Crystal - 02/15

Early big crowd, snowing at the base by 8am, even if it did not show up on the telemetry, winds howling across the ridge tops from the SE, kept the bucket on hold, kept REX running slow – cause of that REX had a line, not really bad for a weekend. Snowing hard all day, winds slowed down for a while after 1pm. Spent more time in the Valley, nice snow and the lift was not as wind impacted. Heard that NW was pretty protected except for the top. Front side of REX skied nicely, Doors were fun, OuterFerks pretty nice also including LuckyShot Trees. Did K2 and the old Chair 5 line after checking the soup at CB lodge, pretty fun. Sadly a comp was going in BP’s all morning till 1pm, and then the Patrol did some PB slide checking and immediately took HC of hold and closed BP’s – dang, would have been really nice since the competitors where only skiing one main line, should be awesome tomorrow. Telemetry made it look like it was warm and wet, coat and gloves were damp, but not to bad. Finished the day doing Upper and Lower E, pretty nice left overs with some nice deep pockets. Maybe BB will report on Employee Housing run.

Other – CB lodge soup was Clam Chow, lodge was packed a little after noon. Base soup was Lobster Bisque? Base was also packed when I left. Only two buses, A lot totally full, couldn’t tell how many were pay folks since there was over 5” snow covering all the vehicles. C lot full, B almost, D and E full, lots of motor homes in F lot. Crystal should have been happy with lots of money being spent. One bad thing is the gate and line set up on REX – 8 people wide with groups of 4 thinking they have to slide through the gates at the same exact minute – dumb

Noticed the Kabob Shack has soup now. Need to add that the daily soup menu report. Also is the fire pit lit?

One bad thing is the gate and line set up on REX – 8 people wide with groups of 4 thinking they have to slide through the gates at the same exact minute – dumb

Agreed, what I see is people getting uptight trying to organize lift partners before the gates, then pass through and try to reorganize the group while one group member flails with their pass. Essentially blocking the fish ladder! This equals cluster F&%$ on both sides of the gates people.
Word of advice.... get through gates FIRST then figure out your group as it moves forward!

Did Campbell and Northway open today?

More-- Northway skied really sweet. It had a early line that made it not worth the wait, especially since the front side was skiing so nice. We went back after a late lunch and had only a walk up line. Lots of hard cores were still skiing Northway, including us, right up to the closing bell. Chair 6 did not open. The snowing and blowing made for a special day. Free Refills. The only place we skied that was a bit thin was lower Upper Bull. Lots of pucker brush. Really fun day.

Did not ski Employee Housing but did look up it from the trail. Lots of stuff still poking through. Not recommended. The I-5 trail is passable but barely. We took one run out the trail and one to E lot with quick shuttle pickup. The latter much preferred. Many fine runs in NW. Not saying which ones we took to the bottom.
The wind did not bother Rex because of direction. BUT a 3:25 ride was going very slowly because of a direction and intensity change. Chairs were swinging. Check the telemetry for the story. If Rex runs tomorrow it will be great again. The sign said six was on hold but it looked pretty closed to me.
Funny exit today about 4:15. It took 20 minutes to go from A lot to F lot. After that it was normal slow and then 410 was at the speed limit. BTW it was raining by the time I got down to F lot. About 6-8 inches on the car.