Alpental and Bullion Basin, December 2, 2001.
Greg, Dave and Phil embark on a futile attempt to find ice at Alpental. On this high-avalanche danger day, we were hoping to check out the small waterfall in a heavily-treed section, 15 minutes up the Source Lake trail. In the parking lot next to us, a girl was switching from teleboots into climbing boots. She was part of a large group from the UW, also searching for ice, and had come back to make the boot switch, as she thought skis were not necessary for the approach.
We quickly caught up to, and passed the large group she was with on the trail. Just past the stream that descends from the waterfall, we left the packed trail and commenced extremely tedious trail-breaking. I set off first, and immediately sunk up to my chest between a buried tree and log. Greg and Dave weaved their way around me, and left me to die. I finally extricated myself and caught up to them as they made their way back down into the stream gorge, hoping to avoid the dense trees. From here, we could see the UW group on the trail 50 feet below, taking a break.
Movie of windy ridgelines, and Greg skiing at Bullion Basin
In the stream gorge, there was a vertical snow step which Dave pronounced impossible to skin up. He removed his skis and attempted to walk up, but quickly sank several feet deeper into the snowpack. He then pronounced it impossible to walk up, and he and Greg considered another option. I, skinner extraordinaire, said I'd give it a shot. In a matter of minutes (5 or 10), I had managed to skin up the 10 foot step, packing it down enough so Greg and Dave could follow. In another 5 minutes, had managed to ski 50 feet to the base (almost) of the waterfall. We decided to continue no further, as we could see all there was: a very unfrozen waterfall, with some slush-cicles on the side. It had taken approximately a half hour to climb 100ft above the trail, to reach this altar of slush.
We de-skinned, and enjoyed a very slow run through the trees back to the trail. The UW group was here again (nearly an hour later). Some people were eating. Apparently, they had been delayed when some people in the group went back to their cars to get their skis, as the postholing was bad (uh... wait a sec... oh, nevermind).
We continued quickly down the narrow trail - fun! We met a person coming in to meet up with the UW group, and he expressed suprise that they were still just a couple of minutes down the trail (considering they had started probably 2 hours before).
So now it was time to try some skiing. We ditched the ice gear, and began skinning up the still-not-open ski resort, through some downright heavy and deep snow. A trail had been broken though, so not too bad. Then we got some fresh tracks down the steep upper sections of the lower ski hill, using a technique that can best be described as "lean way back and float downhill".
After three laps up high where the snow was drier, we headed back to the car.
The lower mountain was an interesting scene: There was a collection of (mostly) snowboarders, who lined the base of the ski area wall-to-wall, and who had built several jumps. Probably 200 people in all. We all stopped as we approached the brouhaha at the bottom of the hill. I finally set off and skied the remaining 200 feet to the base lodge. It took Dave and Greg another 15 minutes to make it down to me! The gentle angle and the heavy wet snow made it nearly impossibly for them to move (I have since invited them over for a "waxing session"). They also tried to make their descent a little more "interesting". For example, Dave tried to get some air off one of the snowboard jumps. As he approached, I was watching from below, and wondered "does he realize how much it drops off?", and thought it might be more than he was up for. Perhaps I was under-estimating The Dave, however. I saw him gather speed, and just at the apex of the jump, his speed died completely. He stood still for a second or two at the top of the jump, and then finally forcefully catapulted himself off. Though his jump was unimpressive - frankly quite humourous - his landing was better than that of 90 percent of the snowboarders here, nearly all of whom landed on their head.
During the 15 minutes it took Greg and Dave to descend 200ft to the bottom of the hill, a kid carrying alpine skis, who had quipped "I wish I had skins" as I flew by him on the descent, had succeeded in crawling approximately 50 feet uphill through the deep slop.
Lift lines in the backcountry... people in front...
And people behind...
The snow was great - cold and dry, just a little heavy from all the wind that had been blowing around. We took two runs here (never saw another person).
Time to follow main skin track #2... looked like it might head over to the other side of the valley where the snow was maybe more protected from the wind. It made a rising traverse along a steep open hillside that had been blasted into a very firm wind crust. Occasionally, there were ski tracks going down this slope, but we pitied the pour souls who skied here, though the crust. Most of the tracks looked like "Z" instead of "S".
Greg takes the plunge.
We traversed on the leeward (west) side of the ridge for a long ways, until the terrain below us mellowed out and opened up. Here was one of the best runs of the day which, for me anyways, resulted in several face shots. The snow was dry, fluffy, deep. All too short though.
We went back for another run at our first spot. The rising wind speeds made the run a little more crusty for me, but Greg found a sweet line in some trees, and had perhaps his best run of the day. We were supposed to stop at the skin track and wait for Emily, but the snow got the better of us, and Greg and I continued down to the valley bottom 200ft below (Greg made me do it!). It took a while for Emily to find us, as she had been lured off track by two other skiers with identically-coloured jackets in the distance.
The descent to the parking area was more pure joy - soft deep snow everywhere, easy to ski.