Crystal - 05/25

The big Wimpy report – big “anticipation” about the new snow – plus a lot of other folks early…I didn’t make it till noon! Off piste was challenging for my old weak legs and the Coombas that weren’t talkin to big today. Crowd was pretty fair, line on GV chair, not bad but since I was only mentally able to ski the two groomed lines….Tried to be nice to Ms. Ferk but my brain just wasn’t in the zone. Down loaded the bucket at 10:30!!! Huh!! That’s pretty sad. Coverage up in GV was nice with the new, but folks were finding the rocks. Nice and sunny when I bailed out and looked better from the cam shots all afternoon that I saw. As usual Crystal pulled the plug on top of the mountain entertainment to early. More skier/snowboarder action on the new snow will make it all better. Some folks still doing top to bottoms, but Crystal is posting signs about the Elk dropping the new ones. A parking lot was full with some over flow. Soup? Hhhmm?

Sorry if this is a little incoherent - blame the cold meds. :

Showed up for the 0835 opening of Saturday at Crystal along with a couple hundred fellow fresh addicts. Last week’s over a foot of new had consolidated down to about 8 inches of NW poohder with a light crust that nicely smoothed out last weekend’s bumps.. Scored 3rd tracks on our first run along Iceferks ridge and the end drop down into GV bowl. Groomers were good and flat with a very carvable feel. Overcast with the cloud deck right at the top made for a couple of foggy runs to start, but it rose up and even gave us a few blue sky holes later. Headed out Snorting Elk side where things were only rider groomed so things were tougher but still fun. We were able to pick nice lines down Grubstake and under the GV lift several times by carefully picking routes thru the rockbands Very little wind made for great feeling temps, chill at first but warming up nicely to open jacket times by 11. TomK & Kerry (happy that hubby talked her into going), and Chad, plus Silver Fir Mike & John for a couple of runs.

After a couple of GV runs to warm up we went "walkabout " in the BC with a couple of visiting Californian interwebz friends and tried to show them Crystal's finest and most notable sidecountry areas and runs.
We found terrible snow conditions that required true grit and a high level of stupidity to enjoy.
We had a great time 

No birthing elk were disturbed during this tour.

nice weekend at the southern resort with every pnw condition except utah dry available.
scotsman & pnwbrit(release the ban) had their hands full with a couple beach bums on skis looking for a pnw experience, they found the right guys!

no elk placenta was carved by my crew exiting upper mtn.
bF