Quick report
We took advantage of the nice weather and spent the day working on the weather station at the top of Alpental. Surfaces were frozen solid in the morning, so we delayed our ascent from the top of 2 to the summit of Denny until around 10:30. At that point, the snow had softened enough in the sun that we were able to kick steps in and ascend safely. Although we still wore boot crampons for the shaded parts of the climb.
Looking around the valley, southerly aspects have been beat up and lost a lot of snow. The shaded half of the dial looks more winterlike, but no dry snow was spotted, just firm icy surfaces.
On our descent, sun-exposed slopes were slushy and made for enjoyable enough turns, particularly in The Bowl where others had skied before us. In the shade was a different story...
Weather
Bright sunshine and some light easterly winds. The Pass proper had some low-level clouds that burned off around late morning.