January 7, 2010 Crystal Mt

Props to Team Wally for his stoke. This guy has endless amounts of energy. He is an inspiration to all of the skiiers at Crystal Mt.

Today was the day for fast groomers. Mark and Louie from the Greenwater Downhill Race Team were in full form.

The 'Midweek" Rippers were turning and burning.

Thanks to all the nice comments and polite gestures to the lift ops. We do appreciate all the compliments.

We hope that our hard work will add to your skiing enjoyment.


Crystal Mt is a great ski area to call home.


Also , props to the ski patrollers who help out the lift ops.

Early A.M. Top of Rex!!

View from the Top of Rex, looking east!

Four of the "Midweek Rippers".

Thursday - A cold day.   This morning was snappy cold and stayed cold all day.

Weather was filtered sunshine most of the day.  Steady winds - about 15 - 20 mph let you know you were up in the mountains.

The snow has obviously attrited lately and the ice is back in the base meadow.  Skid road was simply icy, descent under chair 4 is ok though.  The snow blower machines were blowing Discovery this morning. 

Basically the snow pack was on the frozen side.  Off groom was rock hard... looked like pow, but KaChinnnnng!  Lots of flat smooth grooming on the groomers also gave surface texture to get a grip on.   Not a whole lot of skiers today, but enough create some skier-shave-sluff on the main runs.

Things did soften just a little about noon.  The ride down Iceberg was nice - smooth, not too slick, easy turning - a good easy ride down.   

Green Valley Bowl, was sluff over hard pack and screaming carver groomers below to the chair.  Luckyshot was actually a little exciting because it was just so slick. 

I passed on Snorting Elk Bowl because I thought it would be frozen, but others said it was ok.

Riding up Chinook chair, we noticed that Deer Fly was smoothly groomed.  Something we are not used to.... especially with lower Bull Run looking so bumpy.   So we flew down Deer on the way to lunch.  Smooth, steep, but with enough texture to be managable.  Oh yea, also... grooming all the way down to the top of Deer Fly.  Well, we couldn't pass that one up.

The lower Queen/Downhill runs developed more sluff during the day and made for good skiing.  All the steeps everywhere were basically sluff over plate.

The grooming machines left texture and loose chickenheads all over that allowed for good enough grip.

That road from the Snorting Elk Tavern sign down to the lodge was solid sheet ice... crampons would have been real nice.  We kept to the edges.  I parked my sks in the bare grass next to the sign.

Towards the end of the day, those low clouds started snaking in from the south.  Good Pics!

A great speedy day with excellent photo opportunities! I got there late and rode 1pm-close. Great day for beers and speed laps!