The Mountain Time Forgot - That Kicked My Ass

Yesterday was awesome. My cousin Cam and I had decided to get one last ski day in before the season ended. We wanted to go somewhere close and chose Alpental. Little did we know that on Saturday Alpental had to close down at 12:30pm because it was raining so hard. I'm glad we didn't know that before heading up there.

We arrived in the parking lot and it was virtually empty. We parked right up close and got our gear together. It was like a ghost town. No lines for tickets, the coffee stand was closed, and there were about 4 people in line for the chair. We were starting to get a little nervous.

But, as we reached the top of the mountain and looked out over the bowls we noticed something spectacular. The mountain was covered in 6 to 7 inches of fresh, untracked, beautiful powder. Skiers paradise. The first few runs were amazing. This is the stuff that ski videos are made of (complete with a great face plant by Cameron right in front of a ski patrolman).

We lasted until about 11:30 by which time our legs and lungs were burning. We headed toward the lodge and left our skis with a guy named Squirrel. He yelled up to the lodge and told them to open the bar for us. We relaxed and enjoyed the sunshine and snow falling for a while. When we finally went back out to the hill, Squirrel had our skis all ready for us. He had even waxed them for us while we were in the lodge. Apparently he had been a little bored.

The afternoon wasn't as great as the morning, the fresh stuff was all skied out and it had gotten quite heavy. It was like work getting around the mountain and after a couple more hours of skiing I had to throw in the towel. I was tired, sore and hungry. The mountain had kicked my ass and I needed a hot bath. I woke up this morning and could barely get out of bed. This is the best kind of pain!

Thanks for the memories Alpental, see you next season!