Crystal - 04/03

Expected a lot of things today…lots of ski buddies, lots of ice, lots of clouds…got no ski buddies, lots of sun early with clouds/fog in and out mid day till we left, some ice in high use places, but lots of new to smooth out the early fun runs. No real crowds (but more than yesterday), biggest problem was some lift problems, CHex broken most of the day, FQex running slow with lots of stops, REX – running better than most of the season made life good. Heard about some lines on GV, but never made it there. HC opened today, had a pretty good sized lines the first time I looked, it was no line early afternoon. I went and checked out the avie damage in BP’s!!!! Pretty impressive carnage – most of the bottom of BP’s might not be skiable again this season – just skier left was undamaged. Also checked out the Kelly Gap avie! Even bigger in lots of ways – the cat track to lower E will not be open for a while. Had lots of fun across the front of REX from the Doors to M-World, the Coomba’s made off piste very nice today. Not much time left during the main ski season…where did it all go. Only got one half decent pic of the BP’s slide, might post later today. Crystal had a heli doing bomb dropping out on the King…looked like a war zone during the afternoon. Snow was gettin a little heavy packed nasty late, might be tough tomorrow with out some nice new. ddk

Yeah the lift issues were kind of a bummer. Sunbreaks were nice though. Got to ride the gondy for free so that was a plus. Got a nice powder run down powder bowl, groomers were softening down low. Off piste was generally chunky and unfun by 3pm.

The heli was all over the place north to south. It sounded like they even dropped a charge in Boondoggle (or Far Doggle). The big news was that the Employee Housing slide path went HUGE. Almost all the way to, well, employee housing. Crystal facebook has some pictures up. Here's one (credit to CM/ski patrol):

They vacated the actual employee housing buildings because that slide came pretty close to taking out one of the buildings before they blasted another round. Pretty destructive slide to clear out such a mass amount of trees leaving a path of mud and dirt. New run that looks as wide as Lucky Shot.

I forgot to mention that Patrol discovered 2 people skinning up the Northway Trail (I-5) today and turned them around. As evidenced in the picture, it's probably safe to assume that because you are in the trees does not make it any safer right now.

I took a close look at the BP slide at the origin- the slab was almost six feet at the crown. I think it is safe to say that it will not reopen this season.

They vacated the actual employee housing buildings because that slide came pretty close to taking out one of the buildings before they blasted another round. Pretty destructive slide to clear out such a mass amount of trees leaving a path of mud and dirt. New run that looks as wide as Lucky Shot.

Here's a couple of shots of what it looked like from over by the old Bullion Basin lift:


Crown


Bottom

Nice pictures Ron. I can't wait to ski that new run next year. It blows me away that we were just skiing that a week ago. Who knows what problems that lurk below the surface. I imagine Brand X could have its day too if they blast that out.

Yeah, it was pretty awsome to watch. We heard the blast and I looked over to see the start of it but I didn't bother to get my camera out for a viddy as it looke like it would stop before I got the camera out. But then whe it started leveling trees without even slowing down it was hard to fathom. Quite something to watch.

Assuming nobody got hurt, this is pure awesomeness.

Kim Kircher (Crystal patrol) sent me a few photos from the Bear Pits slide.  Crazy stuff.  Glad no one was hurt.  Ron, lucky -- good timing to get to watch Rockface go...

EDIT -- A link to some more photos and a video:

Kim's blog

Ron, lucky -- good timing to get to watch Rockface go...

I think Rockface (above Kelly's Gap Road) went on Thursday or Friday. The one we watched on Sunday (which seems to be most often referred to as the "employee housing" slide) was started at the ridge just uphill from gun tower in the general area of Upper Niagara and continued down, taking out all the trees almost down to the employee housing building.

Right, right -- Niagara's. Amazing amount of activity in-area. Scary stuff.

Here is the BP slide from half way up REX, I took this picture on Sunday.

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