Is the alpental becon park running?

Does anyone know if the alpental BARK beacon park is open for the season yet?

Wasn't as of last Sunday. There is one over at the Mounties property between West and Central and I heard that one is running. Just don't know the details of access.

I just talked to the Summit Guest Services. They were not aware they had a Beacon - Transceiver - Avalanche Rescue Area, but she politely and quickly called someone to find out.

It is closed for the time being. She said they had some mechanical / electrical problems last year and they still are not fixed.

She was not sure when it would be open.

Hopefully the one at Crystal is open. The few times I have wanted to practice there, it has not been "groomed" and therefore you just end up following the tracks of the party before.

Good question. I recall striking out on the Alpental one 0 for 2 last season. On the other hand, Crystal's record for me was 3 for 3. The only problem with Crystal's setup though is that it's placed just within range of chair #6, and there are a LOT of people riding up chair #6 with beacons, so you're fighting a constant barrage of rogue signals moving through your search window. This certainly adds some challenge!

We did some practice at the alpy beacon park this past sunday. Thought it wasn't running at first, so we were just putting one beacon in a plastic bag, burying it then making the other find it. But while we were doing that we picked up signals for at least 2 other beacons a 100 or so yards up the hill from the control box.

Those two were from a level II avy class that was going on that day. We used them in a training scenario.