Crystal - 01/17

The unofficial Marketing report for today – checked the telemetry this morning (not raining and the winds were less than 30mph, note they were gusting into the 50’s by 8am, but slowed down again for the day). Drove into the A lot at 8am to snow (wet, but snow), second row of the free part – with a really big space reserved for the pay lot folks that did not show up ( very light for a holiday Monday), jumped onto the bucket ride at 8:50 for the dry ride up. Looked okay, inch or two new over what looked like a relatively smooth base. Only problem for the next hour or two was a variable freezing fog layer between the top and the bottom of GV and REX – not top to bottom, but enough to make things less than enjoyable on part of a lot of runs, made for some bad vis for a while. But as luck would have it around 11:30 the Rainier donut hole started to spread over Crystal and all was nice. Only other thing that would have made today better was some big fat Coomba’s…took up the skinny Crossfires – nice on the early icy stuff, but the Coombas would have been the ticket during the afternoon sun fest - everywhere. Top of PB has great coverage now. PB and GV bowl were hard firm smooth under a layer of 1 to 2 new, great when the vis was perfect. IceFerkBerg was soft slush bumps as the day progressed. Upper M-World and Bearpits would have been better with the Coombas – maybe tomorrow. No lift lines – duh – nobody on the mountain. ddk

A couple of pics from today....note the light board at the top of REX is finally working....

Coombas are big and fat?

Coombas are big and fat? 

Their big and fat for me...and anbody I ski with.....not big and fat for the really big and fat surf board crew skiing the slopes now adays on two planks.....unlike snowboards

Let me dive into the Phat / fat ski thing here. I had my Darkside in hand and was about to walk out the door and I thought, I better bring out my Ice skis, so I went back in and pulled out the Coombas. I never would had thought that last year, but as things change so will our perspectives. Just think we all used to ski whatever was out there with whatever we had. Long live my old Head Standards or Hart Javalens 215.
No such thing as bad snow, just bad skiers.