...., this morning looked decent enough to head to Crystal for loads of fun. Loaded up the Gondola at 0915 and ran top to bottom runs via Lucky Shot, IceFerks, (and even once via Bear Pits where it was getting sluffy by 1100) down to Arwine and mostly Tinkerbell, where we could slide all the way to the Gondy load point for another run. Doubt that we’ll be able to make it all the way without some downwalking next weekend. Our final run was down Snorting Elk bowl to Kelly’s gap road where we found a handful of walkover spots on the lowest two switchbacks. Parking lot A was pretty well filled up when we split at noon in anticipation of the weather front coming in. Rain was just starting up in Enumclaw when we got to Herfy’s for burgers & a BLTZ at 1300. TomK & Kerry, and Chad.
Nice report and I had lots of the same things happen - My longer winded report...
Short report – Nice – duhhh who is writing this report, big early sucker hole of sun baking heat, great early grooming in Lucky – only REX line groomed, but IceFerkBerg was nice smooth easy little bumps from the start and only got deeper and bigger and softer. Big blue early, big sun, big grey from the south west to Rainier to a very nasty look up by the Pass’s. High overcast greyed things by 11 to noon, but it was still good skiing. Not many folks took a chance on the day – definitely not many “hardcore” skiers, but it is time to move on the other thins – soon.
The long winded report - Didn’t expect much, checked conditions at 6am – hhhmmm – not raining, somewhat warm, vis of Rainier looks good, radar – its all way out there still, first day of the 2014 season – as noted by others it does not take much to make me go… Pulled into the front row at 7:50, jumped into the first bucket ride at 8:31 (solo ride cuase of others problems with their pass and the gates), top a little windy, a little cool, but big and sunny, lots of x-rays cooking the sunny slopes – all looks good, the two main groomers early ( IceFerkBerk –sweet smooth little bumps, and Lucky which was nicely smooth and fast) great warmup wakeup runs (kinda funny about three long days off). First hour – a little cool, fast groomer runs poking the edges to see how life was going. Second hour – temps getting warm, soft happening everywhere, Pits finally got opened by !!!!!!!!, told it was gonna happen by Jessie! Thanks! First tracks (beside some patrol person), sweet enough, worth a repeat. Only more traffic will make it better, lots of soft muck out in some areas.
Third hour the high front started to grey up the slopes, temps cooling a little. Went into hyper hamster mode. So soft enough probably everywhere depending on your skis and how much you like deep soft muck – Coombas liked it. Lots of the front of REX is pretty left over still unsmooth stuff, probably good when really baked, but the early folks looked like they didn’t enjoy it. In some ways a perfect day – had to go back into the real world by Noon, and lucky for me the conditions today made that easy – getting greyer and windier and time to go back to reality.
Other – no clue on soup, no lift lines today – though I remember riding with a few folks at times. Short but fast and fun day. Pay lot totally empty (cause its finally gone), A lot got close to filling up today. Bad day for the Crystal accountants – great day for me!
