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Snoqualmie PassSubmit a report
05/26/08 Hhhhhmmmm….what can I say, startin to probably sound like a broken record, another very fun day, not a bluebird sky day – but enough sun, soft snow from the start, great freefall drops in Upper Nash and Middle Nash and Felsen!!! Entry to Nash was definitely getting close to the end, thanks a lot to the guys shoveling snow in to make the entrance doable – but not so good for the side slippin snowboarders. Very light crowd and sadly no band to end the day with, but lucky again today that I have a Crystal Season pass (another free day today for me) and that I can ignore the weather forecasts and the lack of sunshine in my bedroom window at 7am. Snow pack is still awesome, but all the employee’s were talking the end. If today was the last Washington lift served day of the season…it was a really great way to end it! 35k ddk
05/24/08 Suprise! Suprise, anthor posting by me. Oh I’m so glad right now that I’m a total Grasshopper as far as a work ethic and responsibility goes…To all my Ant friends…Congrats on being good ants today…or at least good responsible humans! Was a tough call going this morning, one of the ants says maybe tomorrow another ant says maybe Monday, forecast was for grey overcast showers (snow?), but today started big dark blue bird sunny from the start, plus a light crowd, so no lift lines, nice soft corn snow on the bottom and a couple of inches new to smooth things out on the top third of chair 2 into Nash. Got lucky today and hooked up with a Alpy local, took me out for a couple of the first couple of back country runs – Gun Barrel and Angel Falls(?) – both great runs and a lot of fun. Did Nash a bunch of times and Felsen for the first time today…repeatedly. Snow coverage is awesome, rumors about maybe one more weekend for the ski patrol, other rumors about Crystal opening? this weekend, or at least at some point. Lookin forward to either tomorrow or Monday or both days…depending on the Ant situation. Took it easy today and quit early to listen to the band at the base and to save some muscles for tomorrow….31k ddk.
05/18/08 !Great day - other than the late opening (9:30)...hhhmmm hope Crystal management wasnt involved in the decision making process...actually heard it was because they had a cat up at the top of Armstrong??? Didn’t open the lift till it was on the way down??? Wish we had Whistler rules...Anyway the day started great after that, relatively small crowd to start and the late arrivals never showed up. So I got to ski Nash every time I wanted to since there was no real lift line on Ch 2 today. And the line on Armstrong was pretty much ski up and pick what ever kinda of semi naked person you where willing to ride with. Snow was softer today than yesterday, but it was still at least the number two day for spring skiing as far as I was concerned. Nash was getting dicer on the entrance, but the rest of upper was pretty much freefall go anywhere dropping fun! Its defiantly number three in the Northwest after Saudan and the Peak chair at Whistler (another run that would be incredible at this time of year…but you gotta hike it…is Double Diamond at Stevens…sure would like to get the opp to ski that – with out hiking it !!! ) The lower part of Nash was big soft deep nice easy speed control turn anywhere bumps – did Nash five times and would have liked to do it more if my quads had felt better after beating them up yesterday. Spent most of the day skiing Armstrong…skier far right(!) and the big bump run something like number two skier left. Still plenty of snow for many more weekends..rumors flying about another week or two! But will not matter to me…next weekend is finally the let it go/give it up change to the summer backpacking season…will be my first non-skiing weekend since Baker in November! 5 and a half months! 63 days. 2 Million vert. Okay AZ…I’m moving on…, sorry I did not see any of my other ski spouces during this great end season. 29k ddk
05/17/09 Totally a big day……big sun, relatively light crowd, awesome snow conditions all day, lot of skin showing!!!! It was the total tri-fecta kind of day. Best corn snow of the season, actually firmed up a little last night, so the lack of any grooming effort was no big deal. First runs where nice carveable and it really did not get any worse as the day went on. Did Nash when it opened, then again during the almost lunch slow down and a few times during the 2 o’clock hour before I finally died…very sweet, steep, carve it all…great run if the line on 2 is short. Lots of alternating runs on Armstrong today, skier right for big slush go anywhere bumps or skier right for perfect corn snow dropping fall line runs… and the bumps at the bottom….hhhhhmmmmm…oh so luverly. Lookin forward to another lazy lift served day tomorrow! Rumors floating around about next weekend – will miss it if it happens, backpacking memorial day weekend somewhere on the Olympic peninsula. But also more hopeful rumors about Crystal opening during June! Wouldn’t that be awesome. So see you all tomorrow for one more…and then Memorial weekend – the first non-ski weekend for me since the end of November! Its been a great season…oh ps other than the entrance to Nash, the 10 foot base it holding up really well at Alpy! 35k ddk
05/11/08 Maybe it didn't pay to get up early. Pretty rough first couple runs with low visibility and an inch of new on frozen glob. Took a couple runs down lower chair as top chair didn't open till 10. By then it started to clear and soften up but realy big bumps. top chair opened so headed up there. Right under the chair and around the cliffs was a couple inches of powder and fairly smooth underneath. Last 500 feet to base of chair though really sucked. Top part of international okay but not soft enough yet and still foggy. But then around 11:30 top cleared out and started getting nice. Unfortunatly by them my legs were shot so I had to head home. This time of year you really dont want new snow just want it to stay warm. Plenty of base if they decide to open again next weekend I'lll be there!
