Forecast for the day, sunshine and powder! Unfortunately the sun forgot to come out.
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| Kelly takes the steep line into Pineapple Basin |
Pulled into Alpental lot 4 at 8:30 and was immediately blown away with the amount of people gearing up to go out in the backcountry. In fact, I think we would have seen less people if we had stayed in the near side-country and skied lift served. I do believe this, most likely, was the busiest day I have ever seen skiing backcountry in the Alpental valley. Oh well, we cheated with a chairlift start and headed to Bryant Pass, where we were the first group headed out for a clockwise circumnavigation of Chair. Dropping into Melakawa basin we hit a strong sun crust from the previous two sunny days and almost considered turning back for Northern slopes. We ended up traversing west to slightly shaded slopes and managed to find some decent turns by hugging the westernmost cliffs. Climbed to Melakwa Pass and waited for some kind of visibility. Yep. Yep, waited about 15 minutes and finally dropped into the abyss. Snow felt good, wish we could see. Quick climb under Roosevelt, led to some of the best turns of the day, as we dropped down to Snow lake in good visibility. We were joined by the Fall City gang of John Reusch and company, who bailed on the Roosevelt ascent, suffering some of the same visibility issues we had over at Melakwa Pass. After the Fall city crew rehydrated, we did a bonus lap up to the NE ridge of Roosevelt. We were amazed at the number of people skinning the lower flanks of Roosevelt. Luckily plenty of powder for all. Fun day, and good to get some mileage on the legs.
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| Heading for Bryant Pass |
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| Dropping in on lower Melakwa Lake |
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| Grey turns off Melakwa Pass to Chair lake |
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| It was busy at the South end of Snow Lake |
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