Met up with another random skier off Turns All Year on Saturday. He was looking to do a circum nav of Chair Peak in the Alpental Valley. Sure, why not? :)
We started from the furthest out Alpental parking lot. And first things first we stashed the beer behind this water thingy. Then it was off to Chair Peak.
With few clouds in the sky, the sun finally out, it was hot! Even though I was in an Icebreaker t-shirt with my pant vents wide open I was still dripping in sweat. And silently suffering because I was a little tired from my day before :).
After cresting the col we found the snow on the north facing slope to be awesome. Still dry. Not a lot of tracks. It was ours to tear up.
Jonn-E took a great shot of me:
We had a great ski down to the NE couloir.
Which led to Snow Lake.
It was a long skate ski to the north end of the lake :).
From there we skinned up to Chair Peak Lake. Just above the lake we stopped for lunch.
Then it was up then down to Melekwa Lake. Then up to the west side of Chair Peak.
As we hit the crest I hear “hey there Goyer!” as my Spearhead Traverse guide Forest came up the other side.
After some chit chat we click in and start to tear down the Bryant Couloir but find it filled with lots of avi debris.
Back at home I was surprised to see we had only done 4600′ of vertical. Felt like much more :). And I suspect Runkeeper’s calorie counter for skiing isn’t functioning properly!
Update: Here is Jonn-e’s trip report.