It Actually Looked Like This

Seattlest made it up to Alpental yesterday, and we were surprised to discover excellent snow quality, short lines, and mysterious blue sky. We can't claim a full day of non-stop bluebird conditions replete with knee-deep powder, but our first run down Edelweiss bowl found a few untapped caches of the fluffy stuff off to the sides, and we did sport sunglasses while on Chair 2 for a couple runs.

Chair 2 (the upper chair accessing the most difficult terrain and the backcountry) opened on Saturday, and according to many we met on the chairlift, we missed out on a pretty epic Alpie day. Nonetheless, we made the best of the two areas currently open off Chair 2: the Edelweiss bowl and Upper International. Favorite options like Shot 6, Snakedance and actual backcountry were all off-limits. Snow levels are still too low and at this stage in the game, slabs are likely to break off faster than Nick and Jessica should you convince yourself that it is OK to jump the boundary lines. We saw at least 6 boarders hitting off-limits area from the lifts--watching them surf the untracked terrain nearly made us drool but death by avalanche isn't on our list of things to experience this year.