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May 27, 2019 - Crystal, Closing Day
28 May 2019 00:05 #232970
by pipedream
May 27, 2019 - Crystal, Closing Day was created by pipedream
No marketing report from closing day?! I guess I'll try my best...
Overslept but made it in time for an "alpine" start, scored a great parking spot between the SnElk bridge & Gandhi despite my truancy. Walked up to the window where a big tourist group was trying to sort-out scenic ride tickets :
but was happily directed to the second window (only two ticket windows open on closing day - what is this, Alpental?!) where I inquired about ticket price. "$64-something after tax." YIKES! "But you can still buy one online right now and save $10" YEEHAW - so glad for that parking lot LTE coverage! After a quick trip inside to "water the flowers" (why is it that one "flower" is so much bigger than the others?) I was ready to head-up just as lots of folks were coming down for lunch. With my bag packed with everything I thought I'd need for the day (turned-out to be way more than necessary) I was prepared to spend the next several hours channeling my inner hamster until closing bell with all food & beverage needs met on the chair.
No snow at all near the bottom, save for a patch peeking out of Boondoggle, but the upper half of the Quicksilver lift line is still holding quite a bit. Gold Hills is completely bare and the neighborhood up there is almost completely melted-out. Some thin ribbons of snow still extend to the bottom of FQex from REX and down Tinkerbell but the only way to get there would be via Bear Pits and if you chose your line poorly you'd be carrying down some gnarly terrain. Lucky Shot is done but PB still looked good to me - it looked like you could still rip just about anything off the King and 3way is still holding plenty. On the GV side, Iceberg Ridge is still skiable to what they've deemed the current ski area boundary between Bill's & West Face. Snorting Elk side was roped-off and for good reason - next to no snow back there and no way to get back to the bottom of GV without walking (so much for pond skimmingÂ
). Ops & patrol did a great job of keeping a narrow strip going into the bowl from the top of the chair, but by mid-afternoon it was thin enough that most folks were walking to the start of the traverse across the bowl. Pro Course had been groomed as had some of the connecting bits between steeper faces. You could pick your way to beneath the GV liftline but it wasn't pretty (but once you were there the bumps were glorious). As the day wore-on and the temps slowly climbed, the flats got sticky and anything that wasn't receiving sufficient skier traffic, steep or not, became noticeably slower. Of course, trips to the "weather station" became increasingly frequent and at one point we even took the short stroll to the top of Rock Face to soak in the view from the new-ish bomb tram platform they have up there.
End of the day was interesting - without a clock in sight we figured Patrol would let us know when it was time to make the walk of shame back to the gondola and head down. Sometime around 3:55 we unloaded the chair and they said, "Go ahead and have another if you want!" When we came back to the top nobody was there, so we decided to give it another go and ended-up skiing down on top of Patrol who was quietly doing sweep (they'd been tearing-down signage slowly all afternoon - we figured they'd gone on one last tear-down mission before calling it). After a stern talking to we were told to wait for them at the bottom of the lift. But they just wanted to make sure we were accounted for before one last ride out
With an hour left before last download we lingered in the cool breeze next to the Summit House patio (they'd closed-up minutes before we arrived). It seemed there was sunshine in all directions except up - Momma Tahoma opted to remain shrouded in clouds all day but we had the occasional sun break and what really matters is that it never did rain. Finally, we headed-down to a warm, but windy, parking lot for a very mellow apres before departing around 6pm. Traffic back down was a breeze, not many folks were still heading back over 410 it seemed and I made it home not just before dark but also before last call at the brewery. Overall an excellent way to end another mediocre season of lift-served turning in the Evergreen State.
Pay Lot: None ;D
Soup: Didn't check
Rating: **.5/*** (no rain, no lines, no coreshots but certainly limited terrain)
Overslept but made it in time for an "alpine" start, scored a great parking spot between the SnElk bridge & Gandhi despite my truancy. Walked up to the window where a big tourist group was trying to sort-out scenic ride tickets :
but was happily directed to the second window (only two ticket windows open on closing day - what is this, Alpental?!) where I inquired about ticket price. "$64-something after tax." YIKES! "But you can still buy one online right now and save $10" YEEHAW - so glad for that parking lot LTE coverage! After a quick trip inside to "water the flowers" (why is it that one "flower" is so much bigger than the others?) I was ready to head-up just as lots of folks were coming down for lunch. With my bag packed with everything I thought I'd need for the day (turned-out to be way more than necessary) I was prepared to spend the next several hours channeling my inner hamster until closing bell with all food & beverage needs met on the chair.No snow at all near the bottom, save for a patch peeking out of Boondoggle, but the upper half of the Quicksilver lift line is still holding quite a bit. Gold Hills is completely bare and the neighborhood up there is almost completely melted-out. Some thin ribbons of snow still extend to the bottom of FQex from REX and down Tinkerbell but the only way to get there would be via Bear Pits and if you chose your line poorly you'd be carrying down some gnarly terrain. Lucky Shot is done but PB still looked good to me - it looked like you could still rip just about anything off the King and 3way is still holding plenty. On the GV side, Iceberg Ridge is still skiable to what they've deemed the current ski area boundary between Bill's & West Face. Snorting Elk side was roped-off and for good reason - next to no snow back there and no way to get back to the bottom of GV without walking (so much for pond skimmingÂ
). Ops & patrol did a great job of keeping a narrow strip going into the bowl from the top of the chair, but by mid-afternoon it was thin enough that most folks were walking to the start of the traverse across the bowl. Pro Course had been groomed as had some of the connecting bits between steeper faces. You could pick your way to beneath the GV liftline but it wasn't pretty (but once you were there the bumps were glorious). As the day wore-on and the temps slowly climbed, the flats got sticky and anything that wasn't receiving sufficient skier traffic, steep or not, became noticeably slower. Of course, trips to the "weather station" became increasingly frequent and at one point we even took the short stroll to the top of Rock Face to soak in the view from the new-ish bomb tram platform they have up there.End of the day was interesting - without a clock in sight we figured Patrol would let us know when it was time to make the walk of shame back to the gondola and head down. Sometime around 3:55 we unloaded the chair and they said, "Go ahead and have another if you want!" When we came back to the top nobody was there, so we decided to give it another go and ended-up skiing down on top of Patrol who was quietly doing sweep (they'd been tearing-down signage slowly all afternoon - we figured they'd gone on one last tear-down mission before calling it). After a stern talking to we were told to wait for them at the bottom of the lift. But they just wanted to make sure we were accounted for before one last ride out
With an hour left before last download we lingered in the cool breeze next to the Summit House patio (they'd closed-up minutes before we arrived). It seemed there was sunshine in all directions except up - Momma Tahoma opted to remain shrouded in clouds all day but we had the occasional sun break and what really matters is that it never did rain. Finally, we headed-down to a warm, but windy, parking lot for a very mellow apres before departing around 6pm. Traffic back down was a breeze, not many folks were still heading back over 410 it seemed and I made it home not just before dark but also before last call at the brewery. Overall an excellent way to end another mediocre season of lift-served turning in the Evergreen State.
Pay Lot: None ;D
Soup: Didn't check
Rating: **.5/*** (no rain, no lines, no coreshots but certainly limited terrain)
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