Quick trip to Alpental

Sunday Natalie and I got out into the snow for a really nice back country ski tour.  I recently finished a back country setup for Natalie and wanted to find somewhere close to test everything out with her before we made a real road trip somewhere.  Luckily for us Alpental ski resort, which is only an hour from the house, has not opened for the season yet.  There is pretty good snow cover everywhere but the weeds are still sticking up.

Natalie was not feeling so hot but she was a trooper and headed up anyway.  At the house the sun was shining and the sky was blue.  We were a little sad that when we made it up to the mountain the blue skies were replaced with clouds but there was very little wind and the snow was in great shape.

This was my first trip up to Alpental so we wandered around for a little while trying to find the easiest way up.  After a long traverse across the resort we headed up.  We were out for about 3 hours and got fairly high on the mountain before taking one nice long run back to the car.

It was great being out with Natalie on such a nice day.  I love that my wife is game for getting out in the cold and skiing around for the day.  I am hoping that the resort does not open for a few more weeks so maybe we can get another trip or two in up there.  Nice only driving a hour from the house rather than the normal two and a half or three to Mt Baker.