Feb 7, Wind - Pineapple and Wonder Gully

Took a chair lift assist to head out with Don Hecker and ran into Dan Larsen as well.  What was beautiful powder earlier in the week, has been destroyed by the high winds of the last two days.   We found a nice pocket of powder on the Lee side of Pineapple Basin, then headed for the Wonder Gully hoping it may have escaped the wind.  Alas, the gully was totally wind packed.  Skiing was okay as there was almost zero ski penetration, but definitely on the firm side.   We did hear some settling as we traversed underneath the tooth, over to Bryant.  Dan Larsen did the quick video.  Thanks

Heading up into Pineapple Basin

Kevin with the Tooth in the background

Dan enjoying the powder

Headed up the shoulder towards Bryant
 and the Wonder Gully

Don carves it up

Don

Dan 

Feb. 4, Commonwealth Basin

Planned to head up Kendall trees with Francine today.  I had seen a couple trip reports that made it seem like a doable objective.  Unfortunately, when we reached the trees, it looked like full survivor skiing.  There was just a lot of brush still not covered by our thin snowpack.  The few tracks from the weekend had frozen up quite hard.   I am sure up high, we could have gotten decent turns, but we decided to skip Kendall and cruised further up valley.  Second plan was to tour the drainage between Red and Kendall.  I contoured in, a little too soon, for the drainage and we ended up  skiing a short slope beneath Kendall.   More of a snowshoe trip than a ski, but good to get out.  Great snow quality where untracked.

Francine

February 2, Searching for Pow

Hooked up with Crispin, Greg, and Dwayne?.    Headed uphill from the Alpental parking lot.  Lots of tracks above source lake.   We had fairly poor visibility in the Chair Peak basin, but finally found good visibility and no tracks over the west shoulder.

Greg

Classic Greg ski form

Crispin

Crispin and dog Geeb

Dwayne tele-turn

Kevin gets above the pow.