Dec. 1, Crystal lifts

Yee-haw! Surf was up today!

We expected to stop pretty early for our first day out, but skied up to the bumper at 3:15 with tired legs. I enjoyed the turns all day long - I found the semi-skied-with-stuff-blowing-in to be best. Plenty of bottomless feel even there and you could keep your speed up. Untracked was way wallowy except on steep stuff - and not much of that given that chair 6 wasn't open. Saw one orange tobbagan hauling a guy down with an arm in a sling and an oxygen mask, and another one being loaded up the lift a little later.

I ate my bagged sandwich in the Campbell lodge - maybe just lucky. My buddy paid $9 for a bowl of good-smelling curry soup and a slice of pizza. He said it would have been maybe $6 at his work cafeteria.

"Last time I checked I know what a terrain trap is and I'm pretty sure that groomers have a low avy hazard. Sorry for the rant everybody, it needs to come out sometime!!! " Quote from Alpy!

Couldn't agree more. That's why I'm heading to Mt. Rainier this winter, with my $30 yearly pass.

I used to camp overnight in the RV lot in my Chevy Blazer, equiped with generator, heater, and all the comforts of winter camping. Get up in the morning and have a tailgate breakfast of bacon and eggs.

Now, they want to charge me $10, to camp?

I'm pretty much done with Crystal for now. Maybe I'll come back in the future, but for now, see ya.

<thread jack> Alpymarr - I feel your fustration. They were concerned cause that area is in the slide path of Iceberg, which is quite a runout. Right now the CM patrollers are pretty dysfunctional. They are overwelmed since a decision was made not to bring back alot of voli's. I'll reserve the rest of my opinion about them. Calling you a liar, yeah that would have pissed me off. I like rolling with escorts too. Makes me feel so special. Especially out of North on a pow day and the patrollers can't keep up so I sometimes stop, wait and ask if they are okay. The look on their face, as they expected me to keep going, was priceless. Just remember next time to tell them you skinned up and when they ask for your name, give them an alias. Welcome to the list! </thread jack>

I did 3 runs, at the end of the rope on the left at the top of rolling knolls, traversing through the trees. The pow was way over my knees. However, on most every turn on the steeps all the snow down to the ground would slide. The second run and third run I waited at the rope until I found a pow hound or two to go with me.

I saw a patrol screaming at people who were traversing over toward the bear pits off the forest queen.

I enjoyed my usual bagged lunch, gorp in a baggie, on the lift. In all my years of skiing, I have never bought a bit of food or drink at a ski area except for a cup of coffee at Snowbird once during a lightning storm. No one is forcing anyone to be exploited eating at the resorts. If I want to ski, I go to Crystal. If I want to dine, I go to the el gaucho's.

Saturday was good stuff indeed; I have big smile-shaped gouges in my bases....

"As I was skinning up, a patroler asked me wat I was doing, and I told her that I was going to the top of Miners and was going to come down the cat track I was skinning up just because it had like 6 inches of smooth untracked over firm that I really wanted to ski. Seems like much effort for little return, but hey 100 feet of untracked pow sounded good. She then told me that it was FINE and I proceeded on my way (no ropes or signs to tell me not to not to mention patrol telling me it was OK to proceed). I proceeded to about 75ft. above the top station of miners, where I deskinned and prepared to head down. Then I hear a snow machine coming after me, then shouting to come down immediatly because I was in a closed area with extreme avy danger. OK. So i get down to patrol and they ask me what the hell I think I am doing. I then proceed to ask why this is such a big deal when patrol gave me PERMISSION to go there and back. They then told me that none of their patrolers would say that, then called me a liar.and radioed to the head hauncho patrol cop who informed them to CLIP MY TICKET. At that point after being given permission then busted for it, then called a liar, I was pretty pissed and demanded a supervisor." Quote from Alpymarr.

That's an unfortunate encounter... for all parties envolved. But Iceberg did slide to the ground that day and the debris went past the bottom of C 1. Remember that Patrol has no way to know what your training/ experience is. But for sure you should not get mixed signals.