Crystal Mountain Uphill Travel

Hi All,

We have been trying to work with Crystal to build some better map products, which you can view here below. We have also been talking to the resort to try and work out some solutions for the backcountry community, with the goal of the resort seeing the importance of skinning folk to their community overall and the value that uphill travelers bring to the resort. While there many logistical hurdles, we are still pushing for reasonable access to the Crystal Lakes basin, as we understand the value of that terrain for folks.

That said, much of the patrol at Crystal are avid backcountry skiers and Crystal wants to welcome these folks as much as possible. They have put forth a lot of good-faith efforts to keep accommodating our needs in the face of some pretty blatant and stupid behavior (people skinning up under control work, people skinning up to ride the upper lifts for free... the list goes on). We appreciate it and continue to reap the benefits of relatively reasonable access from the end of the boulevard.

To echo some of the above sentiments: There is a vast amount of terrain near Crystal with great skiing that you can skin to without interacting with the resort scene beyond the parking lot. Arguing about the theoretical legal rights you have to go get a bomb tossed on your head is irrelevant and antithetical to what everyone wants to go do, which is go have a nice time skiing in a quiet place away from a lift line. If you do want to head up towards Pickhandle or 3-way peak, go check in with patrol and make sure you know where you can and can't go. If you just want to get some exercise or test out new gear, the mine-to-market road up Gold hills is always open. Whatever you do, please be cognizant that you represent a community. Crystal as a community may be a commercial entity, but it is made up of people who recognize the value of backcountry skiing and are doing what they can to reach out to us. Let's take ownership of our part of that interaction.

Click on the map to go to the functional version on google maps- forum software won't let me embed the actual map.

go ski.

you shouldn't have to use your brain this much to do it.

concussions from avy control? waiver analysis? uphill within crystal sidecountry while operating on a weekend? you have to be kidding me.

bunch of girly-men bitching on the internet from their condo or cubicle about front country/legal drama. your skis don't care- they just want to go ski. be more like your skis.

How can we tell if our skis are girly or manly? Can you suggest a brand?

FWIW:

Mission ridge's uphill policy excludes uphill travel completely within the permit boundary from 7:00AM to 5:00PM on dats when the lifts will spin.   

Snoqualmie (non-Alpental)  areas have a fairly liberal uphill policy -- but then they should,  in the '80s Kittitas county tried to assess  an "admissions tax" on lift ticket sales.  Ski Lifts Inc successfully contested the tax by claiming it was a "lift ticket" only and a lift ticket was not required for admission to the permit area. 

Alpental is in King County bans skinning in the permit area, they use bombs and ski cuts to intentionally kick off avalanches. The kind of stuff Crystal does in Southback..

RE Alpental uphill policy, not strictly true randy. Per the summits website which has been posted here several times:

Rules of Uphill Travel: Specific to Alpental

At Alpental during the operating season uphill use is allowed ONLY WHEN THE AREA IS OPEN TO CUSTOMERS. When Alpental is closed to customers, it is closed to uphill travelers. This means that if no Alpental chair lift is open to guests, you may not travel uphill; including periods when lifts are delayed or on standby, Mondays, at night or any other period of closure during the operating season.
-Before heading uphill, you must first make contact with patrol staff to determine whether a route can be approved for that day and time.
-This policy applies to all terrain, including the Back Bowls area.
-When traveling to areas beyond the boundary such as Chair Peak or Snow Lake, always stay climbers right and off of any path or resort return trail. Uphill travel is not allowed for any terrain on the South side of the Alpental Valley until you reach Source Lake.
-From Source Lake the distinct drainage known as Great Scott trends south and up to the Tooth and Pineapple Pass. These areas are outside the resort boundary and open to ski touring and other forest users, but please do not travel east into the Alpental ski area permitted terrain.

FWIW:

Mission ridge's uphill policy excludes uphill travel completely within the permit boundary from 7:00AM to 5:00PM on dats when the lifts will spin.   

