Will these lifts please close?

We keep thinking we've skiied our last day of lift service, but then they decide to open again. Amy had a new setup to test out so we spent and excellent day at Alpental today. It's extremely hot today (for me and for Seattle) almost 90, so we were glad to have 60 degrees at 4,000 feet. Here are some random photos:

Alpental lifts close with a bang

Did the last day of lift service today, and was suprised by some decent powder. Snowed the whole time I was there.

The photo looks toward Guye Peak, one of the two gateway peaks of the Alpental valley. This was the best winter season I've had, by far... and certainly the longest. Bring on spring!

Still going. Still snowing.

That's right, the lifts decided not to close after all. It's May 10 and not only are we skiing at a ski area, but it also snowed today. Unreal. However, the snow has definitely turned springlike, which means thick, slushy and bit dirty. Time to break out the burly skis. This is a run down lower International, and you can see very clearly that there aren't even any bare spots yet. This will be skiable in July.

There are photos coming from Quatro de Mayo, but not yet. One more day of lift skiing tomorrow!

Catching up...still snowing

Due to the sale of a certain company to another certain company, I've been a little distracted. But with many of the formalities out of the way, we can refocus on the important things. On the weekend after my last post, I had an enjoyable, sunny, mellow day with some friends a Crystal Mountain. It's big, open terrain (like Campbell Basin in the video below) is always a nice break from Alpental's gnarly, well...gnarliness.

That said, one day is about enough (gets a little boring), and it was time to get back home to Alpental. The weekend after Crystal, we had a nice, warm spring weekend followed by a weekend of yet another series of winter storms. I was only able to ski Saturday afternoon for a couple hours due to work stuff, but even then I found thigh-deep powder. Unreal!

This past weekend, we had a little of everything. On Saturday, there was boot-deep powder in the morning (nice!) followed by fun spring snow and more fun spring pitchers of beer on the lodge deck. The video shows just how amazing the snowpack is for this time of year. Still more than 200 inches at the top! Sunday was more of the same, except bottles instead of pitchers.

This coming weekend is the last hurrah for lift service. Combine that with impending Cinqo de Mayo and, needless to say, it will be a little...ummmm....enthusiastic up there. Kind of a sombreros and cervaza deal. Closing weekend is always great as long as it doesn't rain. It's kind of a relief, in a way. It's always nice to be forced to start touring, getting into some big, wilder terrain.