November 16, 2003, Crystal Mt

A couple of friends and I decided to check out Crystal Mt on Sunday.  I arrived around 9am to find some icey patches in the parking lot and the storm starting to blow in.  Most everybody turned around not too far above the Rex lift (mid mountain).  A few of us braved the high winds and snow that seemed to hit you from every direction.  As visibility grew poor and with all the terrain traps the cat track really came in handy above Rex.  Eventually we all got distanced from each other and decided one by one to turn around.  I stopped what I thought wuz around 500ft from the Summit House.  With the visibility getting worse it wuz hard to see what conditions off track were like.  Before it got too bad I do remember seeing bush and rock tops scattered about.  The coverage got worse the higher you went up.  Anyway I stayed on the cat track which had around 6 to 12 of fresh/windblown atop crust from last storm.  There were free refills as skins and snowshoe tracks were filled.  Rode the track for about 300ft and turned off onto the actually runs.  The runs were bumpy in places and smooth in others and had anywhere from 1 to 3ft fresh/windblown.  Once back at Rex I rode another cat track towards Queens lift and dropped in just before it.  Conditions here all the way down to the car were 6 plus inches on top of the 4 or 5 inches of crust from earlier storm.  There were bushes to negotiate in places but didn't hit anyting with the bottom of my board.  Got back to the car about 12:30 to find everything blanketed with 6 or more inches of snow.  By that time I saw 2 free heelers skinning from their cars.  Despite the weather the turns in the deep fresh snow were worth it!