March 17-19, 2006, Crystal Basin

It turned out to be a great week to have off for skiing.  Sonya and I finished of the week by hauling the camping gear into Crystal Basin for three days of skiing.

We couldn't have  picked a better weather window - it dumped on us on Friday and the began to clear Saturday.  By Sunday I was getting sunburned.  

I was amazed to see only one other party of two the entire weekend out there.  They were laying down some nice lines on the north and east facing slopes above the smaller Crystal lakes.

We spent Saturday touring around the basin skiing modest treelines and taking in the view.  We skiied nearly every aspect and ended up getting six runs in.  

Sunday we crossed the ridge to the Placer Lake Basin Skiing down from a minor peak between 3-way and Sourdough Gap.  The morning sun had gotten to this slope and we were able to get a pretty sizable sluff to run.  We next set about to lapping the NW facing pyramid snowfield at the head of the basin.  When this started to get in the afternoon sun we swithched to the shorter N facing slopes off sourdough gap ridge.  Then back to camp. As it got dark we broke camp and hauled the gear back to the  resort.  For us it was a big day with eight runs - one with heavy packs.
;D ;D ;D

some more pics

http://www.flickr.com/photos/orionwatson/


Orion