Alpental - 03/6 Night Skiing

Nice evening, first real night skiing I’ve done in a very long time – since all the other amigos gave it up for big time skiing, first time back at Alpental since Crystal went ballistic on their ski season – kinda missed ending the ski season at Alpental in May. Heard that it was a big day during the day light hours, 8+ new and there was still lots of left overs when I got there at 4:30. Parking lot was emptying, no body on the mountain during the transition to dark, very pretty sun set with broken clouds, snow off the groomers was soft cut up and soft packed pow on the bumps, definetly scrapped down to the ice in places, but easy to miss those spots and I stayed away from the high traffic areas. Lots of nice tree skiing and it was pretty fun under the lights in the dark (plus the moon light). Crowd increased as it got dark. Temps seemed cold, but the reader board indicated low 20’s and high teens when I left at 8:15. Stopped for some soup and it looks like they have the same cook as Crystal – Split Pea, Coconut chicken and Clam Chow?!? Wow. One of the real nice Un-Green things at Alpental is the fire pits outside by the lodge – nice and warm under the full moon and bright stars, with good music. Pretty nice evening of bump skiing under the lights….and only 45 minutes from home.

Bailed after 3 laps at Alpy tonight for some park laps at Central only to discover that in the wake of Triple 60 being broken there was plenty of powder to be had and nobody having it! A short (~10 min) traverse from the top of Central Express put us into the white room again and again until the post-work legs gave out around 9.

If you think I'm kidding, just check out the far side of Parachute after our last run:

Now that looks like fun!! What a great find. Back in the day before they really lit up Triple 60, we used to call that kind of stuff night time backcountry.