crystal 4/28

took vacation day to get the last pow day of april, and verified the 10" new on the crystal report.  Things getting sun had the 10 new over a somewhat cooked layer but it was manageable.  Better stuff in the shade where you didn't feel the bottom, ie, parts of left angle in the shade.  Other parts of left angle had 6-10new over breakable crust which added to the challenge, though many of these places were untracked.  Patrol closed left angle mid-afternoon, probably due to various sluffs we and others set off in there.  Nothing major.  Didn't go to 6 because of a report patrol closed southback after first customers set of various sluffs.  Reports of powder bowl being good.

Will return on the wknd with plans to ski spring snow on sunny exposures.

Great winter pow day to start, sad parts about today – upper mountain didn’t open till 8:30, lots of hardcore skiers showed up today, to much early sun (dang – huh?), things got heavy on the sunny slopes, lots of hardcore skiers showed up today (repeat). Great part about today – early sun, 2 ft new in lots of places (and less in others), fairly light crowd (though to many hard core skiers), deep snow, light snow quality for the end of April early today and very happy heavy stuff late, smooth firm surface under the new layer. Left at 1pm, looks like there has been some new since I left. Tracks in PB did look big, but HC went on hold after a very short opening - did not see any slide problems in PB, so why was it closed? Lookin forward to some more hot sunny times this weekend. ddk

They closed 6 shortly after it opened because there were some major sluffs in CB and even a report/rumor of a skier buried in CBasin.They probed I think. I was told it opened again later.
Southback never opened.
I got first tracks down the gondola line and got took by a big sluff for a decent ride about half way down.
New natural crown in Kempers. Not a deep crown but very wide.
Interesting day.

Definitely an interesting day with quite a mix of conditions, from great light powder, to heavy chowder in places where the sun baked for awhile.   Chair 6 reopened at about 12:45pm after Patrol ski cut areas that were sliding on their own.     Had some nice runs in Powder Bowl then it started to snow and really sock in which made it hard to see where you were going.  Definitely found some great snow in places: 

Here is some video from today:

Just wanted to thank whoever set the skin track up the backside. Best runs of the day, especialy later in the afternoon with more fresh on top.