April 5, 2007 Crystal Mtn

Thursday:

Yes! Got some good skiing until about 2:00 pm.

I can't complain.  It has been a long good season and now we even have some decent Spring skiing.  However, the reality is that Winter is over with and no matter how good the snow, it's hard to ski when the sun is beating up the snow surface.  At least 36" of hard pack underneath but surface conditions can vary greatly.

Morning, not as crisp as a week ago.  The base was a noticeably soft.  However, cycling through the lower groomers was good.... clean new grooms, not frozen.  Cmac was bumpy and a little icey. 

After lower groomer warmup we headed up the Rex as things were getting pretty soft below.  Green Valley Bowl and Snorting Elk Bowl were good runs with sluff on GV.  Ferksberg was good easy sluff.  However, Luckyshot seemed a little soft from the start.   North Face which was so smooth and fast last week was really bumped out this week.

Morning was helped by filtered sunshine which gave us good light but left the snow in good shape.

Things really changed after getting back out after a lunch break.  By 1:30pm things were pretty soft on the lower slopes - we escaped up the Rex.  But the snow was even grabby on Luckyshot cat track and of course Luckyshot was very soft.  Skied GV bowl, feeling the grabbiness taking hold under a more intense sun exposure.   I decided to bag it by 2:30.

So, I had ignored my own advice about skipping lunch and leaving early. But lunch with the gang is part of skiing.  Pm skiing was ok on steep slopes, but as soon as the slope flattened out, the brakes came on.  And every slope has flat spots.   I developed a new (for me) technique for hitting the flat spots after bombing down the steep....  I lift my hands up head level or higher... that puts my weight back so I don't get quite so pitched forward when the brakes hit.  This follows the technique of hands extended and down low for moving weight forward for normal skiing.

Some video later....

Video of Thursday, April 5:

www.lawrencetrotter.com/Crystal_April_5_...tal_April_5_2007.wmv