05/10/08 Good day...light crowds due to the grey skies made me happy, snow was still soft right from the first run at 8:45, no lines meant I got to cycle Nash 4 times today - upper Nash was very nice carvable soft bumps, lower Nash was ugly cut but at least soft bumps. A quick rain/snow squall moved through at 10:15 - thought my day was done early, but precip stopped and the conditions stayed good. A couple more times things looked grim till I finally bailed at 1pm, but I'm sure it stayed okay. Plenty of snow. No grooming - heard a few complaints about that, but it was way to soft to run the cats. Heard rumors from some folks about staying open till Memorial day - or even June 1st..that would be nice. Maybe Crystal will open up for June and July - wouldn’t that be a really grand ski season. Mothers ski free tomorrow, so take her up if you can, sounds like the weather will be nicer. 26k ddk
05/05/08 Arrived for the late PM shift after ddk left. Amazed at the number of people at alpental for a monday. Truly festive atmosphere. Snagged some critical single chairs at the load area of chair 2 which made the late arrival worth while. Incredible late season corn snow all the way to the bottom which was great fun in both mogul and backcountry runs. Must go to maui for wave sailing next 2 wknds otherwise would report for duty at alpental. If skiing option still available 3 wknds out will be considered along with windsurf option. Where else can you have such excellent choices?
RB
05/05/08 Another great Cinco de Mayo, soft snow early, increasing sun and blue skies, big party time - never seen so many beers in the lift lines, $5 lift tickets made for a big late arriving crowd and for the biggest lines I've seen during this late season skiing. No grooming last night, so the bumps are building and they were soft and go anywhere kind of bumps. Any of the steeper roll overs were great free falls. Managed to squeak in a run down International early before Chair 2 line went crazy and then spent the rest of the day on Armstrong. Another band fired up around 1:30 to draw a few of the folks from the slopes. When I left at 2:30 cars were parked a ways down the access road. Hopefully the sun will be back out next Saturday cause there is still plenty of snow. 22k ddk.
05/04/08 Biggest news about today is that Alpy will be open next weekend! Great! The local season continues. The info on today - soft on the sunny slopes from the start, everything else in the shade got great as the day went on. Did a few runs on the upper lift before the lines kicked in, and one really nice run down upper and lower Nash...very sweet bumps...the big plus today was allowing the folks that skied yesterday time to pound out some lines on the upper mountain. Crowds got pretty big, but bearable...apparently the parking lots got full and some folks were sent over to central to park. Big line on the upper chair after 10:30 and the quad had pretty much a 6 minute line till around 2:30 when things started to mellow...except for the base area where a band was blasting and the costume contest was in full swing. Lookin forward to another sunny day tomorrow and hopefully a big Saturday next weekend. 29k ddk.
04/28/08 Issue with Crystal founders passes has been resolved working with the Crystal ticketing manager and the founders club. Crystal founders passes will work again this coming wknd at Alpental. RB
04/27/08 Got screwed by Crystal today at Alpental, where they arbitrarily decided not to give me a complimentary ticket for my crystal (founders) season pass, in-spite of having done so the previous weekend. Typical crystal. They said they have no way to track usage for founders tickets. Right. Sunday was surprisingly good with soft spring snow in-area and near backcountry (elevator shaft), unknown for the remaining backcountry since the upper gate was only open a short time and we missed it. Great soft spring bumps on international and near backcountry. Coverage continues to be great. No lines to speak of including the upper double chair... guessing the forcast and cloudy weather in seattle kept people home. It actually got sunnier as the day went on, with full sun on the deck by 4pm.
04/26/08 Inbounds Alpental report - great big sunny day, no lift lines early, loading 4pack by 8:30, upper Armstrong nice soft packed powder groomers, lower part firmer but still nice and softening rapidly. Bonus parts - skier right on the shady slopes - boot top soft fly anywhere conditions, lower down still nice soft bumps. Upper Nash was the place - wish I had done it sooner - nice mid calf deep powder, soft, lower Nash was sun soft boot deep and still nice in the shade of the trees. Only negative was the line on the upper chair kept me off it for the rest of the day and the 5 minute line on Armstrong around 11am. But from then on no real lines on the bottom, though I never went to the top again because of the 10 minute lines on the upper chair. Bailed at 2:30 cuase I got to party big tonight. Was thinking about Baker tomorrow, but Alpental would be another free ski day for me....Snow pack is huge right now, I've never seen it so big at Alpental this late in the season. Live band at the playing at the bottom was another bonus. 36k ddk
04/20/08 Skied alpental lift-access backcountry both days. ~18" champagne powder on northerly aspects on saturday, thought it got hit pretty fast. A bit of new overnite saturday to freshen it up sunday. Lift lines on upper double chair especially long saturday (alpental parking at capacity by 11am) but not as bad sunday. International starting to have "icy" spots due to the traffic but everything else in good shape. Incredibly deep base covering up some of the
smaller cliff bands.
