Sunny Crystal 2/9/18

After Greenwater, it became painfully obvious that things had changed since last week's powderfest. 410, the Blvd and all parking lots were all bone dry. While the resort's web page had been cautioning about lower mountain rain and the challenging off-piste conditions, the NWAC forecast's 24 hour quantitative precipitation screamed 0.0 water equivalents and 2,000 ft snow levels.  So I was pleasantly surprised to find a bluebird day @ 14 F. I even managed to change out my lens from high %T to low %T -- always nice to not have to squint all day.

Not many folks were around to enjoy the sound of chattering skis as we rumbled through a few laps off Forest Queen's groomers from 9-10 a.m. One old-timer sporting very skinny 196 cm boards tried to penalize me a shot of booze for lowering the chair's safety bar.  I countered by proposing a safety meeting -- I'm sure he thought I was nuts!

While my buddy whined a tad, I was the optimist -- pointing out the new snowmaking guns (unused since Dec ?) and how Crystal's grooming continues to improve.

"You call this grooming?" he asked.  Yes I replied, pointing out how the overlaps were now even -- and saying how in years past the different passes of the cat would leave 1" lips. Since off-piste skiing was not possible due to frozen garbage, we had to find something about conditions to rave about. If it wasn't groomed, it wasn't pretty. Around 11:30 a.m. the exposed terrain of Middle Ferk's softened into sugar -- but that was about it. While the traverse out to the North gates was still rock free, Snort's shady groomer was borderline boiler in places. For the first time ever, I skied up to Angle Point and then U-turned back down the way I came. You would have to pay me to have gone out Willie's or Right Angle. Now I was very happy that I had the presence of mind to bring a properly tuned pair of skis with me to the hill and even happier that my bases were unblemished when I got 'em back home.

The C6 liftie didn't have any customers, nor did I spot anybody going into or coming out of the North. Every time I poked my head into my stashes, I instantly did a U-turn. So it became hamster laps up Rex, through GValley and down Iceberg.

Nice views from the top. After the mandatory pic, I spent most of the day working on balance drills and pivot turns. Imagine trying not to use your edges while 70% weighting on your inside ski. Braquage down Iceberg (MFerks) was very helpful -- doing these on the balls of your feet with good form is much harder than you think!

I tried not to be bummed out too much since it was only 7 days ago that everybody was enjoying big time powder. Bare spots were abundant on the Frontside, Exterminator and the bottom. IMHO, today was too cold to be considered spring skiing. Not quite sure why 3 cashiers were needed at Campbell Lodge -- and someone forgot to queue up the playlist. Also not sure why chicken coconut curry would again be offered over chicken noodle. A few buses showed up after lunch, but nobody parked in lot C. Never a line anywhere.  All employees (in abundance now ?) were super friendly.  The drive out encountered 3 herds of elk.

Thanks....nice report!

Thanks for the report !