Jan 26, Crystal Mountain

Today started icy, as expected, with 1 1/2 hours of boring, very icy groomers. At 10:30, the sun kicked in and the four of us proceeded to attack the Frontside. Not many participants and we had the 3 skied out lines to ourselves. Perfect spring bumpfest ensued. Most of the off-piste needs a little more skier grooming but Sunnyside, Greg's Gulch, and Showtime kept us busy. Snorting Elk-Sluiceway-Lower E provided cool down laps as temps went into the 40's. More:
Will do our best to smooth out some more tomorrow.
The Gondola had its first breakdown yesterday with an 1 1/2 hour stop. Didn't sound good. Ran mostly OK today.

There was a tragic accident at Crystal on Wednesday in the Terrain Park. 67-year-old Olalla man involved in life-threatening accident at Crystal Mountain . Sadly, Don Burkhart, a longtime Crystal skier, was critically injured.

Saturday morning: the TNT reports that Don has died of his injuries.

That's scary, we forget sometimes how dangerous this sport can be, even on a run like Magoo. Might have been him we saw a message on the Rex whiteboard for his friends to contact ski patrol.