November 27, 2003, Southback Crystal Mt.

After carving the cords I met some ski buddies and headed off for southback.  Was nice to find groomed trail leading in.  Made for a nice snowshoe up until the second knoll past the flats.  From there was skin tracks all the way up.  I let my ski buds go in front of me since I would destroy it.  Off the skin tracks it was knee to thigh deep.  As we scoped the bowls all tracks that had been laid down previously were completely covered.  I regret not bringing my camera.  We only saw a party of 3 and 1.  The party of 3 skied off the se side thru the chutes and it held.  We watched the other one come down the from the saddle near boxcar cornice.  He ended up passing us and doing another lap off the summit thru the chutes.  Anyway when our party of 3 reached the saddle we came upon r-block and it looked like all layers had held.  Temp. was 16 degrees and blowing along the ridge.  The bowl was awesome.  Knee to thigh deep fluff 1000ft. down to the cat track.  Definitely love the sensation of floating down some steeper sections.  We were the last ones out and counted only 8 tracks.  Weather and visibility held up but as we left things started to worsen.  Truely a good day topped off with snowcap.