April 26, 2004, Red Mt

It's going fast, but probably still good for a little bit.  Get an earlier start than I did!  Anyways, I have wanted to ski Red Mt for a long time, often admiring its symetrical pyramidal form as I ride up chair 2 at Alpental.  We lost a little time on the approach staying too close to the creek (it seems following the snow covered road up to the summer parking lot will get you onto the well defined track without too much hassle).  We eventually went on opposite sides of the creek and met up again near the bottom of the SW ridge.  We were joined by a solo snowboarder and the 3 of us booted up to the summit over snow and a couple sections of rock.  We made it around 1, enjoying the nice weather, clear skies and wonderful views.  The snowboarder (David) dropped in first, choosing a line over by the bootpack (~W-SW).  He made nice turns without incident but it did look soft, so we grabbed our socks off the rocks they were drying on and got ready to drop in.  The snowboarder was long gone by this point but we chose the more western line (separated by a rock band) to avoid sending any sluffs his way.  About 1/3 of the way down the west face, Cyril made a turn that started a small wet sluff.  He pulled out of the way to watch it, and it quickly accererated down the face, picking up a suprising amount of snow rather quickly.  The slide slammed into a tree and then roared to the bottom, some of it pouring over a cliff band.  A scary and awesome display of nature's power!  We picked our way down the scoured-out snow which didn't move at all but was still fairly soft for reasonable turns.  As we got lower we cut left and exited on the side of the SW ridge that I had come up.  A nice cruise through the old-growth forest led us back to the car.  A great day, but if it going to be as warm as it was yesterday I would definately get an earlier start.