January 9, 2005, Sunday Crystal Mt. Resort

I don't normally ski on weekends... so I am quite amazed at the huge crowds and lift lines. Rocks and Snow Gravel are still a problem... Otherwise, good fresh snow... just needs more. Enjoyed Luckyshot again. The crowd scraped the snow down to the boilerplate on the steep part. I am beginning to appreciate boilerplate - we would be down to dirt without it! Green Valley Bowl had an interesting traversing cat track cut across it. I don't recall seeing that before. The rock garden at the rim of GV is starting to get covered, but needs lots more snow. When I left my house at 6:00 am I had to negotiate a slim layer of snow on my long steep driveway. So I was hoping that Crystal had really been snow blasted, but it's only getting moderate amounts of snow. I think we are about thirty days behind in accumulation, would have to do a scientific analysis to verify that. Powderbowl was busy. Didn't bother with Forest Queen to avoid the huge lift crowd. Yea, the weekend is a whole different game.... A different review of Sunday at Crystal at www.nwsr.com/reports/CrystalMountain.shtml.