Today started out with partly cloudy skies and stayed that way the whole day, which is not too bad because the snow did not have a chance to melt and get icy. As usual, we were first chair at Silver Fir and did Outback. Decent groom all the way down. Then did Outback and Tanner’s Pass to Lower Inspiration, then Outback and Tanner’s to Lower Wildcat, then Outback and Tanner’s to under the chair and continued on Tanner’s to the other side of the tree’s and skied lower Hogs Wild. Decent groom and soft snow on every run. One more ride up the Silver Fir and cut across to Central Express via Golden Nugget. One run down Alpine Bowl and saw that Triple 60 face was groomed, so up Triple 60 and down the face, then up Triple 60 and down Parachute to Holiday chair, then back over to Triple 60 for the cut across to West. So far in the day’s journey the groom has been decent and the snow soft. Off piste has been doable with no icy or crusty bits. Once at West we rode the Wildside chair up and skied Thunderbird run down to Little Thunder chair and up the bunny slope. Skied over to Pacific Crest quad and took a run through Monster Alley and found my usual secret stash of untracked powder and got a long run of firsties and headed down to Dodge Ridge chair to go up for another run through another secret stash of powder. Down to the lodge and caught the shuttle over to Alpental for a ride up Debbie’s Gold and straight to Chair 2 where we had the longest wait of the day, about ten minutes. Off at the top and a debate about going Edelweiss side or International. Opted for International as it was not fogged in. The very upper run into International is not too bad, but when it comes to the choke points where everybody has to funnel through one of two narrow spots to get into Upper International Bowl, that is the point in the ski day where I cry “Uncle”! My heart always starts pounding and my legs get weak and my stomach drops down and I get very religious as I pray that I will not die. As I stand there paralyzed with fear, a dozen people zoom around me and go for it. After watching them, I can see where the rocks are and the ice scrapes and the ugly bumps. One last prayer and then over the edge and I survive to ski another day! The worst part is over and done with and the rest is a piece of cake. Down International (with only a few scraped spots) to Snake Dance (a friend calls it Snake Bite! ) and take the Dance all the way to the end where it drops into Elevator into the back country. No packs or gear, so we did not take the Elevator, just skied the rope line (lots of thick cut up snow across the hill. I took one fall and slid about 50 feet through a narrow spot.) down to the top of Sessel. That chair was not running, so we took St. Bernard chair for a last easy run before we caught the shuttle back to Silver Fir. Seventeen chairs in 4 hours and a first for us as we have never skied all the hills on the same day. It was fun and something different to do. Overall, a four corndog day!!!!    . Kerry & Tom.
