May 3, 2014, Alpental

Headed up for some final turns at Alpental this year on the glorious padded seats of chair 2

The debris of last weekend was considerably flattened and softened. 1" or so of fresh up top made for nice turns early on.

Reports of a skier triggered slide in Slot5 had Ski Patrol blocking off the traverse/cat track skiers left of the Armstrong Express for a while.

International was skiing nicely too, as was Adrenalin. The booter camp was well underway when I left around 3pm.

Periods of snow, clear snow (rain) and interspersed sunshine too. Overall a fun day. The canteen still completely open too.

Good to meet BrianT and Jake for a few runs. Somehow missed FA. I'm sure he was there.

All the locals showed-up today and even more folks than that! Watched a guy learn to ski moguls on Nash... was impressed with his determination. Shared a padded seat with a recent transplant from Palin's backyard who claimed the only thing worse than her English was her skiing ability. Pfft... I watched her charge through the bumps on the Edelweiss side with ease. Which makes you wonder what it takes to be an "expert" over there in RUS...

All-in-all, fun snow conditions. Kinda like sliding down a big slurpee, the 2" that fell up top this AM made for soft turns at all elevations. It did get a little slow around 13:00 when the sun came out for a visit, but turned into nice, deep corn from top-to-bottom after it went away 30 mins later. Called it quits an hour before closing bell and made it out just as the precip began to fall in earnest.

If you see bF this weekend, you mustache him a question

i was not anywhere near upper mtn. till after 10:00, deciding to wait out the first hours precip.
interesting closure of cascade traverse as we off loaded our first chair of the day from debbies.
apparently patrol involved in an active search below shot 5 from an apparent skier triggered release, was told this by others. lots of questions throughout the day but no answers.
if i have a doppelgänger in one of the other parking lots, i want to meet him.