Dec. 27, Alpental Valley

Seth kick turns his way up to the NE ridge of Chair Peak

Headed up towards Chair Peak, thinking we would drop off the backside to Snow Lake.   Unfortunately after struggling/booting up to the ridgeline in steep deep snow we found that wind had affected the snow quality on the backside, not to mention visibility was poor.   The terrain over the NE shoulder has some pretty good slide paths and with lots of fresh snow and the bad visibility we decided to drop the front side.  Took a nice direct line back down to Source Lake, then did a lap off Pineapple Pass and then finished by climbing over to Draft Dodger inside the ski area's permit area.  Unfortunately the ski patrol had opened up the area that afternoon and we had a bit of tracked up skiing on our final descent.  Good day.  My legs were pretty fried by the finish.

Seth fixes his skins as we crest into Chair Peak basin

Initially attempted to boot up the far notch,
due to easy skin track leading into,  but ended up getting turned
 around by deep and steep snow.  Skied back down to lower notch

Kevin lays a skin track up to the ridge

Able to skin all the way to ridgeline on the lower notch

Seth

After aborting backside, found some good turns on the front.

Seth hydrates before we finish our climb to Pineapple Pass