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Couple more photos

Face shots (at least a few, on the front), and pretty ok on the back on the shady edge by the trees. Much drier than Saturday, and deeper. Was getting some wind loading near the top, particularly late in the day. Nice to see you up there Jake.
Stellar photos as usual, Radka! Thanks for taking the time to share them along with all the snow beta.
Looks like some Kendall ridge in that first shot! Gotta get there. Sweet pics
just a coincidence that Alpy employee and TAY poster 'Gib' was outside the lodge as we scooted by Saturday morning and he told us the news.   

For the past few seasons, right before Alpental gets ready to open, he posts on TAY giving everyone a heads up that the resort is closing to uphill traffic.  This year his announcement, posted Saturday morning, was in a thread previously started about uphill traffic at Snoqualmie, found here:
http://www.turns-all-year.com/skiing...
I was up there on Saturday as well, started up around 1pm and the snow was quickly piling up!

How do you know about up-hill being closed, is there an information page regarding that? Sorry, new to the PNW last year and as everyone knows, there wasn't much in the way of action with the dismal snowfall.

Thanks!
...though I am having a tough time making him out in the pictures.  Perhaps if he wore some bright clothing?  ;)

Seriously, nice photos!  Debbie & I were with 50,000 close personal friends on the frontside of Stevens, shaking the rust out of our legs.  Thanks for the reconnaissance.

-Dave
I was up on the 12th... and ya it was pretty soggy(but still snow, at least mostly) Saturday as well.  Skiied till I ran out of dry clothes... which was 2 runs.
Amazing difference in coverage just from Saturday to Sunday around the Alpental environs, a thick blanket smothered many of the previous days bumps and dips making for much improved travel up and down.

Also a reminder that Alpental is closed as of yesterday to uphill travel as those bombs may go off at any time. So don't be stupid like the guy we watched skinning across the middle of Elevator Shaft.
We were doing the bombhole hop on the backside of Stevens yesterday ;)  There is some reactive snow on the loaded south side of the ridge!
Nice to see Mr Chris skiing the way evolution intended him too again.
Booooom!

Same at Stevens. I think they have some surplus from last year.
Well then... Nice to see you too. 😁 I thought you looked familiar Charlie.(guy with dog on road up)

I counted 20+, but a dozen where from an AAI avi class.

Ran into ajscott(you seen us and mutts on ridge above lake).

Skied with a group of 3 random most of the day.. No observations worth noting other then it was the best pow  day I've had in far too long.

More please!

That first picture is really nice!  Almost better than Kristi's smile. (
A great day indeed!!! Thanks for the report, Charlie!
Just gotta show up early and look in the right places...before everyone else does. :)
Hummm.....not sure we were at the same place. Got there about 9. unclear during most of the day if we were engaging in a water sport or a snow sport.

But a excellent workout. The gym has nothing to replicate the workout of skiing chopped mashed potatoes

:)
author=telemack link=topic=35037.msg143801#msg143801 date=1450023798]
The road was open Friday but not Saturday?  Odd.  Heavy snow Friday night? 
Congrats on getting up there at long last....


Yup. Fridays have been the most reliable for access. Wind I think has been the culprit. I don't envy the Ranger up there who has to manage the chaos with skiers in the backcountry, blizzard conditions, drifting snow in the lot, cha...
The road was open Friday but not Saturday?  Odd.  Heavy snow Friday night? 
Congrats on getting up there at long last....
It was all about Denny Mountain today. we went up chair 3 and then from lower Nash on an ascending traverse to the top of Chair 1. From there up to Airplane Turn and Rollin, a short boot pack at the crux and on up to the top.  Powder bowl was excellent and with a little creativity is was easy to navigate back to the top of Chair 1 and on out the way we came.  The lower refrozen mank tank track groom on 3 even skied well as just enough snow had fallen during the day to make it doable. L...
Thanks for this report. I went a little ways up the winter approach from the upper parking lot on Fri 12-4 and turned around after about 15 mins, because of the tedious conditions you referred too. I was hoping it would be easier to get in/out by now. I'm guessing the never ending siege of booters and snowshoers are not helping the Snow Lake trail either.

