January 14-15, 2012 Alpental

Introduced a newbie to Alpental on Saturday afternoon. Surface conditions improved over the course of the day but there is a serious ice layer just under the new snow that was accessible on every turn. Areas off the main runs were pretty reasonable. Went up to the top once early pm but the wind and visibility made for some unpleasant travel until we got down into the bowl a bit. The snow continued in various forms (flakes, globs, graupel, a short bit of freezing r***) all day and into the night. Crowded until the schools let out then the hill was empty until closing. Mostly skied out by 10pm. They should have closed earlier to preserve the snow that arrived to help bury that ice and I could have gone home earlier. Friend had a good time. His home mountain is Schweitzer and he admitted Alpental is a little burlier a hill. I'm sure if he poked around at Schweitzer he could find something that isn't groomed.

Sunday it snowed again all day with very similar surface conditions but it was harder to find good off run snow. Went up to the top and found plenty up there. Especially the area between lower Rollen and Pyramid. That was fairly untracked and almost knee deep (wasn't on the teles at this point).

They really need to do something about the ventilation in the men's room in the main lodge. Its unbearable by 9am.

NWS suggests almost 120 cm by Wednesday night? Cool.

Was up at Alpental on Sunday also lapping the BC. Lines were pretty robust, making for about an hour+ each lap. Realized it was about 11 when we finished our 3rd run. Conditions got progressively better through the day as it snowed a bit and we traversed further out into the BC. Found a few spots with knee to thigh deep untracked and enough so that we weren't hitting the crust beneath. Both gates were open. Lot's of snowboarders postholing the high traverse >