February 15. Vertfest - Alpental

Signed up for two hours of suffering.   Thankfully snow conditions were probably about the best they have been.   I managed to stay away from the leaders and finished in a respectable 19th place.   As always a fun event, other than the racing.  Good to see Holly and Heather on the podium for the women's race.   Strongest local men's racer was Brandon in 6th.   He managed to get second in the next race down at Mt. Bachelor.

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 

January 6, Alpental Sidecountry

Yesterday was good.  Today was better.  Shot Crispin an email before I went to sleep.  When I woke up, there was a plan - Silas, Frank, and Crispin were going to skin up through snake dance and hit some sidecountry powder.  5,400 feet vertical for the day.  Sorry Seth, no strava time.

Crispin and Geeb break trail above Martin Bowl

Silas

Silas

 

Lap 1- Sharon Bowl, Lap 2 Stokes, Lap 3 Stokes all the way to Valley bottom.  Exit route was a little sporty.

Jan. 5, Alpental

Beautiful sunny day in the mountains.  Skied with Francine, Don, and Greg.  The sweet powder of two days ago, was pretty tracked up, but nice to get out with good friends.  Dropped International, then poked out to Snake Dance for some adventure skiing.  Good times.

Francine gets in her first tour of the year.

Kevin and Francine

If only this chair was running!

Don Hecker

Greg Louie

Francine - widowmaker

Don - snakedance

Getting sporty - lower snakedance - tree belay

January 3, Alpental

Speed Lap - Crazy good with 2-8 inches of new.

Dec. 28 Alpental

Still riding the mountain bike, more than skiing.  Hooked up with Seth and Greg this Saturday to get few turns in, on the crunchy slopes of Alpental.  The ground is fairly well covered, but the skiing was horrible, due to the rains of yesterday and the cooler temps of today.  Everything below the fan, to the base, totally sucked.  The top half of the mountain was okay.   Weather was gorgeous and as usual, just glad to be out skiing.

Seth and Kevin topping out, "Chair 2 Summit"

Lower slopes, Alpental



Seth and Greg wind their way up Meister.

Dec. 20 Alpental

Thin snowpack, thick snow, still skiing.

Don Hecker skinning up gunmount.

Don on Debbie's Gold

Don

Kevin

April 30, Winter Again

Flew home from Arizona to be greeted by cold crappy weather.  Well, if it is going to be cold, it might as well snow.   It did.  It snowed a lot.  Met up with Don Hecker at Alpental at 8:00.   Followed a nice skin track all the way to the top of Alpental.   Luckily the one skier, who broke trail, descended the Edelweisss side.  International was totally untracked.  Nice.

Don eats some powder for breakfast.

March 19, Alpental

It was one of those days.  The snow was soft.  The sun was bright.  The lift lines were non-existent.  The backcountry was open.  It was very nice.

Tim Tiejtin - Powder Bowl

Jarrod - Powder Bowl

Crispin - No Fog

Greg Louie - No Fog

Tim - Powder Bowl

February 16, Vertfest, Alpental

Dec. 7, Alpental - Thick

Thick and heavy.  Not very good skiing.  Good stuff for covering the ground.  The crowds were out in anticipation of the big dump, and with the green light from Gib, the patrol director, for one last weekend of touring before the ski area starts working to get it open.  

Don Hecker hopes Santa brings some fat skis
for touring in NW snow.

Dec. 5, Alpy Again

More snow, more wind action, more friends.  Did a couple of International laps with Greg Louie and Tom Davies.



Climbing up Rollen



Greg

Greg

Kevin one-foots it after his
ski shot half way down international

Tom

Kevin

Dec. 2, Alpental

I sold big brother, Kelly, a dynafit setup.  So, finally hooked up with him for an equipment shakedown.  Alpental got a good dump overnight, and we were breaking trail at 8:30 by ourselves.  The hill is really filling in nicely and should be in pretty good shape for the rest of the season, unless we get a monsoon rainstorm this week.  We had about 10 inches of new snow over the raincrust.  The way it is snowing tonight, avalanche danger is definitely going to be going up.