Crystal - 2/22

Executive Summary: Great snow, great visibility, great temps, no wind, no crowds.

The details: Arrived at 7:50 and parked in the second row of free parking. The pay lot was big due to space reserved for the HHW busses. Chinook loaded at 8:30 and I could have used ddk's signature move to get the first chair, but decided against it. First run down Memorial was a little stiff as the muscles weren't loose, the ski brain wasn't engaged, and it was fairly cut up from yesterday with lots of spots hitting the hard base layer from last week. Next run down door 3 was much better. Then, Bear Pits lower entry fair left. Ahhhh, there it is. Headed up six and worked my way from Screaming Babies all the way around to Cambell Basin. All good and hadn't been skied out too much yesterday due to the visibility issues. A couple laps down Powder Bowl (John's Chute skiers left by the exploder), and mainline which was nicely filled in. Very nice. In Bear Pits, did the chute just past the Danger sign and it is finally filled all the way in and a kick. Also did the scrappy one past it and it was clear, but still had tree tops sticking out of the snow and a couple rocks part way down. Out to Northway where the real goods were. Several runs I found appeared to not have been skied yesterday and felt bottomless. Many runs. Then out Employee Housing which had been skied quite a bit, but was just big pillows of snow all the way down which made for a good non-stop top to bottom. With sun coming out, several laps on Showtime and Breakover. Very nice soft bums. Finished the day heading out Exterminator which surprisingly had been skied out. Maybe lots of folks there yesterday? However, part way down (if you knew where to go), 10 completely untracked turns and then into better snow. Until Lower E. I've skied it when it was worse, but also when it was better. The Pinnacle 105s were the perfect tool for today. Float in the powder and maneuverability in the tights.

The pay lot even with busses was 2/3 full when I left. The rest of A lot full and about 2/3s of C-lot. Only employees in the first row of B lot. Where was everybody? More empty chairs today than chairs with people on them. Being a solo artist today made for a good vert day.

Off for a big road trip to Sun Valley, Jackson Hole, and Big Sky. Next report will be from Sun Valley.

Spot on, You and ddk rip it..... I just make it down.... I got to my E lot spot late, but was in a bucket by 9:15ish, The Darksides wanted more, but I pointed them into the Gut of GV on the groom but wondered over to the side to taste the goods and it tasted good. So I went back traverse  to a hard right hand turn into the fluff under SE Peak, it was good, I worked it over to Rinky Dink and lapped it again, good snow. dipped into my stash in Spook and found it untouched (why? I don't know) but there it was. a bunch of young helmets followed in there. so I knew Spook was done, Lucky Shot over to Queens Chair , I looked into CB Lodge, but could not see the Soup of the day, up six and I worked A Basin till I was fried. The Zip line traverse over to the Saddle is in great shape and the hike up to the Thrown, look like the Chilkoot Pass during the height of the Gold Rush, Nose to Ass climbing. I made it down to base and grabbed a bucket up and Elk outed to the Elk for a cold one and deboot. Great day in the hills, it felt good to chase the "White Rabbit" around the hill today and Crystal is skiing great. I wish I had made it South, but the nose to ass line is just not my style, besides I hike too slow for all these young buck's and doe's, I still have it in me, I think! I ran into the Big Everest Red Coat's wife on the Gap with a dog, get well Brent.

Nose to Ass line! That's Funny

...a TREE-mendous day (once again)...arrived 8:00, parked close (BONUS #1), and promptly swapped out my lenses for a less transmission because of the unexpected filtered sun (BONUS #2), loaded right onto chair (BONUS #3) and atop Rex was the mountain, out in all her glory (BONUS #4)...so after the quick mandatory photo op, we settled on  a warmup run of Upper Ferks into E into Eagle's Nest drop under Rock Face (BONUS #5)...

...and so the day went...too many bonuses to describe...true top-to-bottom skiing wherever you wanted...but really the carnage of last week's big rain was gone...we were snub-bey in noticing that a little filtered sun did indeed set things up a tad, but at 20F there no complaints...

..never touched the frontside -- hmmm, looking back in hindsight that seems a tad odd, but who cares?

...best BONUS IMHO was pillow bashing out South (and every pillow in my line was bashed, as opposed to being a camouflaged rock or stump, so my lucky spine)...

...no time for lunch today, but we manged to ease up for the last run: the magic carpet load onto C4 where we caught up with 2 already beat up and weakened carpoolees, and headed to Frankies for the Super Kahuna and African Ale...

CONS: a little scrape here and there

PROS: Patrol, Ops, lifties, Northway Peak (hike), Pucker's depression, groomers when necessary, Eagle's, middle E left, BP #2 quite slufffffffy for a dozen turns, PBowl West was easy-peazy, chute 1 skier's right of C6 (fast), ABasin backside (short hike) to right of Elizabeth Lake into Damn Fine, LizardBack Ridge (big hike) to the Ben's Point area held untracked for many many many turns followed by more pillow bashing through Elizabeth Creek out OB to Fardoggle...