November 21, 2008 Cool Website of the Day — Alpental.com
Since moving to the Pacific Northwest from Colorado I’ve experienced some apprehension about my future skiing life. You see, over the last five years skiing managed to take over my being and I became addicted to ‘the life’. It got even worse when, two years ago, a client engagement landed a job writing reviews for a popular Colorado ski blog, which led to my best friend Chris and I skiing every mountain (at least three times) in the state in one season.
A job like that can spoil a man: the fresh tracks each morning; the search for freshies each afternoon; followed by some apres beers; some good food; a hot tub and a nice hardy sleep at a ski-in/ski-out condo. Then the next few days the on and off-mountain routine would be repeated until we considered the mountain ‘reviewed’. All during this project our hearts were content, we were in great physical condition and we had the peace of mind of knowing that this was actually our job. Our biggest complaint was having to take ‘cool’ photos.
Smoky
Last season I skied alone, mostly. My wife was with me a few times and Chris made it up a few times, but really it was just me and my iPod at Copper and Winter Park, hitting my familiar lines and seeking new ones, adrift in tons of light, fluffy powder each time. One morning, I had to boot-pack out of a snowed-in parking lot at Winter Park just to get in the arena to play. It was a 20-plus inch day! In fact, my last ten outings last season were powder days — 8-inches reported, minimum.
Perhaps you can now understand my anxiety facing a new medium in what’s been called Cascade Concrete? A relative of Sierra Cement? And then the terrain! Is it really that much steeper here in the PNW? These questions sent me looking for answers online. And today I found some answers at Alpental.com, a site which provides literally no insider knowledge about the resort itself, but rather a a plethora of information about Alpental’s immediate backcountry.
alpental.com
For what must have been an hour I studied the Great Scott traverse to Piss Pass and then the Pineapple Pass, all of which leads to what looks like an oasis of snow, the Great Scott Bowl. Getting in and out of the bowl could pose a huge challenge in terms of cliffs and steeps, but oh man, the bowl is a huge, 40-degree face full of fluffy powder turns. It looks inspiring, like some of the lines at Telluride or Crested Butte, but with perhaps even more cliffs, if that is possible.
Bring on the season, be it wet and sloppy or cool and fluffy!
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Permalink # Joe Gross said
I moved to Bellevue 2005 after living in Colorado for 20 years(Durango Vail and Denver). It takes a little getting used to but the skiing here rocks. A ski buddy of mine spent a week skiing with me last year from Steamboat and said it was such a let down to ski Steamboat after experiencing a few killer days at Alpental and Crystal. Fat skis are a must. Watch the weather a little PNW snow can change conditions over night from bad to fantastic. Alpental’s terrain is similar to Pallavicini except for a poor lift system. Cheers
Permalink # reidwegs said
Joe, thanks for the comment. I rode Alpental yesterday and while there was a little blue ice on top, the snow quality pretty much rocked. I was on a pair of Gotama’s and felt like I was in heaven on parts of Edelweiss. On the chair ride up my mouth was watering just viewing the terrain features, the cliff bands with huge icicles and the gulleys and chutes — never seen anything like that before. On a powder day one could lose themselves in pleasure back there.
I will pen a review on Alepental one of these days, but not until after a trip to Steamboat next weekend. It will be fun to put your buddy’s theory to test, considering Steamboat has always been a big favorite of mine. A five minute hike at the top of Storm Mountain opens up a huge variety of terrain, and then you have the Shadows and Closet, plus some hidden stashes that continually hold that cold, fluffy snow the ‘Boat is famous for.
The quality of PNW snow is definitely growing on me, as is Alpental’s awesome terrain, but then there’s nothing like a little Steamboat champagne for breakfast.