March 5, 2009 Crystal - Oooo lala

Best day of the year for me. Hands down. Last week was phenomenal, but there was something about today that made it for me.....I think the lack of crowds really helped. Hardly crossed tracks in the choicest areas and it kept getting better. The only caveat is about Ch6 closing early for filming...again. When is Crystal gonna start accomodating their customers instead of boosting their noteriety? Anyways, great stuff. Heres some photos, not really a photogenic day, especially skiing solo with no action shots. First one is my tracks....wheres everyone else, this spot is always skiied out early??? Second pic is of the deluge in the lot at leaving time...weather was gnar in a good way. FRIDAY PEOPLE GET STOKED......I have to work and I'm jealous > (already used a "sick" day last week for that powder event.

can't type right now....powder withdrawls

If you didn't ski on Thursday, then ya should call in sick on Friday and get some of that pow.... but there should be plenty for the weekend.

No fog? Hmmmmm... pretty foggy this morning.... visibility was a challenge... it was like a bowl effect everywhere. Ski-Braille in some places. Visiability improved afternoon. But what really mattered is that it dumped all day! When I left the parking lot at 4pm... it was pretty much dumping.

I guess that if winds are under 40mph, then it's not a blizzard.... but sometimes it seemed like a blizzard with horizontal snow. Winds...yup. Real exciting gust would pick up the snow and toss it around. Skiing down a run and a wall of snow would be blowing up the hill to meet me. I felt like I was receiving energy from the winds - maybe I was just excited. There was definitely an energy transfer thing going on.

Lots and lots and lots of snow. Falling snow, blowing snow, deep snow, drift snow, sculpted snow. I was dressed bullet proof... so I was ok. The pow seemed heavy at first, but as it got wind blown.... it softened. Pretty hard to do anything wrong on this stuff.... just point the skis downhill and go for a ride. Great day for pow skis, maybe not so good for carvers. No grooming except I found a spot where the snow was blown away, down to the corn row.

This is what skiing should be like!

Zap, It was fun skiing with you on such a marvelous day.
Thanks for giving Snow Bell some motivation by telling him we had skied 26,000VF by 1.00 Pm as we spent the rest of the day in a VF frenzy with the boys determined to beat 40,000 VF.
Snow Bell loves a challenge.
I am wasted and can hardly walk as a result.
I had the Spatulas on all day and did not regret it.

YES! : )

I emailed a friend and described the day as one of the best... EVER. Sunday's looking good too! It's been a long wait, but I skid Crystal 2/ 27 and yesterday, and those two days were priceless.

Oooo la la indeed.
I am sorry to report that we didn't achieve the 40K' despite a good try. Ah well, the 38,450VF of non stop blower pow will have to suffice. Until the next best day ever comes along anyway.

Chasing Zap around for a few hours was a good start. He pretended to need a break so that he could break loose and really charge. Without a leader we somehow found our way to the Northback where the gate dropped in front of us as we arrived. We defaulted to lapping NW until someone mentioned a pending catastrophic failure of leg systems. We paused just long enough to initiate a surge. With 8 minutes until the chair stopped loading we raced down Paradise Bowl for one last lift on NW. Got it. Left Angle to Chinook. Ed super surged and kept the lifties on Rex waiting for us who closed the gate behind us. Last chair, nice. We opted for Exterminator and surged up the short climb. The rope line to skier left was the deepest run of the day for me. It was as if it hadn't been skied all day. Lee and loaded, knee deep and better. Oooo la la la

I couldn't help but remember the old days (80's) when I would have been clothed in nylon with cotton insulation sporting super narrow 205's and likely having a miserable day immobilized in the deep snow.
Fine progress we have made.