RB
02/23/08 2/23/08 - Saturday Morning at Central's Silver Fir. Got up to the Fir lift right as they were doing final prep, so we got to be first chair up. Snow had been well sun baked and groomed yesterday, and then it froze up good and hard overernight. Blue sky with some scattered clouds let everything that was sun exposed start to soften up around 10-ish, but shady stuff was still hard when we left at noon. We tried a couple of Inspiration runs, but the lack of grooming made those hardset ruts less than fun, so we just ripped run aftere run down Outback. Left was ski-on untill the schools showed up at 11. Did I say it was FAST?. TomK, Chad, and his buddy Nick (WHo is a danm-fast and smooth boarder).
2/6/08 2/6/08 - Wed Night at Alpental. Rode the Armstrong chair from 7:30 to 9:15. Temp was 29 and snow was falling at a rate of about an inch per hour. Liftlines were always under 5 minutes. Fun was had in the 16-17 inches of light and fluffy atop a solid carvable base. Ingrid's, Miester, Eisfallen, and Dom were all well tracked, but still soft. Lower Snakedance was well worth the trip too. TomK & Chad.
01/13/08 1/13/08 - Morning at Central's Silver Fir & Hyak. Temp was 35 measured at the base in the morning. Silver Fir chair got rolling about 0910 and we were up for first chairs. Light fog/clearing with low fog that slowly rose as the morning went along. (top of SF was above the fogbank for the first run - cool to look down on it).
Snow was very hard after having been rained on Saturday and then clear overnight. Top 1/4th of SF had a trace of new, but under that was bruiser hard. Traversed over for a couple of Hyak runs and that was it (We split before the power outage at 1:30 shut down the Hyak SpecialK lift). TomK & Kerry, Chad & Carrie.
01/02/08 1/02/08 - Nighttime at West & Central. Rolled up to West at 8PM for some fun under the lights. Little Thunder, Pacific Crest, Wildside, Central Express, and Triple60 chairs were ridden. There was 2-3 inches of new snow, but it was pretty well cut up so not many freshies except while dancing with the trees. Snow was nice and light still - nothing has melted/refrozen, and we found just a very few scraped out spots on Golden Nugget. Everywhere else was packed pow that made for good turning, even in the tracked up stuff. Central was a touch foggy at the top, with a snow shower at the end of the evening. No liftlines at all. TomK & Kerry, & Richard - 2 sticks apiece.
01/01/08 Bringing in the new year at Alpental was a grand idea. 26 degrees in the parking lot, lots of wind going up Armstrong Express, but the snow cover and quality were as good as it gets in the Cascades. There were no spots where it was scraped off, so you could just fly, especially since there were no lift lines either. Visibility just fine today, lots of pow off Edelweiss. JN
12/28/07 Alpental- Tons of snow, but a visibility a bit tough up top. Not too crowded and Sat should be great as it was snowing as we left at 3:00.
Lower International, Shot 6 were our fav's as the visibility improved.
12/17/07 12/17/07 - Monday at West. We got up there early and scored first chair on the Pacific Crest lift. Whole hill was covered in brand new 4-5 inches overnight atop almost a foot of soft and fluffy snow that had fallen in the last 24 hours. First tracks and shin to knee deep all over the place for the first 4 runs makes for a couple of happy skiers. Found good firsties with drifts hitting the knee back in the trees above Dodge Ridge as well as all over the DR slope. Heard the Alpy patrol setting off avy bombs 5-6 times. TomK & Kerry.
12/15/07 12/15/07 - Opening day at Snoqualmie Summit West. We were there for the pre-opening lineup at the PC lift and got to ride 5th chair at 0845. Nice and soft to start, glad we could help pack it all down for the late-risers. A small number of holes to the dirt and plenty of brush sticking up still. Spent most of our runs putting down fresh tracks down the dodge ridge and even got a face-shot once carving across a drift. We called it a day pretty early, and left around 10:30 just as the crowd was starting to build up.
The lifts running were Pacific Crest, Dodge Ridge, and Little Thunder.
Not enough cover yet to open Wildside and not enough customers to run Julies. TomK & Kerry.
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