Dec 15, 2009, Crystal

Lots of TAYers up at Crystal today looking for their powder fix. It was raining at the base but turned to snow at the base of Rex. Green Valley, Rex, and Chair 6 were skiing well in the untracked sections. Great base building snow. Lots of blasting in the morning but the snowpack felt surprisingly stable (I assumed the "birthday cake" snow would be shearing everywhere). I left at noon but heard Northway opened. How was it out there?

So was it heavy up higher? Damn rain. Been watching the warm temps all day and wondering about tomorrow....

It's a bit heavy but that's contributing to a rapidly disappearing crust. Inbounds the new snow seems to be holding well to the crust and packed snow from yesterday. Wouldn't expect that to be true elsewhere. Should be nice tomorrow if it keeps snowing (it was snowing all day) and doesn't warm up any more. Bottom of the hill was sticky saturated.

So was it heavy up higher?

I would call it thick and pitchy, working all sides inside the boots.
As long as you kept moving, with some speed and if it was untracked it was OK, although the chopped slop skied good if you kept the weight even on the skis, rounding big turns and turning as the skis got popped in the air off berms and bumps.
Probably better for the large lunchtray riders and the wide, floppy shovel skis, rather than my long, skinny ass skis. A great thigh workout, for when the real stuff hits.

As a "large lunchtray rider" I've gotta say that I thought today was pretty good at Crystal. The heavy powder like today is perfect for snowboarding. Cut up or fresh you just lean back and blast through whatever comes along.

We got there as the first chairs were heading up Chinook. Rain changed to snow about half-way up Chinook. We spent most of the morning off of REX and Green Valley until we heard that High Campbell opened at 11:00 or so. We spent the next two hours turning laps in Campbell Basin with plenty of good lines each time. Snow was heavy but overall pretty good (no crust) despite thin coverage in some spots.

The High Campbell lift started having problems around 1:00 and it shut down. By that time the temps really seemed to be rising on the mountain. It was still snowing but we were getting soaked. Despite hearing that Northway was open we headed down for beers. The last few hundred vertical feet at the bottom was as sticky as anything I've ever encountered.

From a stability standpoint things were pretty solid all day. Patrol was bombing all morning and we encountered a half-dozen spots where the charges went off but didn't seem to cause any major slides. Despite many spectacular falls throughout the day we didn't even manage to start any worthwhile sluffs.

"The High Campbell lift started having problems around 1:00 and it shut down"

Just to let you know. There were no mechanical problems with Ch 6. Wind gusts were peaking between 40-60 mph.

For the safety of all riders, and lift ops, the chair will be closed in a high wind situation.