March 30, 2008, Crystal Mt. Teds Buttress

After ten days in the Southern Caribbean and the road to the "other Paradise" closed, Ron and I headed for Crystal Mt.  Sadly, our usual Buzzys Greenwater breakfast is no more...  Buzzy has retired.  But since the Naches Tavern is now serving breakfast, we thought we 'd give them a try and were well rewarded: Great food :-).

Our arrival at Crystal was greeted with lots of new light snow and cold temps.   We ran into Marcus, Anastasia, Mica and Andy at the parking lot.  It was fun renewing those acquaintances.  With the heavy recent snowfall we had no preconceived notions about snow stability nor any specific plan.  We headed in toward the "old  Bullion Basin Chair" area assessing snow stability as we went. 

Once comfortable with the bomber crust about a foot down, we crossed over the creek and headed up toward Bullion Basin then decided to  cut back east up Teds Buttress  towards  East Peak.  Up higher snow was more wind packed and the underlying crust closer to the surface, but not so hard/close that it could be felt while skiing.  Being skiers rather than summiters, we turned around just short of the ridge top as the freshies were scoured thinner and the wind was picking up. Skiing down was light and fantastic  ;D.  photos