March 16, 2006, Crystal Mtn.

Thursday - A full day of good skiing. Weather was a little wild. Snowed all day. Winds varied from nothing to blizzard with horizontal snow. We got up to Green Valley and were greeted with about 50 mile per hour winds from the East. I was hunched down and leaned into the wind a little. We escaped down the Snorting Elk track. Lost all visibility for a few seconds from the blowing snow. Winds changed direction all day, probably indicative of localized thunderstorm type stuff moving through. Rex and chair 6 stayed open all day.<br><br>Generally, the snow was a creamy 4 inch layer over hardpack on the groomers and places like Iceberg Gulch. But we hit plenty of deep stuff. Was introduced to the trail through the trees from the top of Queens Toilet Bowl to the top of Chair 4, then on to Boondoggle which was deep and steep.<br><br>Took Kelly's Gap to lunch at Snorting Elk. From Sluiceway to a filled in Lower Lower Exterminator, it was all great. <br><br>All in all the pockets of deep snow and fresh stuff made it all worth while. This was real skiing on real snow. Great!

You may be interested to know that the name of that trail (and the area under it) is TLC. Helpful if you overhear someone talking too loudly about where the "goods" are. You can drop off the trail pretty much anywhere and end up back on queen's run.

Thanks.. that's good to know about TLC. It is a tricky trail. Got some roller coaster rides on it. They should put a cat track through there. It's the only way to the top of chair 4 during midweek. Of course, that would take a major environmental study and relocation of mating bobcats.