March 16, 2008 Crystal Mountain

Sunday - It was all there, good snow, fog on top.

I don't usually ski on weekends, but I had a voucher to use up.  Actually, for good snow, I'll do weekends. 

Snow on the parking lot.  Snow on the trees.  The snowpack is in great condition.  Day old groomed soft pack on the groomers made for really nice skiing.  I didn't get up the Rex because it looked too foggy up there and I wanted to take some pics.  Skiing alone without my usual wolf pack, gave me the opportunity to stop for pics and poke around small pow stashes.  I try to look for some sunshine for pic day... had some today from about 11:30 to 1:30 before the ceiling lowered.

Apparently, chair six and Northway were open.  Lots of traffic on chair six.  But it looked pretty fogged in up there.

Sadly I got confused on my camera settings so have a lot of washout.... but I thought I would link in some pics and vid to try to show general conditions.

I gravitated to Gold Hills because it was below the fog ceiling, no lift lines and great skiing.  Being a weekday skier, I rarely get to ski Gold Hills.  It has a nice smooth relaxing groomer on  one side, some crud in the middle and a slalom course on the skiers right.  A small pow-over-crud pocket off to skiers right was actually pretty nice.  The problem was that I had to cut across the race course to get back to the groomer, which I did a few times.  And the powder pocket on skiers left was also interesting. 

I found nine to twelve inches of pow in some places on the lower slopes.

That Gold Hills chair... fast entry, like Northway... slammed me in the back once and just about bruised a calf once... have to throw one's butt into it.  I was surprised when my chair banged into one of the lift poles.  Each pole has a tubular guard rail that stands off about twelve inches and I banged up against it.  As I watched the other poles pass by, I could see that my chair side vertical piece passed within about two inches of this guard rail...  I figured I needed to sit in the middle of the chair to keep it from banging the pole.

It was great skiing, but I was still a little tired from Thursday skiing.  Got outta there by three pm.

Some vid:  lawrencetrotter.com/Crystal%20Mar%2016%2...stal_March_16_08.wmv

Pic 1: lawrencetrotter.com/Crystal%20Mar%2016%202008/DSC00451_40.JPG

Pic 2: lawrencetrotter.com/Crystal%20Mar%2016%202008/DSC00452_40.JPG

Pic 3: lawrencetrotter.com/Crystal%20Mar%2016%202008/DSC00455_40.JPG

Pic 4: lawrencetrotter.com/Crystal%20Mar%2016%202008/DSC00456_40.JPG

Pic 5: lawrencetrotter.com/Crystal%20Mar%2016%202008/DSC00460_40.JPG

Pic 6: lawrencetrotter.com/Crystal%20Mar%2016%202008/DSC00461_40.JPG

Way cool day on the hill, after doing staff for the FreeRide for 3 days I was eager to get some. Nice drop yesterday and over night filled in the ruff spots. Hooked up with Kieth Henson as the lifts opened and warmed up on GV face bumps to Ferks/Berg and Lower Bull. Great day to rip soft bumps. We headed over to Elk Chutes where they had the qualifier Thursday and caught some tasty steep and fresh. Then met up with Alpantal Andy for a couple of nice laps on Niagras. Sadley had to leave Kieth and Andy and come down to pack for SLC. Great day had by all.

Wally - why weren't you competing in the Freeride? It is amazing as to how young those guys and gals are.... and crazy. Have they been moving the venue around the slopes?

Larry, wore me out just lugging all the PA gear around ,being a video star for the web and selling my BS by Campbell Basin. If I could get just $1.00 a bag ,,, We did qualifier at Elk Chutes Thursday (Kieth has a good TR of that run, no video tho) Mved to the Throne Friday for round 1, cut 16 men and 4 women there, then the King on Sat. Most took an inspection lap as soon as the chairs spun up so the athletes all got at least to good hikes.. It is fun to hang with those guys. Thet certainly approach things a little differntly than folks our age do. Something to be said for fluidity and agrressivenes.

Skierlyles , Stewie and I had a good day as well . O's meadows skied well, Hourglass was really nice and Chris showed me a new stash( the "liftie" stash) that I am sworn to secrecy.

We had one iditiotic run in the South Back where I double ejected with full front somersault after hitting a piece of avalanche debris the size of a suitcase and Chris decided to luge the exit chutes at 3way peak headfirst. No injuries but much stupidity was in evidence.
It's telling when the 16 year old is the most mature memeber of the group.

More snow this week, don't pack away those fatties yet!