Crystal Mountain Zoo & Aquarium, 12/30/09

Just as the name implies, what a joke!  Every year during the holiday break, it seems as though the light-hearted side of my psyche attempts to reason with the realist side, and I end up making a useless trip up to Mt. Pandemonium. 

The conditions were icy, a supposed 2" on top of boiler plate; far too dangerous for the amount of folks of the hill!  Took one run down Lucky Shot (also know as Lucile  : )  and got the hell out of there!  I figured it be safer driving home than getting T-Boned by a weekender, or even worse, slamming into a kid or something.  Both instances were nearly birthed into existence during my only run of the day!

Don't feed the animals, ski patrol may pull your ticket.  Sorry, no pics; cameras were prohibited this day at the zoo...

We need powder! 

Happy New Year!

Cheers!

I was there the same day and true if you stay on lucky shot you're gonna have to expect crowds.( It's the main easy run from the top, duh!)
However, Crystal is huge and on that same day that you were having so much angst , my buddy and I skied runs in the Northback and Southback where at times we where the only people in sight.
I guess you need to see the spaces between the trees and not look at the trees.

You get what you get.  I used to hate weekend/holiday skiing, but now I just take a different attitude.... it's time for the kids, including my grandson.

But it can be hazardous.  Today I had a speedbump drop down onto a run from the side trees colliding with me t-bone.   I couldn't turn fast enough and just clipped skis with her.  But she took a tumble.   I hung around as mom and dad looked her over - she was ok, but shaken.  I probably shouldn't have been going as fast as I was, but was totally unprepared for someone to drop in from that direction - stuff happens.

The only way to avoid the kids is to ski where the kids are not... or else slow down a lot.

Yes, the boilerplate is interesting... sharpen those edges!!!!  Luckyshot.... make a turn into boilerplate and free fall about twenty feet... how exciting!  Lots of skiers create shavings... which is good.   Sluff on plate... for some reason I was thinking of that old term "sh*t on a shingle" ( from the WWII generation regarding a common food dish.)  Actually, I think it is kind of cool to push some sluff down the plate.

I thought about treking to SB, but figured it'd be boiler-plate due to the lack recent snow and fluctuating temps.  I've been back there 2+ weeks after a dump, and with consistent temps, sure thing... goods!  

As Carlin said it in his last comedic performance, '... it's bad for you;' I can only take people in short bursts...

Funny.

Been some really good skiing up there over the holidays. It hasn't been difficult to figure out where or how to get to it.

Also been a lot of people overheard in liftline whining about conditions.

Yeah, I attempted to hit SB but when I encountered the line to the Queens lift, of which was just about out to the flippin' cat-track, I had it and left... If there wasn't a lift in NB (and where there's lifts, there's people), I probably would have headed that way. As the topic explicitly states, the issue was the population explosion. Crystal is my home-hill, I know the mountain just as well as many of the folks on this site.