Crystal - 02/19/19

Another day, another different day, including the fact that I seemed to have a brain today...ultra light crowd all day, some early promise for sun - quickly dashed, very nice early grooming (and all day since nobody was around), light snow fall late morning into the afternoon which was very noticeable on some of my fav treed runs. Bumped into the Ferkinator fairly early and he beat me up all over the place through early afternoon - he got me finally out to EH mid day, very nice hard skier right side, nice bumps, great vis - but oh how I hate I5! The Plunge was groomed to perfection today (first time this season?), it was wide smooth as a babies you know what and had nice enough vis to be fun every time we did it. Vis was in and out, but mostly in, really bad early, but every run had good places to go to be able to see, from Bearpits to Doors to SunnySide to Memorial to GV Bowl to Grubstake to lower GV trees to Snorting Elk to my finally end day run down Exterminator! Vis for a short period late was improving everywhere across the front side. Snow quality nice packed pow up top, but felt kinda radiation impacted lower down. All in all a very pleasant day.

Other - Had a short lunch at CB lodge with Mr Ferk, the pepperoni pizza was filling, the soup of the week looks to really be Veggie Minestrone. Pay lot small and full of folks with out permits...not many parking attendants today, some buses, rest of A full, with cars in B and C very widely spaced. Drive up and down was mostly at speed and nice, especially in the morning with a later drive time and more light a lot earlier now.

Should be nice tomorrow and also busy if the rumors for snow prove true - I'll be sleeping in...am ready for it. Have fun!

Ran into a very large earth mover on a flatbed heading up, at 20mph, which slowed the morning commute. Must have dulled everyone's mind as it took them the next 20 miles to get up to speed after the implement of destruction finally pulled off. Vis was terrible as I ran the Frontside Memorial to Door 4 gamut. It didn't take much open space for the snow texture to go away. Narrow and steep were good. Unfortunately, the 3-day weekend crowd spent their time traversing and there was a lot of chop if you skied down the hill. Took the blind traverse Bear Pits and it was steep enough, narrow enough, that the weekenders couldn't mess it up. Alternated Bear Pits and Outer Ferks for the rest of the day. The fog thickened as the day went on. Very few off-pisters and I didn't see any repeaters. Wanted to head northward, but the fog kept me at bay. No pizza for the hardcore.

Glad Ddk got out of the wheel, Sorry he's learning the good line, glad he's put off by the 5 minute I-5. Will be really good after tomorrow's refresh - If you can see. Thursday sun!

Ken
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Visibility was challenging but grooming made the surface good enough you didn't need to see much. L.S. had a spot that wasn't groomed as well but mostly cold, edgy snow that begged to be carved
Sun pushed through cloud cover weakly between 1:00 and 2:00 and you could see pretty good. Wanted to quit around 12:30 ish but it kept getting better. The steep pitch skier's right off mid-ferks was groomed, flat as a billiard table and loose enough to shower snow 10 feet in the air and cover you with a little up-hill wind blast. Frosty but oh so good!