January 21, 2012 Summit East

WOW, what a fun morning. Looking at the telemetry data this morning made me wonder if I was going to a carwash at The Summit by the time the lifts opened.  But noooooo, it was still snowing and 30 degrees. Not like Tuesday and Wednesday Utah powder at Stevens but it was snow and there was a huge amount of new snow since they last ran the lifts on Monday.  I found an old touring buddy near the front of the line and snuggled onto the triple with Jim and Eric who lives at the Pass. The ski patrol was skiing down the liftline and reseting the mats on the lift towers.  We noticed shooting cracks along their descent line and on a few of the rollovers the top 6" released.  A very reactive snowpack along the steeper rollovers.  At the top Eric bolted down Graysons and Jim and I skied a bit to the west in wonderful glades.  The snow was dense and deep.  I was skiing my Voile Drifters which are 125mm underfoot and they were fantastic.  I felt dangerously giddy as I surfed the untracked terrain.  I saw many skiers performing "headers" where the dense snow grabbed their ski tip and a goggle cleaning became mandatory.  After a few untracked runs, Jim left to join his wife on the XC trails. 

The backside opened about 45 minutes after the front. I met Francine on a chair and we enjoyed a few untracked lines and cutup slopes on the backside. I went back to the front side for a couple more runs and found untracked still in the canopy.  My last run was down Blowdown which still had untracked lines on the edges.  The wide skis made all the terrain features in Blowdown a blast even for an old man.  I've got to get my grandsons down that trail.  After 2.5 hours my quads requested a return to the barn.  The car thermometer read 31 degrees. My ski pants were wet when I stopped and I remember Francine using a squeege to clear the wet snow/drips off her goggles.  It was a fat ski/snowboard day. Jim, Eric and Francine thanks for sharing a fun morning at East. It was a blast. 

Sounds awesome! I took the late shift at Alpental. Yanna hurt her wrist a few days ago (cut that managed to lightly nick a tendon) so I had to get her a prescription when the pharmacy opened, cutting out first-lift options for me. Instead I dialed back, cooked us both a nice breakfast, cleaned the kitchen, did the pharmacy chore, and got onto the lift at Alpental at the bright hour of 2PM. They had a "lots full" sign up, but plenty of folks were starting to leave so I got a very handy parking spot just across the road bridge. The lines on Armstrong were not bad at that point, but I had enough ants in my pants to decide to avoid the still-huge line on chair 2, thinking I might try one run up there before the closed the chair, but at least I would start skiing sooner on the bottom half. The snow, while all pretty much skied on save for fun little bits I was milking above and below trees. But save for a few scraped spots, it was very soft and not "setting up" the way I'd feared when I read the forecast for warmth. Folks who had been there all day said it had gotten a bit warmer/wetter at some point. I decided to give the upper lift a try about 20 minutes before it was scheduled to close, but they already had the ramp down from Armstrong blocked with a "lift closed" sign. Can't blame them for wanting to bleed off the still-huge line by sometime not too long after supposed closing time. It started snowing and cooling off a bit more as the afternoon progressed, and the wind picked up, which made it quite fun to sniff out the lines where the new snow was sifting in more deeply. Wind at Alpental can have a nice magnifier effect for new snowfall if you find the right lines. The skiing just got better and better. I had to have a talk with myself about time and tradeoffs as I approached 6PM when my legs and sense that I should go back and cook dinner for my one-handed-mate convinced me to head back to the car. Yanna was most appreciative of the from-scratch chicken noodle soup (all but noodles prepped a few days ago) and I did let her know how much fun it was, but was careful not to over-describe .

Hey Zap,

I think I'm the Eric in your story, but it was nice to meet you and some great skiing to be had.

-Kevin

I was one of the guys in red working the tower pads under the lift(s). I was able to get soft slabs to move on convexities of the steeper part of the runs. The slabs weren't as cohesive as I thought they might be. They looked more impressive than they felt...

Did not ski inbounds yesterday (Sunday 1/22) but noticed the chair up the front side of Hyak broke down sometime before 11:30 causing a mass migration to other parts of the Summit. Not sure what the status on it is now.

The chair derailed (unloaded side) need the lower terminal around 10am. We got the chair evac'ed in about 90 minutes without incident. The operations crew then replaced some pulley wheels and reset the cable.

Two funny things:
1) The back side chair (Hidden Valley) didn't close until 2pm. Those few (I counted 3 at the end of the day) had the place to themselves with great snow.
2) Once the lift was closed, a ton of snowshoe and AT folks came out of the woodwork to claim the Hyak face. Pretty funny how fast that happened.