Crystal - 12/12

A very nice 3 out of 3 for my first day of the season. The snow was excellent if you like a foot of un-groomed slightly heavy powder. After a couple hours, it turned into nice packed-powder bumps. And, the coverage was surprisingly good, although did take a few superficial rock shots when I was poking around where I shouldn't have been. The weather and visibility was very nice with lots of sun breaks and views of the big mountain. And, with Stevens opening today, the crowds were on the light side with a couple exceptions.

Showed up early and parked 4 rows back with a small pay lot. Got in line for the bucket just before 8 for an 8:45 opening and made the 4th or 5th bucket with ddk. I was rewarded with 3 untracked runs down the valley and it was oh so nice. Lovey Dovey. As the crowd built, the lift line was never more than 5 minutes or so, although being single I never waited. Then, two unexpected things happened. First, C3 suffered a power outage. Only C3. Weird. Took 15 minute before the diesel fired up growing the line considerably, then the chair ran at half speed the rest of the day. Getting off at the top, saw the man (or ex-man John K.) giving the new operators instructions on the chair. Probably some band-aids, duct tape, and bailing wire keeping it running. The second thing that happened is they opened REX and Lucky Shot. No more line problem anywhere.

There is good enough coverage and enough skier grooming that I think they may run the cats tonight, especially if more snow comes in.

There are new snow making guns on Lower Bull and Deer Fly, although none of them were blowing. Also, the little food shack on the sundeck was open. No lamb kabobs. Instead, a nice selection of hot sandwiches and soups. Much better.

Back up tomorrow...

And the rest of the story...plus a couple of corrections. Arrived early, but not as early as I would have - #1 kinda slows the morning process down...but got a spot for my skis in the Bucket line - ended up in the third bucket (think CD was kinda squirely). But the snow was deep and NW quality pow (the Coombas liked it), got a few untracked lines and lots of left over slots. Crowd kept building, rumors had backside road to LS would open at 9:45 and SnortElk at 10...bad info, LS didn't open till close to 11 and I never noticed SnortElk being open...the crowd waiting for LS to open was massive (my opinion) and the wait was not my bag so I did my last bucket ride down load (and maybe my last bucket ride for a while).  REX is running - what more could you want! LS skied very nicely, snow quality was perfect for building bumps - Heaven!  Weather and vis was great all day, the big mountain was very big today. The crowd was close to big opening day and today was definitely opening day for the masses. As noted GVex had a power problem and was running on diesel for a while, but by the time I left it was back on white lightning. FQex was running and should open tomorrow, coverage on the lower slopes with snowmaking is big wide and very nice for man made snow. Great day!

Other - Pay lot was small and not full (except for the big snow pile in the middle), rest of A full with cars down into C lot and mostly employees in B.  Did see Mr and Mrs K (plus his son) skiing the GV today - she said being retired is very nice. Kinda surprising seeing them here.

Other Other - Soup at the base was Meatball pasta something with real meatballs, looked good but did not try it. Heard rumors that HC will open at least by Saturday, PB looked real nice today.

All in all a great day, better than expected and worse than expected in some aspects.  Coverage is getting better every day and if tomorrow does come through then life will be really great.

Homemade meatball soup with pasta was excellent, as were the three pow runs we got in Snorting Elk bowl when we noticed the rope was down.

Angel the soup lady said it was Italian meatball, and said they have a new head chef with good ideas.  The soup was super with huge meatballs and spices, great fuel for the PM.
This was my wife's first day up and my first all-lift day in 8 months.  We saw tracks coming in to Deer Fly from a path in the woods, so I decided to hike up to the access tracks.  As I dropped my skis two nice female patrollers came by, and I asked if it was open.  One called on her radio and the answer said, 'That line is impassable, but Deer Fly is open'. So I booted a few more minutes up the road and broke tracks to fresh tracks on that.  There was a creek jump in the middle of DF, made me think the 'impassable' way was deep wide and wet.  :
Many good leftovers on GV; the big wait for the breakdown was over 20 minutes.  The snow level is so low it was a 5' sidestep up to the boarding zone.  Upper GV bowl skied excellent all day.  Snorting was open by the time I noticed but I got one run in.  Solid heavy coverage, minimal outrun, and the lower gully was like skiing through old cornstalks! Lucky had more tilted cornfields but we rarely saw or felt a rock.