Crystal - 06/08

Up extra early, check the cam – big sunny shot of GV – dang guess I gotta go…. Pulled into the front row at 7:45, bigger sunny warm nice, quick change, get first spot in the bucket line at 8:05, stand around, not many folks in line at 8:30, nice ride up with Kieran (sp), first tracks down the center groomer in the Valley and then never really skied a groomer again for the rest of the day. Second run – Grubstake first tracks dropping fast through the “smaller” bumps left over from last week. Quit 22 runs later at 1pm, one pause mid morning to put some rub on wax that seemed to make the rest of the flat areas more bearable. Nice sized crowd, no real line, but steady mostly full rides on GV. Did one run out West Face side, lots of folks going over there, nice, but not as direct a line to the bottom. Did one run out Snorting Elk Bowl, big soft bumps early, but didn’t want to repeat the bottom area back to the lift. Very happy crowd, lots of sun, lots of skin, some very nice bikini’s. Still easy access to lots of places, 90% of Grubstake, lots of easy soft fun zipper line bumps – though the Grubstake ones where getting pretty massively big and big dropping fun. Nothing better than a big sunny, soft, spring, corned lift served skiing day.

Other – Lots of tourist up top when I left at 1:15, nice solo guy playing up top lots of parrot music. Bigger band setting up at the base, but I left before they started. No clue about soup today. The A parking lot was pretty completely full. Looks like they are putting in some extra parking space for buckets at the bottom – more new buckets for the Gondy soon? Still great skiing as long as the main face bump runs are accessible. Wasn’t planning on tomorrow, but if the cam shot looks big at 5:30 tomorrow will probably my last Crystal ski day.

Great report. I'll just add that the pink algae (elk placental leavings?) is giving the hill a rosy glow, but no black gunky buildup even after threading several tree runs. Tomorrow should be just as good WX-wise.

Oh yes.  If tomorrow is going to be just as nice as today, we should all be going back.  It was hard to leave the top of the mountain this afternoon.  All the mountains were out, and the snow was still great.  Still slow on the flats, but not to a truly annoying degree.  Just a fantastic day.

A great day indeed, and one becoming our tradition: To kick off the start of the Australian Ski Season with a day at Crystal. Board shorts and sunshine, giggling crowds and tourists at the summit in lawn chairs made it a day at the beach indeed.

the Auzzies are doing tough for their opening weekend!
I think Crystal has more continuous snow in summer than what we have for our opening weekend in winter lol!
www.perisher.com.au/images/snowcams/Xfront.jpg