Crystal - 3/29

Ahhhh, what a beautiful blue bird day. Early on, GV and groomers on Lucky Shot and Ferkberg. Due to the light crowd, had to go for the 60mph+ pass on LS. Due to the fog yesterday, there was quite a bit of untracked in various places. Powder Bowl was great and deserved many, many runs. Snorting Elk was good and our one top to bottom via Kelley's Gap and lower E was done just at the right time before sunny aspects got too slow. Headed out to the King, but hit a horde of people in the saddle at Avie Basin. Decided to drop the right side of A-Basin instead of head to the top with the rest. First tracks there and also really nice snow down DFF. Runs not so good today were the doors, all the front side, and Bear Pits. So sad. Outer Ferks probably skied well in the shade along tree line, but I spaced and never got there. By noon, many of the sun exposed flat places were getting fairly sticky and grabby. The run out to the bottom at 1:30 had some places that were throw you on your face slow. The raising temps the rest of the week will only exacerbate the problem, but I'll be there. Wax up!

Only the most shaded aspects still held light snow - Valley Bowl, Powder Bowl, Avie Basin, and Elk Snort were awesome all day. Run-of-the-day was Powder Bowl Trees - right off the top slaloming the scrubby trees off the PB Nose. Sunny non-groomed was a sloppy hell. Groomers were fast and smooth early, packed and sticky by 1:00. The Valley got pretty wet and will be off the early list tomorrow - and maybe everything will need some radiation warmth. Our first tracks in Avie Basin lasted for hours as it looked like most Kingers dropped into Silver B. Didn’t ski a sunny aspect, other than groomers, that wasn’t nasty slop, but will have to go tomorrow to see if the overnight freeze fixes the unconsolidation.

Ken
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