I skied a couple laps under the Sessel chair as a retort, but the snow was heavy and and unconsolidated still.
After the "skiing" conditions here this past summer, I'm now convinced I can ski "anywhere" at any time of the year...

author=kamtron link=topic=34997.msg143717#msg143717 date=1449721195]
You know it's summer there, right?
And there was great rejoicing.
The rockslide near Rimrock looks like it could be fixed much faster than the washout west of the pass.  With a little luck perhaps they will open the eastside up to the resort for all of the Yak POW hounds.
Fingers crossed
author=Wad link=topic=35002.msg143720#msg143720 date=1449723623]
You may have to wait on hitting the new snow.

http://www.yakimaherald.com/news/local/u-s-shut-down-wsdot-warns-of-extended-closure/article_609d449e-9e8a-11e5-b169-0706db383895.html


I noticed that, Have yet to see anything about the weekend operations on White Pass's website.  Thats a real blow to the bottom line as the road does not look anything...
You may have to wait on hitting the new snow.

http://www.yakimaherald.com/news/local/u-s-shut-down-wsdot-warns-of-extended-closure/article_609d449e-9e8a-11e5-b169-0706db383895.html
Skied the area Sunday and all of the Saturday trax were covered by deep snow.  Summited the Hog at the end of the day after lapping chair 6 twice and saw a nice set of tracks someone left in the bowl from the top.  Declined to follow them being too tired to think about hiking out.  Fresh lines all day.  Ran into two other guys in the afternoon.  Can't wait for the chair to start spinning.
Cool, I knew there had to be a story. I was skiing Sunday with my 8+ y/o Golden Lab so I completely understand and would have done the same thing!!!!
author=Boot link=topic=35002.msg143688#msg143688 date=1449633490]
Bobby,

Lost my black Lab Joe last January.  He'd been just about everywhere in the Olympics and Cascades with me and I miss him even more when the snow is flying.  Video made me cry, but thanks for bringing back such great memories.  There romping looks just like Joe back in the day; he was always happy, but more so in the mtns, esp the snow  :).  Cherish their unconditional love...
my dog blocked my turn, so I took one for the team!
RossMac, here is a grainy photo of the slab you kicked off (I think that's the one you mentioned).

Thanks -- your picture is the one that triggered when one of our party was skiing about 20 feet away.  Scary!
Thanks for the vid! Did you hit the tree on purpose??? That was funny :-)
Bobby,

Lost my black Lab Joe last January.  He'd been just about everywhere in the Olympics and Cascades with me and I miss him even more when the snow is flying.  Video made me cry, but thanks for bringing back such great memories.  There romping looks just like Joe back in the day; he was always happy, but more so in the mtns, esp the snow  :).  Cherish their unconditional love as long as you have em.
I'm so ready for a ski trip to South America! Bring on the Andes! Who wants to join me!?
author=peteyboy link=topic=34997.msg143676#msg143676 date=1449602201]
No hemispheric restrictions!  If you're skiing, you're SKIING!
Water skiing?  :D
No hemispheric restrictions!  If you're skiing, you're SKIING!
Does this all have to be done in the Northern Hemisphere?
Duuuude,
I always wanted to make a bc snowboard vid with Grimes as the soundtrack. I'm not sure if I'm happy or sad...
Happy!
O hey I stopped in to say hi to you guys when you were hanging out in the lodge. We went on to drop into the lower part of the bowl and did a couple laps on gunsight or whatever it is called... Upper part of the bowl was certainly concerning due to ongoing wind loading but we found very agreeable conditions over on gunsight.

Just did a hand shear at the top of Gunsight. 7 inches in the startzone on top of 1/4 inch ice layer, fairly unconsolidated at the time. From skiing two weeks ag...
A great trip report and video of a powder day with the whole family. ;)
Thanks for the info. There is definitely a mixed bag of snow layers and bonding (or lack of) in the Stevens pass vicinity. 

Today, December 7th,  I dug two profiles above the Skyline lift on NE and NW facing slopes above Grace lakes. Snow depths were 108cm and 135cm.  A 10cm thick crust was very apparent at 50cm.  ECT results were not reactive to that crust layer, with minimal movement of the current storm slab as well. 

My observations were taken in a slightly sheltered...
Thanks for sharing the pics. I'm curious what time and roughly where this happened?

I'm sure we were taking non-zero risks ourselves, but I was for sure not excited about getting on or beneath anything very steep based on how the snow felt and what had already come down in a few spots (such as the shot six crown mentioned by Charlie), though we did follow the route of the cat track for a little ways (which was just hillside as of yesterday) which cuts below Shot Six etc, an...
Wow, thanks for sharing both the trip report and slide story. 
Slide @ alpy was me.  Whole host of mistakes led up to it but for everyone else's benefit, it was skier triggered, (climbing).   Crown was 45-50' wide and face varied between 18-24" (all of the recent storm snow) and ran 250-300'.  Triggered the slide from the lower right of the pic. 
Bed surface was a thin layer of frost/hoar on rock. 

I was Pinned and partially buried against a tree but had one arm free to clear the snow away from my head and face and even...
RossMac, here is a grainy photo of the slab you kicked off (I think that's the one you mentioned).  We also saw a slab that had already released on the way up Double Diamond (see picture below).  We did two compression tests around 4400 feet on the backside that failed when isolating the column down 75 (CTV SPQ1).  You don't see that too often in the PNW.  Definitely touchy conditions out there yesterday.
Wish I had chosen your path instead of riding the lifts. Great shots.