Crystal - 1/28

A 2 out of 3 day with beautiful clear weather, small crowds, and no points for snow.

Pay lot ended at the bridge, so parked close. Once on the mountain, beautiful views and fresh air...ahhh...good for the soul. Unfortunately, the cooler temperatures and pesky east winds kept things from softening after last night's freeze. Mostly groomers again today with the only off-piste being the old dependable GV right. Best groomers were Snorting Elk Bowl and Lower Bull Run. Worst run of the day was Kelly's Gap. Sluiceway was as smooth and hard as an ice skating rink. Berry Patch jittered the eyeballs. And, Lower E was un-skiable. After that run, 2 in our party bailed for the day.

We stuck it out hoping for some sun softening and piled on vert doing valley-bergs (again). A little softening in Memorial Gulley below the road at 12:30, but getting there and out of there a chattery mess, so no repeat.

Based on some comments didn't expect to be actually doing more irrelevant verbiage ...Anyway more words about less conditions - Fun day, total hamster treadmill mode (only skied GVB/MIFB and one LS with #1 and one Rolling K back from CB Lodge...so not much first hand reports from me, but did hear a lot of happy second hand reports), big vert-oh-wheel for me with not much brain power effort. Groomers icy and fast early and MIFB got faster and happier all day for me. Worked fairly hard skiing a line into GVB for tomorrow. Didn't see HC running today - probably smart! Saw enough other hopefully not full disasters today. Big sun, little crowd, great (relatively) grooming, fast hyper day - 8 min laps on REX via GVB/MIFB with not lift lines and REX running at speed.

Other - Dropped into CB lodge and had CN soup (morning for me and it was supposed to be Tomato for the late crowd), pizza looked above average, Pay lot was nice and small and not full of many pay lot permits when we left kinda early today (#1 was tired from the non stop skiing with no lift lines even on FQex). Drive up was happy end of season quality and the drive down was even faster. Fun day, big views to everywhere from Baker to The Olympics to Hood. Pleasant temps (warmer would have been nicer - oh well). Yes! All totally marketing - wish I got a pay check.

Today was my only opportunity for a few days and I wanted to believe the marketing report of light winds and warm temps. Shoulda listened to NWAC. I'll give it a CD Scale zero for snow, 0 for weather (good for sightseeing, but wasn't what the snow needed), and 1 for the crowd that was smarter and stayed away. Slightly carvable groomed Iceberg (no Ferk involved today), Luckyshot, and Green Valley quickly degraded to skidded smoothness with a pile of shaved ice at the bottom. Lower Green Valley had a short section of nice snow in the shade. Valley Bowl Bumps were firm, but with some hard edging and jostling around, best of the day. Sluiceway, B-Patch, and Gap Road were horrible (not as bad as Lower E) and did in Amigoette's recovering foot. I was less than invigorated by straight lining groomers, so we called it a day. Looks like heat coming back tomorrow, dang.

Ken

(What - no more free soup for your marketing reports ddk?)

Just a clarification on ratings. The original 3 point QuickFoot rating scale was for crowds, snow conditions, and visibility (not weather). So, visibility today was definitely a 1.

I picked up my mail when I got home and found a new copy of Powder mag. The cover reminded me of Suiceway today. If only I could have leaped over it all like the cover athlete! Just remember a bad (or mediocre) day of skiing is better than a good day at work.