Monkey

I went to Alpental today with Simon. Yes, today… May 17th. We’ve had an especially cool Spring and all the extra snow we had this winter has remained up there. Coverage at the area was amazing for this time of year. There were some bare patches starting to form, but really only where snow has trouble accumulating during the season, or in places where it seems it had been groomed a little thin. The snow banks in the parking lots are still above the cars.

It was amazingly warm up there today. It hit 70 at the top, with an inversion making it cooler at the base. It felt much, much warmer than that standing in the sun. We slathered ourselves in sunscreen and wore a little as possible. The snow was melting fast, but it didn’t matter since there was so much of it up there. There were a lot of places where the snow lower on the slope is pulling away from the snow higher up, forming fissures that in some cases were quite deep (over 10ft). Sometimes you could see them from above… other times, well, you had to hop quickly.

Overall, a fantastic day of Spring riding.

I went up to Alpental this morning with Dana, a friend from work. It was a beautiful sunny day, and the snow softened up into perfect spring corn. There is still an amazing amount of snow up there. The snow banks in the parking lots are still above the cars, and coverage on the mountain still feels like the height of the season. We rode from around 9:30 until almost 1 then called it a day. The place was packed with people… all of the lots filled up by the time we left, and the lift lines were long. But, the turnout was a good thing… looks like they will open up next weekend, too!!

Finally, it really must be said: the chick loading Chair 2 today was looking especially fine. Ah, Spring…