Alpental solo tour Wednesday, April 27th

I woke up this morning to my alarm clock at 5:30 and hit the snooze two times so it must have been 5:45 or so when I actually got up. This week I had posted on Turns All Year that I was looking for a partner and to my disappointment this post got zero takers but instead of call the day off I decided to go up to Alpental to find some partners in the parking lot or just do some solo laps. I was told by another guy on TAL that there were "four or five" cars in the parking lot on Tuesday so that gave me a little hope to push me on. After driving through anything from pouring rain to a light drizzle I was happy to arrive in the parking lot to snow falling. Once in the Alpental parking lot I sat for a good 30 minutes reading a ski magazine and listening to music before giving up on finding a partner and grabbing the skis and skins and heading out on my own. After 20 minutes of skinning I stopped to chat with two guys going the other direction that had skinned up the runs at Alpental and skied though a backcountry gate to make a few turns before heading off to work. They told me that the top part was,"actually pretty fluffy" so it gave me renewed hope that this day would not be a waste. After another hour of skinning I could see that wet slides had been released on virtually every high angle slope so I stuck to the trees and low angle stuff for all my skinning. Once I had gained the high ridge in front on Pineapple pass I decided to descend through the trees, turning more to slow myself down than for fun.
After one short run I thought my day was over and headed down the groomed track to the parking lot. Just as I rounded the final corner to the paring lot I saw two guys that were heading up and asked them If I could join them. They answered,"yes" and the second part of my day had started. We stuck to my original skin track to its high point but broke off after it to continue on shallow terrain in the direction of Pineapple Pass. Once we got in the valley at the foot Pineapple pass it was decided that we would skin across two large debris piles and along a flank to arrive on the other side of the ridge where there was "good shallow skiing". I didn't buy this because I have skied the other side of the ridge and looked back at what we would be on top of coming from this direction and remember more of a sheer cliff band than "shallow skiing". Just before this plan was hatched I had asked to borrow wax for my skins that were covered in heavy snow and gaining weight so at the time of me feeling uncomfortable with the current plan I was already behind the guy that had let me borrow the wax. I followed behind through one debris pile until I could hand of his skin wax and told them I had to get back to my car before 12. They were both okay with me leaving early and told me to stay safe on my ski down. I said, "thanks for the wax" and headed down the same shallow trees I had skied earlier and had a great last run. All and all I had a great day skiing lower angle trees on the way down to the car and would call the day a success and who couldn't with break in the clouds like this...

-Owen