January 16, 2005, Alpental

Entertaining is the most positive word I can think of to describe the Alpental experience today.<br><br>The Armstrong Express, Sessel and St. Bernard were in operation with basically Debbies Gold, the Sessel face and the St. Bernard trails open; the latter two trails were groomed.<br><br>We loaded within the first dozen chairs on the Armstrong and had just enough skiers in front of us that had started down to witness the funkiest breakable raincrust I've yet seen. We realized that all the extended scraping sounds we were hearing from the chairlift were dinner platter sized chunks of crust sliding downhill on still intact crust.<br>The platters having been shattered free by a dozen or so "first runners" who were plowing wide traverses through the breaking crust like so many tillers breaking brittle furrows.<br><br>We had no better luck in our farming endeavors and found that often we were plowing crust with our tibias above the boot tongue. It was goofy and entertaining, if not occasionally slightly painful. It was a memorable moment when everyone was equalized by nearly impossible conditions and laughing at the folly of our mutual plight. Breakable crust, who invented that stuff anyway?<br><br>We quickly retreated to Sessel and a few hours of fast mogul skiing. Then made it back to Debbies once the crust had been tilled into a more workable form. We'd heard the Polar Star and Polar Sea had been called in to soften things up. <br><br>By the end of the day anything exposed was completely encased in a frozen drizzle shell...clothing, goggles, automobile... Kind of like a glazing on a doughnut. Mmmm, doughnut. Gotta go!

Nice report, Doug.

I was on the fifth chair today.  That crust that could even defeat snowboards.  Sounded like riding over wine glasses, and the goggles completely crusted over in about 30 seond in the freezing drizzle.<br><br>But I bet it was epic at 3 in the morning when it was still snowing!<br>