Crystal - 03/17 Happy St. Pat's Day!

Great Sunny Day, Great views everywhere (south to Hood, north to Baker and west to the Olympics), Great Groomers that held up all day (LS, MIFB and the Valley do to not many folks around to scrape it off), Great temps (just warm enough to soften some slopes, but cold enough to keep most things happy), Great quality north facing slopes (PB and GV bowl at least and probably many other places), Great day for a Hamster in the Treadmill (and I was again as usual – PB/BP’s very many times and very happy all of them), Great Soup at CB lodge, Great views of the Freeride comp on the King!!! Saw some nice lines, but I’m sure there were many more that I missed. (perfect conditions for a final on the King…great vis, great north snow quality, great spectator conditions).

Other – The soup of the day at CB lodge was CHICKEN NOODLE! And it was very good (sorry Ms D…I got a big bowl, it was waiting for me). No lift lines noticed today, lots of sad folks suffering a nasty weekday at Crystal, Pay lot typical, some bad parking in the rest of A lot, with a few cars in B and lots of random cars parked all over the place in C. Fun day, almost perfect spring quality (a little more warmth would have been prime…maybe tomorrow). Only a month of the winter season left and the snow pack is the deepest of the season….Dont be like a few folks I talked to that indicated it was their first day – but it was a great first day!

Yes, Valley to groomed Ice Berg was excellent in the morning. Also Powder Bowl, Outer Ferks, and some of Bear Pits. Headed out to Northway and Paradise Bowl, Bruce's Bowl, and Finger Chutes very nice, but the best was a mostly un-skied Horseshoe Chutes. Back to the front side where the hamster wheel really got going on Green Valley bumps to Memorial Gully from the road. Every run got better and by the end of the day had a really nice line pounded in there for ddk tomorrow. Did two runs down chair line which were more challenging.

Could have skied a lot more today, but had to leave by 2 because of late afternoon commitments. Tomorrow in the sun will be another awesome day. Alas, I have other family commitments.

Best of the three days we were on the mountain. Each day completely different than the previous. An unfortunate east wind kept the upper portions nastily frozen as the lower half turned to mush - fun mush. Best aspects were the very shaded Northway Peak, Horseshoe Chutes, Flyin’ Floyd’s, and the hairball winner of the day, Banana Chute where the too-narrow-for-my-skis entry led to perfect narrow packed pow to boot-top untracked. Only untracked of the day, and we were the only takers of the day. It’ll be hell to pay till the sun re-melts the snow or new snow turns up in the forecast.

Ken
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