Crystal - 12/02

Very interesting day, 3rd pow day of the season and maybe the best (excluding Rocktober Fest), when we paying public got to GV the snow was great top to bottom and everywhere in between! Getting there was somewhat painfully slow…Jumped into the front position for the Gondy way to early, wearing more than normal amount of ski gear (puffy big gloves, more polypro, sweater, big ear flap hat) and even so by the time uploading started around 9:10 I was getting cold, but at least I was in the first bucket with a bunch of folks for the slow stopping and long ride to the top…once we got out it was hamster time in the treadmill. Got a number of runs in before the line got a little big and slow, but the singles line ran fast since the main line folks don’t really know what to do when they get close to load the lift time. Skied more lines today in the Valley waiting for REX to open! But finally decided that I could only do so many runs down Grubstake (very nice) and needed to save some for tomorrow. Crowd was only really around for an hour or so, by noon no line pretty close to ski up and on, so the laps were fast chasing Mr. Ferk. Mostly filtered sun today, with some snow flurries, cold and getting colder.

Other – Soup of the day at the base was the Chicken Enchilada stuff again. Pay lot is back in operation and other than a big pile of snow in the middle of it, was pretty empty when I left. Rest of A lot was full earlier in the day with some over flow down towards C lot. Crystal was blowing snow at the bottom and it was blowing nicely up towards Chair 4. Coverage down to REX looked pretty good and there were a number of folks waiting for it to open. Things are nicely packed out now in the Valley. Rocks did not seem to much of an issue today. The Coomba’s were in heaven, I really like those skis.

I admit I clicked "reload" a few times this afternoon waiting for your like-clockwork report.

Did you put eyeballs into the SB/NB areas at all? Any slide observations? What was the fresh depth up high? Thinking of earning a few on the other side of the lines later this week.

Rex opened at 2 and it was awesome. Did five runs before they kicked us out around 3:15. Kudos to the patrol for opening at all. A lot of hazards, rocks and roots but the snow quality was superb. Still some left for Tues.

Twas very glad I ignored my need for food and beverage and stayed up top all day. Catching a last lap down an untracked Iceberg gully to REX under bluebird skies was pure bliss.

Caught the 14th bucket up after waiting 90+ minutes in line as ops tried to solve their iced-up haul rope problems which were causing the grips to slip and bringing the whole thing to a grinding halt every time. The final solution? Send a worker up on the maintenance carrier and bang the ice off the line. The delay in opening REX was due to the exact same issue. Might I suggest that ops take a play out of Timberline's book and keep the haul ropes spinning throughout the night when a storm like Sunday's comes through?

The first three runs were bliss before the crowd took hold. I don't think I've ever had as much fun with just GV spinning as I did yesterday, esp. around noon when the sky turned blue and the crowd evaporated. Put a few tracks down Snorting Elk bowl from the top - coverage isn't great, but it's fine if you don't turn

IMHO, the best bang for the effort was traversing across GV bowl to Iceberg Ridge and then skirting high on the GV side of Rock Face and dropping back to the chair. Spent a considerable number of laps just farming next to my previous laps' turns.

Oh and watch out for elk on the highway coming out of / heading into Greenwater. Almost plowed into a herd of 8 on my way up and came across another 6 on the way down.

I will echo: phenomenal day up there at Crystal. Icing on the cake was REX opening to the 100-150ish people left on the mountain. I was thinking I should have saved some strength by the 5th deep pow lap... It was so good!