randosaigai.com
Chair Peak, March 23, 2012
The goods - we ascended to the col behind the tree on the right, then traversed around
the back side of Chair Peak to the notch at the center of the picture.
I was a little groggy after 13 hours of inventory at the ski shop the day before, but Kevin rang the landline and told me the plan was the north side of Chair Peak at a very reasonable 10:00 AM. I was able to rally and join Kevin and Collin at Alpental's Lot 4, where blue skies and no tracks up Chair Peak Basin promised some fun to be had. By the time we arrived at Source Lake, there were 5 people ahead of us, lead by Crispin and Silas who we knew had preceded us by around an hour.
Thanks to Crispin's talent for trailbreaking we cruised the ascent to Chair Peak's NE col, where we joined a group of 3 skiers, then continued up. Kevin broke trail around the back (north) side of Chair, and we gained the ridge line on the NW side of the peak in short order. For some reason we'd never actually skied from this point, so we were stoked. The foot plus of unbroken dense powder waiting for us in the shade didn't detract either!
This is what we found on the north side of Chair Peak - Kevin was pretty excited.
We dropped a line from the ridge that was still covered by shade, as the sun-drenched slopes skiers' left of us were already seeing some decent-sized point releases that ran into the bowl, and it was pretty much the best conditions we'd ever seen on this run.
I concurred with Kevin's opinion. It was about as good as it gets. Kevin Curd photo
We chatted a bit with the three guys we had met at the col, who totally agreed with our stellar assessment of the skiing, then skied out over Snow Lake following Crispin and Silas' track. They apparently decided to stay out for the remainder of the day, but kindly put in a perfect skin track (not even any kickturns) back over the Snow Lake Divide . . . what a day!
Collin came close to pulling out of this one, and it shows the quality of the snow
Collin with Snow Lake in the background
All five guys who skied before wanted to work the same line, but Kevin still finds room for fresh tracks
