April 28. Alpental Open.

WIND SUMMIT35° F SINCE 5AM 24 HR 48 HR 72 HR BASE 0" 0" 4" 5" 95" 1 MPH ALPENTAL34° F SINCE 5AM 24 HR 48 HR 72 HR BASE 0" 0" 5" 5" 119" 1 MPH ALPENTAL SUMMIT28° F SINCE 5AM 24 HR 48 HR 72 HR BASE 0" 0" 6" 7" 213" 9 MPH SNOW REPORTER'S COMMENTS: TNT here, Alpental, is open today 9AM - 4PM with 4" of new snow at the base and over 6" on top in the last 48 hours! Start your weekend off right, having fun with us on the 2nd deepest snowpack in the USA! All standard runs have been groomed. Don't forget, all Summit season passes are now valid for skiing Alpental this spring. Also, get your Big S passes before May 31st, because they jump up in price the next day! I think I'll check it out!

Final Powder Alert for 2011-12 Ski Season: From Larry Schick. A good synopsis of the season. I had a terrific March and April. Volkyl Shiro's were the ski of the year, I got a new pair of Lange 110's and just ripped it up, gimpy knee notwithstanding. I just wish to hell I had 2 knees! Stuart Silk and I had a very good powder day on April 5, his only day at Crystal this year and first one in at least 5 years. Skied a lot with Dan Ogborn , but missed the Fiorini's this year. Just didn't work out, but I hope we do next year. Ken Dayton was in South America for 5 weeks and had a back injury before that. Jack and I had a cool spring day on April 13. His new boots and skis. Look for the video on it. The kids and I went to Whistler for my 60th celebration in January. I'm not skiing in January much again, or at least no planning any big trips. Too sketchy. Lastly, we had 524+ at Crystal and a bunch at Alpental too. I'll try and download a cool video I made. April 24th, 2012 Hope you are enjoying this warm weather and true spring skiing. Don't forget the sunscreen. It's time to wrap up the powder alert for this season and look ahead to next season. Season Recap: I promised a robust, above normal snowpack and once again La Nina delivered for the Pacific Northwest. As much of the rest of the country suffered from an extreme lack of snow, we sat on a gold mine. It was one of the worst Dec- Jan periods on record for much of ski country. Tahoe, Utah and Colorado were green with envy when looking toward Washington. We were smiling from ear to ear. Ok, there was a certain smug delight about it, but it wasn't completely smooth sailing. We started off nicely, with great dumpage in late November, right on time. The Friday after Thanksgiving was primo. But in December it was cold and very dry. We saw minor improvement in January, right when La Nina should really get cooking. Despite the lackluster January, we still had the best snow of any region in the country. Then, by early to mid February, La Nina drove one storm after another to the Cascades. Powder alerts were stacked up like aircraft on final approach over Seatac, on Christmas eve - unending, one after another. The new snowfall continued, almost without interruption, all the way into early April. Hope you got some great pow - as I did. I took many a weekday off to nail the powder - and mainly to alleviate my FOMA (Fear Of Missing Out). We wound up with the best snow in the country and a well above normal snowpack - especially deep (as a percent above normal) in the Central Cascades: from Stevens to Snoqualmie to Crystal and White. ( Baker is always deep!). The snow was actually deeper in the Central Cascades on April 1st of this year - than last year. You never know how the season will play out - but La Nina did, once again, show a strong and reliable snow affinity for the Pacific NW. Another observation: we've had many of these mid-late season snowfall comebacks since 2005 - perhaps a new normal? Next season:Could be just as good!

Best day of the year at (for me) @ Alpental. Feb 25,2012

Awesome. 27 at the bottom, 22 at the top, with at least 20", more like 30" in the BC. Crowds were bad, but man was it good.
Skied with "Mark" who saved my bacon when I lost a ski in Elevator. We skied it twice. Once down Snake Dance.
See the movie. May there be more.

Huge Day in Cascades and 4 die

Sunday, February 19. It had been dumping. 31' in 48 hrs. It was getting so deep that the pass closed for 11 hours to clean up the roads. As both Alpental and Crystal Mt. had huge crowds that closed the areas and filled the parking lots, 1 boarder on Denny Mtn and 3 skiers at Stephens got caught in slides and died.
I didn't get there until 10;30 and it hadn't been open for all that long, but it was huge crowds of about 45 minutes on chair 2. It was awesome but too crowded and it was impossible, but Dan Ogborn and i took it for what it was worth. Too bad that the 2 parties got caught.

February 18, 2012. Finally snowing again.

Finally, after 3 weeks, it's back. The report is as follows:

Late Afternoon: Snow. High near 25. Southwest wind around 13 mph. Chance of precipitation is 90%. Total daytime snow accumulation of 6 to 10 inches possible.
Tonight: Snow showers. Low around 19. West wind between 13 and 17 mph. Chance of precipitation is 90%. New snow accumulation of 3 to 7 inches possible.
Sunday: Snow showers likely. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 22. West wind between 6 and 16 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New snow accumulation of less than a half inch possible.

Jane is 4 days post op now and we are hoping she is getting on top of her med's.

It's still going off..January 19.

Fought our way, Dan and I, to Alpental. Crystal was all but closed again as 410 had so many trees down that it didn't let people get there.
We opted for Alpental. Damn crust layer under 8", and it was tracked pretty well by the time we got there, and the back wasn't open, but it was wonderful. We skied 4 runs, came down, had a picnic with smoked salmon, great jerky and Gerwertz. We are going again Friday just because it isn't like this very often. More then.

Short Video from the Parking lot, 1-17-2012