April 23rd Sunrise at Crystal Mtn

I had one goal today and that was to watch the sunrise from the summit of Crystal mountain. The trip started around 3:30 AM at the base of Crystal we decided that we would hike up Skid Road to the base of Rex which turned out to be quite solid from the freezing effects of the nighttime and the thawing of the daytime ( No postholing ). We made it to the base of Rex by 4:15 and rested for the final push for a few minutes then we were back on our way. I decided that instead of going up the easiest and slowest trails we would push straight up Lucky shot which was solid Ice and quite steep after a few slips here and there I made it to the saddle of Powder pass . So I followed the trail up near the final traverse and when I made it to the summit of the green Valley chair I was greeted with 50 MPH winds which were heading from the east and brutally cold. So I fought the winds to get to the summit house before the sun Crested the cascades. I made it to the summit house with time to spare so I found a spot that blocked the wind and waited for my friend and the sun to rise.My friend arrived at the summit house about 40 minutes later (weekend warrior)  so we  watched the last of the sunrise till around 8 AM and took a nap tell around 3PM then I built a few jumps in some areas that weren't the best landings( you cant tell but in that Rainier shot it drops off into a steep area with trees everywhere which didn't feel the greatest). Then around 6:30 we rode down Luckyshot to Quicksilver (the luckshot traverse to the powder bowl was soft sun affected then it hardened up at the top of the powder bowl but by the second steep it was a nice in between not to slow and not to icy)  it was nice having the run to ourselves and hitting all of the lips, hips, and mounds I would normally hit when the lifts are running.

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Nice photos!