.
The snow has melted quite a lot. We hiked from the bottom to the top of Sessel, and then started skinning up towards Upper International. We turned back at 8pm (in the middle of Adrenalin). The snow was really, really nice. Great corn, just the right consistency thanks to the cooling off that was taking place. Going down, I found a way through the top of Sessel to the bottom of the Pumpkin Patch to the very right of Chair 1 that afforded me to ski down to the very bottom (a few feet from the lodge) having to take my skis only once for maybe 15 yards.
That was a great ski. I'll be back next Thursday unless some wrench gets thrown in that plan.
drC