Crystal- Sun 12/23

There was a huge solid line of cars from Enunclaw and every one of them was a Powder pig. I was pretty early but the boulevard was 5 to 15 miles an hour just because of the backup of cars. There were instant lift lines everywhere. I guess that's what you get when everybody is snow starved. The report said 6 inches of new, however on top there was more, and it was bottomless in the trees. The untracked lasted minutes. I did four laps in Green Valley until the line got unbearably big, so I went out Kelly's Gap, which had fun skiing. The cut up Pow skied really well. It was light and fluffy enough that you could just blow through the piles. Northway opened, but only from Paradise bowl, so the good stuff is all roped off. It wasn't worth a second lap. The top of six is really rocky, but I still did three laps in the Campbell basin side. The Powder Bowl side had really flat light. Snorting Elk and Memorial we're both worth repeats. The lines all but disappeared after about 1130.
All of the lots except F were full.
I gave this 3/3 because I was so stoked

Same Mountain: Different experience.
Got up to the Mountain early ahead of the convoy at pretty much speed limit.
When it opened I headed out further to the frontier while everybody was lapping GV and had pretty much a top to bottom run by myself.
Southback opened about noon and I scored the first tracks down Silver Basin but I had to wait at the Throne Gate for an hour for the privilege. It was an aerobic traverse out with two 60+ years olds heading the charge and trying to keep ahead of the millenniums. t was worth it. Shoulder shots all the way.
By 2:30 PM it was getting pretty quiet with no lift lines and pretty much ALL the Northway gates where open. Skied Employee Housing and had a lonely run down Northway via Horseshoe Cliffs, gate 6. Finished with a Right Angle then a double espresso in the Elk to give me enough energy to drive home.
Awesome day.

Arrived early, parked up close in A lot, and worked my way up to the top of C6. These early turns seemed effortless, although now and then you would find the underlying layer from Thursday's rain + freeze.  Signline Right (1st tracks with lots of sloughing), Bear Pit  #2 (1st tracks, very nice although sad to see Patrol+sled at the lake) and PB (west ridge, between the cannons) all very very nice. Gotta hand it to my buddy for showing how it is done on skinny skis. Folks that made their way out to Silver Basin certainly had a holiday treat for sure. We had a transceiver snafu that kept us inbounds - oh well.

After lunch, we safely buzzed our way over to Northway's Gate 6 and squeaked through the large cornices guarding the Paradise Chutes. These turns were easily to the knee. Once in Paradise, we found the rubble from Tuesday's "massive, inadvertent slide" -- but this all skied like pillows -- just like I had dreamed they would. So that was a treat. Eventually all the North gates opened. I had hoped to visit the White Dragon, but the defective transceiver in our group took that idea out of play. Then onto Shaker's (gate 9) and some orgasms (gate 10) to end the day. I might be wrong, but there are a couple of new, "street signs" in lower Niagra's/EHousing that point the way to I-5 (never saw those before). Anyway, the gate 10 trees were very nice and the meadows were a treat.  A shout out to the 3 folks who asked for directions from me there.

I-5 was, well, I-5. Somebody brought out a piece of plywood to bridge the creek. CMAC scored 2 new huts at the base of the old C1.

IMHO, Crystal had their game on today with extra kudos to Patrol for the mega-control work they did this week to open what needed to be opened. Did I correctly spot new parking spaces above lot C as we drove out? The resort never felt crowded to me today. I even felt a tad nostalgic riding up the Northway Chair and thinking what John K said when he built it:"It's all about the snow".

Quite the week at Crystal where we had the base doubled. A far cry from what we had 2 weeks ago. Fingers crossed as we head into January.

Thanks for breaking trail and setting the pace. Silver was so good I had to go back for seconds and thirds.

Same Mountain: Different experience.
Got up to the Mountain early ahead of the convoy at pretty much speed limit.
When it opened I headed out further to the frontier while everybody was lapping GV and had pretty much a top to bottom run by myself.
Southback opened about noon and I scored the first tracks down Silver Basin but I had to wait at the Throne Gate for an hour for the privilege. It was an aerobic traverse out with two 60+ years olds heading the charge and trying to keep ahead of the millenniums. t was worth it. Shoulder shots all the way.
By 2:30 PM it was getting pretty quiet with no lift lines and pretty much ALL the Northway gates where open. Skied Employee Housing and had a lonely run down Northway via Horseshoe Cliffs, gate 6. Finished with a Right Angle then a double espresso in the Elk to give me enough energy to drive home.
Awesome day.