Crystal - 01/13

Very nice day (except for those Seahawks screwing up next Sunday), pretty light early crowd, nice big sun and blue skies, colder than a witches T. to start the day (at least it felt like it to me, wore more stuff then I have in a long time). Seems like the groomers where nice early, enjoyed most of what I did today at some time, except maybe Memorial being a little crunchy – but doable. Lots of fun on HC dropping in to the basin just before the Southback gate. Center line down PB was smooth and chalky sweet. Had many nice lines in BP’s including OuterFerks (big bumps towards the bottom of it). Valley Bowl skied very nice today and got better apparently as the day progressed. Wasn’t impressed with IceFerkBerg (except for the piled up sugar in the middle of the run. Doors were entertaining. Upper and Lower E made a nice early end of the day run.

Other info – soup was Clam Chow?? (today wasn’t Friday, don’t know if it was any good). Lift lines pretty light where I was, but heard GV had some pretty big early crowds – they had the ropes set up for some pretty big crowds this afternoon still). Pay lot made a bad effort today, C pretty full, B maybe 3/4’s ? Heard that the F lot was full on Saturday, but lift lines were not to bad? Felt a lot warmer from mid day on with high clouds blowing by. The big Mountain was pretty interesting today.

Heard that the F lot was full on Saturday, but lift lines were not to bad? 

Precisely. I was amazed that lines were negligible (except Gondola, FQ) because all lots were jammed full, as well as both sides of the Boulevard. It seemed like the big crowd was well distributed over the entire resort.

Surprised by the morning's extreme firmness, even on the shaded Powder Bowl, we thought maybe staying home to sit and watch the game might have been a better call. Northway's shade kept great snow up top but the long runout through groomers or icy moguls ruined the deal. Warmer than friday by 5 degrees, without the good snow to ski hard, we were colder. A few areas got skied into submission but the majority of off-piste was rutted styrosnow and crunch. After Noon, Bear Pits, Valley Bowl, Grubstake, saved the day. I'm with ddk that the Seahawks, making today a zero line day, messed up the next 2 sundays. Looking forward to April snow in 2 days.
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Lift lines were setup in expectation of big crowds which never materialized, though parts of B lot looked similar to I-5 when it snows (the "just ditch the car right here in the middle and start walking" mentality). Never waited more minutes than I could count on one hand at the bottom of a chair. Southback was in great form, with dry, knee deep blower hiding in the shadows. Sent a g.n.a.r. points worthy line down the Throne before wandering out to the shoulder of the King around halftime and then went coast to coast over to Morning Glory bowl around 2 in the afternoon for more soft turns down the northern boundary line. Didn't like what I found down low in Northway, so I exited via Niagaras and had one of the best runs of the day jibbing and jumping around on the deadfall in lower Employee Housing on the way out to the car.

I've got a really cool panoramic photo coming from the top of Throne this afternoon as the clouds rolled-in. I'll upload it as soon as my new phone figures out how to play nice with my home Linux install.