January 4, 2005, Crystal Mountain

This report is also posted at: Northwest Ski Report www.nwsr.com/reports/CrystalMountain.shtml

01/04/05 Skied Crystal today 10:00am to 1:00pm. A beautiful corduroy day. Sun is out, but quite cold. Snow was great. However, the rocks are still there. I recommend not using your #1 skis. As a matter of fact, if the conditions keep going like this, I am going to start renting skis from the rental shop at the base. Queens run was great until I hit the section between the cutover to the bottom of the Cmac steep and Snow Garden... pretty rocky. I stopped again to toss off a large rock the size of my fist. Those large rocks can be avoided - they just sit out there on top of packed snow. What is worse is the gravel. Just can't avoid the gravel all around the Forest Queen Lift line area. If you decide to go down hill from the FQ lift line area there is about 100 feet of graveled snow. I found that it helped to get way over to the very side of that run. Then once past that, it was great corduroy skiing to the bottom. Downhill - a couple of rocks lying on top of he snow, then great to the Burn. The Burn had some pond ice on it, boilerplate doesn't bother me too much, just use my edges on it. A nice little pile of rocks at the bottom of the Burn - easily avoided. Sideburn was very gravelly. Rolling Knolls was corduroy great. I passed on Rex and GV because a chair mate told me that he hit bad gravel at the bottom of Luckyshot. He also said the top was icy and very windy. More areas are open than last week. Campbell chair was not running.

Saw a hiker on the Campbell ridgeline with skis on his back. Two people were trying to climb up Campbell with skis on their shoulders, resting every fifty feet. Campbell Bowl had ski trails all over it, so someone is getting up there. All in all, skiing is great for old skis.