1/9 Crystal

Finally!!! No more rain garbage!!! Cold temps and new precipitation had the resort in full operation except for gates 8, 9 and 10. You could ski wherever you wanted on the upper mountain as the snow was very nice even if it was a bit cut up. The big problem today was poor visibility that persisted from 9 am until we were run off the mountain by 3 pm due to freezing rain despite temps being in the teens. My lens squeegee was worthless as afternoon conditions were pretty brutal.

Gates 4 and 7 yielded up very nice turns. Paradise Trees were super fun. The preferred path to the bottom of the Northway chair included the nice bumps under the chair instead of the scraped off mess of the lower Northway trail. We didn't see anybody in Northway Bowl -- probably because you couldn't find it through the thick cloud that blanketed every nook and cranny of the resort today.

Saw a couple brave souls brave the zero visibility of Powder Bowl's avalanche debris. I asked one laddie at the Lucky Shot turn if he would do it again - he replied no way as he could not see any of the terrain.  Yet BackcountryMagazine.com was on site with a film crew out South. Hmmm...you would have to pay me to risk the Campbell traverse.

The most fun was, of course, in the trees. We worked our way out to the drainages of lower South and found many turns past the knee as we carefully avoided the beckoning tree wells. If the forecast holds true for the next week, then creek bed turns will be back on the table and the recovery of the lower mountain from Monday's rain garbage will be complete.We exited through the newly opened Kelly's Gap, but passed on the meadows under Rockface as very bad visibility would certainly caused us to run into avy debris.

Ops told me that they are waiting on a part to fire up the radiant heated brick paths and staircase. IMHO, the resort has to find a way to keep these walkways free of ice as it pained me to watch employees chip away at the ice without much success.

Walk up price today was $99 -- and you had to pay tax and fees and top of that. It turns out that my Ikon Pass will yield up buddy tiks that can be purchased at a 25% discount but only at the window.