So far the new year has been a dry, warm one. I’m sure people who don’t partake in snow sports are enjoying it rather much. The weather has been pleasant enough that we have had our windows cracked to bring in fresh air, and I haven’t felt cold. I can usually sport only thick wool socks through the winter and I am wearing summery thin ones.
We went to Snoqualmie Pass yesterday, we were itching to get out and make some turns. When we left Seattle it was clear and sunny. Driving out east on I-90, we soon encountered fog and it stayed with us until we arrived at the Pass. Alpental is where we decided to go since the other areas can get crowded on the weekend.
So we get up there, and the parking lots are probably half-full. The lift lines are nearly empty and we got on the first chair with only four people in front of us. The snow didn’t really feel icy down at the base, but as we approached the top we could hear the people skiing down were dealing with some serious hardpack. Yikes!
At the top of chair 1 was a blanket of ice: everywhere. But the sun was out! We skated over to chair 2 (I was deathly afraid of falling and breaking limbs at this point) and in our sunny chairs we started getting excited about the snow. Sun makes everything better! Plus we had a cool view of the valley below and could see all the way to Rainier.
From Chair 2, we could see a blanket of fog below us.
I’ll spare you the details, but making our way down from the top of chair 2 was miserable. All I wanted to do was get to the bottom, and I was super bummed that we went all the way to the top of the darn mountain. I wanted to be down at the bottom, in the safeness that was our car. I didn’t want to be risking my life on my snowboard!
From Alpental we decided to check out the rest of the resort. Figured why not, we’re up there and we only took one run so far so might as well see what else is going on? Well, let me tell you this: we took one run from the Silver Fir chairlift at Ski Acres and got back in the car. The way they had groomed the hill it was as if big teeth had crunched through the ice pack and it was the most uneven surface.
The beauty of Snoqualmie Pass is how close it is to Seattle. We were only away from home a few hours and had the rest of the day ahead of us to do whatever we wanted. And now we know: don’t go back up to the mountain for snowboarding until we get a decent amount of more snow!
