Bloated Skiing: March 14, Big Trees, Alpental Valley

Greg Louie plows up a little powder

It was a nice quiet Monday morning in Alpental Valley. We were the only car in Lot 4, except for a couple of guys doing a product shoot for their latest drone. Snow was falling heavily as we headed up valley in search of some deep snow. We turned left at "big Trees" and toured upward. We stopped, in blowing wind, on a knoll above "draft dodger ridge". We got a little chilled, as we transitioned into ski mode. Crispin, recovering from a nasty virus, declared it would be a one lap day for him, as his body did not seem to be coping with the cool weather. We retraced our skin track, skiing back towards Pineapple drainage, and then enjoyed the steepening turns as we dropped into the effervescent freshly fallen snow. Bliss was had by all. At the bottom, above Source Lake, we dropped Crispin, and Scott who, also, agreed to to stop at one lap. Our smaller group, Greg Louie, Dan Larson, and I headed back up for another lap. As we neared our high point, the skin track was lost in the blowing wind, and we stopped to get our goggles out for eye protection from the flying snow. We quickly de-skinned and dropped into Draft Dodger, down to Sucker Chute for the best turns of the day.