Snoqualmie (non-Alpental)  areas have a fairly liberal uphill policy -- but then they should,  in the '80s Kittitas county tried to assess  an "admissions tax" on lift ticket sales.  Ski Lifts Inc successfully contested the tax by claiming it was a "lift ticket" only and a lift ticket was not required for admission to the permit area. 

Alpental is in King County bans skinning in the permit area,  they use bombs and ski cuts to intentionally kick off avalanches.  The kind of stuff Crystal does in Southback..

Thanks for the clarification.

Umm, people spend much more time as obstacles to downhill skiers when skinning uphill than when resting on runs. And often they spend time in spots where few skiers would stop unless they'd fallen yard-sale style.

I agree with these statements in cases where the uphill skier isn't using good route judgement. Totally true.

I think uphill skiers have the responsibility to travel in places where they are either out of the way of downhill skiers or easily visible from a distance. This is generally not hard to do if the uphill skier uses reasonable judgement.

There are some places (e.g. beneath knolls and through chokes) where uphill skiing is never a good idea. In these cases uphill skiers should either get off the run (into the woods) or choose a different path altogether. This is just common sense and good citizenship.

Look Jim I get it.   I see who the turns all year ad supporters are.

If Turns all year wants to be a true representation of backcountry skiers, then there's going to be different points of view and expect push back against commercial expansion, and the ideal of commercialism.

Or maybe just change the name to 'commercials all year'.

Honestly, this is hilarious. You're smearing TAY for being too commercial? It's the least commercial site I visit on any regular basis. Your axe must be getting pretty small with all the grinding you've done on it.

So yeah the facts indicate that this is a commercially supported site. Is a fact a smear or is a fact a fact?

Suggesting that this site be renamed "commercials all year" is a smear.

if you put individuals together in the right way, such that some individuals can use their reasoning powers to disconfirm the claims of others, and all individuals feel some common bond or shared fate that allows them to interact civilly, you can create a group that ends up producing good reasoning as an emergent property of the social system. This is why it's so important to have intellectual and ideological diversity within any group or institution whose goal is to find truth (such as an intelligence agency or a community of scientists) or to produce good public policy (such as a legislature or advisory board)

Oddly enough, this is exactly what the Cascades Backcountry Alliance is trying to do.

except that it's run by commercial interests.

Many feel that commercial control of our public lands is not a viable sustainable option for the land itself and the valuable habitat it provides, not to mention the ever shrinking Wilderness as a place for humans seeking solace.

You know what they say, if it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it is a duck.

If unfettered commercial interests conttolled the USFS permitting process -- wouldn't we be discussing the uphill policy at the "Early Winters " ski resort on Sandy Butte?

Here's the decision that stopped the Early Winters ski area from being built in the Methow. Note the lawsuit was brought by Methow Valley Citizens Council, Washington State Sportsmen's Council, Washington Environmental Council, and the Cascade Chapter, Sierra Club, who appealed the Regional Forester's decision to issue a permit to the Chief of the Forest Service, and then appealed the Chief of the Forest Service's decision to federal court.

Here's the decision that stopped the Early Winters ski area from being built in the Methow. Note the lawsuit was brought by Methow Valley Citizens Council, Washington State Sportsmen's Council, Washington Environmental Council, and the Cascade Chapter, Sierra Club, who appealed the Regional Forester's decision to issue a permit to the Chief of the Forest Service, and then appealed the Chief of the Forest Service's decision to federal court.

Thanks for the link.   Interesting reading.   Mule deer vs developers and the Mule Deer's interests carried the day.   Too bad the descendants of those deer continue to be sacrificed along HWY-153 in a regular basis.

...

In the meantime I'm sure the Crystal Patrol is preparing those accident statistics and getting ready to post some facts.

Why no ranting against Mission Ridge that bans uphill travel completely during operating hours.

Sandy Butte still got it's ski lift, although no environmental impact statement was performed, only an environmental assessment, more taxpayer money.

Where? I've been up it a handful of times in the winter and have only found an old cattle driveway (which was decent skiing, actually).

"Wannabe" what? Sanctimonious like you? You know the people who own and run NCH are your neighbors, right? I see those ladies and guys around the Mazama store whenever I'm out there and they aren't wealthy, at least based on their old trucks and vintage sleds. Sure appears like they're doing it for the love. Personally, I like it when they're flying around my intended zone. Canary in a coal mine.

