Crystal - 12/03

Great day, lots of new especially in Powder Bowl, snow quality up high and shady slopes very sweet – sun (?) baked slopes got impacted before the afternoon clouds and snow showers moved in. Fairly light crowd – but gotta say a very efficient crowd, lots of places cut up very fast. Sloppy seconds were nice and I kinda like soft packed pow bumps – especially with the new love of my life, Brand New Fat (for me) K2 AfterShocks! Great for me ski between the skinny Crossfires and those lovely Coombas. They carve big on the groomers and blow through everything else like its not there, bumps? what Bumps? Coverage is awesome and has improved incredibly in the last few days. Top of HC dropping into PB is almost rock free (will not last but it was great today). Didn’t get into PB as early as I would have liked, but the left overs were deep! Had a lot of fun with the Ferks and my wife today, a very great day. CB lodge had some folks in it, but not much food, soup was the new Cream of Chick with dumplings. Only problem in CB lodge was that I could see my breath while I was in there – no heat, OUCH!. Light crowd, no Northway today (?), but HC was great and South I think opened which was probably very big. Pay lot was almost mid winter big and as usual was early season empty. Saw cars in B lot and C was fairly full. (no Taco Truck yet)

it was a sweet snow day, esp. in the shade.
parking lot full of folks taking their med's midday!
roasted chicken & mr. pibb for lunch
bear pits in the afternoon for vis. issues.
bF

A report of today's conditions would just be rubbing it in, as tomorrow's expected rise in freezing levels will reset everything. Southwest aspects were already soft and heavy after the morning sun (but, rub it in I will, as we had already skied them out in the sun before they got baked). North and east facing aspects were great till the end. Lots of people waiting for South to open as we skied knee deep in Campbell Bowl, over and over. No time to wait, no time for soup, just ski. And take tomorrow off.
+

...not quite ski everywhere but very good conditions nonetheless...was surprised by the rope line between lower lucky shot and bear pits...is that new, or just an early season precaution?...doors were all fun, as were morning runs under rex...exposed terrain began to set up just a tad, but with sun and no wind, there wasn't much to complain about...trees out south held big mounds of soft pillows -- like a giant staircase as we mashed one after another...only firmness that i saw was the treverse from mid-mountain over to forest queen...little cisco and associated side runs got the nod for best-powder-in-the-shade-award...i suspect that wed morning could be next up for the goods...cheers, jim

Lower Lucky rope line into Lucky Trees ( I think ) will be gone very soon, if not already....I got lucky and noticed the high gate and even with lots of other traffic it was pretty nice in there...

...I got lucky and noticed the high gate and even with lots of other traffic it was pretty nice in there...

...the lowest gate into bearpits (shot 1, i think) is the pic with lame resolution posted above...the path through into k2 face was *especially* nice -- agreed...