February 2, 2013, Snoqualmie

Fun in the sun, ripper boilerplate in the shade. Off-piste is character building supportable runneled crust. Where it's not cut up, it's infinitesimally better than it looks; Hyak liftline was skiable, but challenging. Edelweiss Bowl was very fine, 'till the crowd arrived after lunch.


Wish I could've toured up into Commonwealth, to spend some time near Red, but from poking around the ski areas, it seems like chasing snow in the resort was a sensible call.

#16 – 2/2/13 – Gorgeous bluebird day eventually. Fun seeing sun fingers in the fog coming from the trees during the early morning while going up the front, and the giraffe patterned side shadowed suncups on the backside. Snow was pretty firm for most of the AM, a 4 inch rain crust will do that. Did find another 10 inches or so of Northwest mank by digging underneath, but never broke thru the shell while making a run. Tried an ice capade down the lower dino liftline, but had way more fun out in the sun where things softened up to nicely carvable lines. Lift waits were minimal except during the cross country class cluster. Ended up as classicly soft spring snow anywhere the sun could reach by the afternoon, so lots of smiles were seen. TomK & Kerry.

I tried going down Elevator Shaft ..... once. Absolutely terrible. Mostly had slid leaving rutted ice with giant clinkers alongside. Crusted bonch aoutside of the chutes. Survival skiing at its worst. Upper Intl to access the gate was icy but not miserably so. Had enough surface texture to bank off things between slick spots and keep an edge.
Edelweiss in the sun was nice. Great view to Rainier and Glacier. The 15 min+ lift lines were not so nice. Rocks are showing in Upper Rollen. Not a standard thing for February.
Also nice was Hidden Valley at Hyak, where I went for a shy hour after Edelweiss closed. The sun had softened it to spring consistency and had only just started to refreeze.
Less nice was the slightly tilted skating rink at West.

Open slopes above the trees were pretty good in the pm across the road from Alpental. All went to nastiness once down in the trees and below. Lots of natural slide debris. Some looked like Friday events. Saw one slide come off WAC bluff around 1100. Patrol blew up a cornice around 1545. Big boom.

Alpental bottom was pretty ice during the day too, however chair 2 was amazing until the lines came in around 1pm. I went down to have 2 beers then headed back up with my girlfriend and took her down Rollen (her first time) and schulct or however you spell it.

Great times, just a few ice patches up top with the rest being butter, fun day and great bluebird conditions. Saw a few people without jackets on in the afternoon.