Crystal - 1/08

Here's today's score **:

1 for crowds: none. 1 for weather and vis: Filtered sun most of the day, great visibility, although some strong mid day winds causing the gondie and C6 to close for the day. 0 for snow: Never got warm enough for the snow to soften. Groomers got scraped down to ice pretty quick, although MIFB got better as the day went on as skier grooming and winds caused sugar snow to pile up on skiers left of the run. Some aspects of GV right were skiable, but everything else off-piste was not. One run down Powder Bowl was bearable, but not worth a repeat. So, a 2 out of 3 day. Better than being in a funk at home because I hadn't been in the mountains for 5 days.

** Quick foot's grading method

And another report...

Short Report - Big early sucker Rainer donut hole early, pretty but got grey, then just nice big views with
filtered sun, fast moving clouds, winds early, but really big winds mid day, no crowds, no lift lines, screamer
fast groomers early with the best off piste bumps in GV Bowl (for me skiers right side)....

Lots of Words Report - Arrived way to early as usual, got #1 slot in the free part of A and also #1 slot
on  CHex...lift opened early as usual, groomers early were fast and not to bad, dirty rocky at the
bottom of MIFB, Lucky was fairly nice, GV Bowl was hamster doable....Did a few runs with
#1 on FQex, nice and private and empty (made #1 very happy).  Went up HC around 10:30...getting
windy but the views were really big!  PB was doable but I couldn't recommend it to anyone...but
would have done it again after CB lodge lunch...but the lift closed do to the really big winds...so
back to REX and sadly it was running just slightly faster than Quick Silver - big wind gusts at the
top....Skied a few in the Valley - Bowl good enough, Anns run fairly happy, Snort Elk Bowl not
worth a repeat - except for maybe off piste.  Slow REX got me to leave kinda early....all in all
a good day on the slopes ( my lack of skiing twitches have subsided - yes).  #1 enjoyed her day...always
a plus.

Other - Soup at CB lodge was Minestrone (looked good)....#1 had glut free Chicken Chili (tasted okay)...I
had "only" one piece of very nice pizza (trying to cut back - felt better).  No crowds at CB or
the base when we left.

Other Other - Parking report....after getting around the jerk that parked in front of my front row space
(with a tight suv parked in back of me)...I remember that the Pay lot was not full...and pretty
much didn't notice the rest of the parking situation...I'm sure it was not bad.....

Otherwise a very nice back to normal weekday ski.

The longest drive and I took a shower before writing my report.

I'd score the day -
Across the mountain conditions, 0. Valley Berg conditions, 1. Weather 0 due to the wind shutting down chairs, eliminating any softening, and scouring the ice, but +1 for no crowds, views, and the weather didn't really matter as the snow was in low quantity anyway. 1 for the grooming on Iceberg that hid the rocks, -1 for them appearing in force 3 hours later. 1 for the high speed exit to Iceberg avoiding the gravel, -1 that I couldn't keep up with the softball size rock rolling down in front of me (the GPS said 53mph on my part). +1 if the people in the rock's path didn't get smacked, -3 if they did. -1 for the mountain being in horrible shape, +2 for a fun icy mogul, Icy Berg kinda day. And, + 3 for it doesn't matter; we had some fun but the snow is in need of a lot more. -5 for too much math.

Another even more limited but fun day as we got our 30K feet of some kind of skiing in a weird weather winter.

Ken
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