I haven't been skiing since mid-December, and I'm getting the shakes. All this week it looked like Saturday was going to be too windy to get much skiing done. Late Friday night, the forecast changed a bit, so I decided to set my alarm and see what the conditions were like.
7:15AM Alarm goes off
7:16AM I hit the internet to check data from all the available sources. It looks like the pass is clear up to the ski area. There was an avalanche but it was past the exit I need to take. They got 12 inches so I can't pass this up. Time to pack and eat breakfast.
7:50AM I hit the road for the 40 minute drive to Alpental. It should get me there about half an hour early.
8:25AM I-90 is getting snowy. There is one clear lane and most of the cars are lined up going about 15mph. On the left side of the highway there is just hardpack snow and there is a line of Subarus flying up the mountain at about 40mph. It's like a Subi commercial.
8:38AM I got a pretty good parking spot, but why are all these people standing in the lot?
8:39AM I find out that they don't have power, and for some reason, they can't run on generator.
8:50AM I decide to hike up and at least get one run in.
8:52AM They stop people from hiking up.
9:05AM I head home. I have stuff I want to do today and this is going to take forever.
I had my CVS hacked camera along with me, so I took some quick video on the way back so you can see how much snow is up there (remember it's barely January!) There's no sound with this video.
Get the Flash Player to see this player.
var FO = { movie:"/web/projects/flash_flv_player/flvplayer.swf",width:"320",height:"240",majorversion:"7",build:"0",bgcolor:"#FFFFFF",
flashvars:"file=/web/video/alpental.flv&showdigits=true&autostart=false&showfsbutton=true" };
UFO.create( FO, "playeralpental");
[UPDATE] It looks like I made a good decision to leave. They didn't get power going until about 4pm when they opened Summit Central up for night skiing.