Ha! You're being totally delusional (again). We've never spoken, you provided no warning and I owe you no debt of gratitude. Get a grip. And unlike you, I actually travel around the northwest (and farther) and make field assessments in all kinds of different zones. Thousands of days in the BC (and alpine rock in the summer) so far and never a scratch (knock on wood). You only know your back yard, and have an incredible hubris about it too. Hope that never bites you in ass (sincerely).

Wait, I'm confused. What does rehashing this 4-year-old argument have to do with uphill travel at Crystal Mountain?

I'll try to bring it back to the topic (but am still a ways off from the simple way the thread started: as I see it, Crystal patrol making a good effort to make their uphill-travel policy known to the BC community).

My questions about unfettered access to our national forest land: Can I drive my snowmobile up the runs at Crystal? Why can't I take my toboggan to Alpental (uphill dog poop trail obviously excluded)? Can I, after all, take my mountain bike on the PCT in the non-wilderness areas? How about going for a fine hike in an area closed for logging operations? A number of forest service campgrounds are privately managed; can I just pitch my tent in the middle of one of those campgrounds?

I guess I have only been BC skiing for ~15 years, and I know there are many folks on here who have been in the BC much longer, but I think the need for uphill access in ski areas is generally new within this time, or I wasn't paying attention. It just doesn't seem very complicated: if you want to ski fresh powder all the time, you'll have to work for it, and there will be days that you can't (or probably shouldn't) ski big terrain. If you want to ski fun terrain that has had avalanche control work done, then you can expect to pay for it. The fact that Crystal says that you can skin up any of their groomed runs without paying (grooming runs is not free) to have easier access to terrain seems generous enough.

You are right, this issue of ski areas deciding that they will kick out up hill traffic is much older than 15 year.  When I worked  ski patrol, 30 years ago, it was a topic of frequent discussion.  The thing that is different now is the Ski industry selling the idea of back country skiing to down hill skiers.  You mix this with ever more people on the planet and you get businesses trying to monetize snow.  The thinking is that to make it work well you need to keep out the people, who haven't paid for the experience! 

However, the fact is that they have already paid for that experience. Think about it... ski areas are frequently on the highways that access the most goods (think altitude).   They are, as a result, located on the best public paths to the backcountry.  These highways  were built with public funds and are plowed and patrolled with public funds (at great expense!). - It should come as no surprise that the Public uses these roads to access the backcountry and take advantage of the access to public lands that their taxes paid for.

In all cases, safety should be a paramount consideration.   Avalanche control and ski area operation need to be safe.  However, I am afraid safety consideration is frequently perverted into an excuse to monetize snow and drive up corpirate profits.  This is where distrust of the industry spawns among the people who subsidize these corpirate profits.

It is sad that Public Rights seems to get left out of the discussion.  It is sad because with out that Public there would BE NO SKI AREAS!  Most ski areas were pioneered by up hill skiers, who sought to share their mountains with their fellow citizens. 

It is also sad that ski areas drive off potential customers with these exclusive bans.  Think about it..... Who has the best chance of becoming a serious skier?  The casual skier who goes up to ski the lifts once or twice a year?... or the snowy junky who is willing to drive 100 miles,  then climb for hours in the August sun, just to get another 15 minute run?  My money is on those snow junkies.  Those snow junkies are the best hope for expanding their customer base into the future and thus leading to increased ski area profits.  VERY FEW BACKCOUNRY SKIERS LEARNED OR MAINTAIN THEIR CHOPS WITH OUT FREQUENTLY USING LIFTS!

Too much of the Public's Right to Access has been lost to this myopic corpirate thinking.  The only answer to this threat is to stand up and speak out.  This is what the open access advocates are talking about in this thread.  Backcountry..... use it or loose it.

the southern resort charges for premium parking for established guests
I feel the source lake dog park LoT4 needs to be paid permit parking too.

@ snowjones,
That is very well put. I share a few of the same concerns.  Thank you.