Despite what seemed to be a miserable start we ended up having a very good day at Crystal. Left Seattle at 5:45am and we were able to park in A lot. We immediately stuck our gear in the lift line about 10 rows back.
Things looked really bad based on the line for lift tickets (pic below). I pity the poor souls who had to wait in that for very long. The line still extended well down the A lot as we were uploading for our first ride on Chinook.
Things were pretty dire at the top of Chinook with basically the whole mountain on hold (pic below). Despite the wind hold on REX we immediately got in line and began our more than one hour wait for the lift to open. The disorganized crowd (it seemed obvious that Crystal should have invested more in line management) was generally good natured and we endured the ad hoc snowball fights.
When REX finally started uploading we were probably about 25 chairs from the front. The snow under REX looked so tempting. However, knowing the lines would still be chaos we bolted for Green Valley. We had several first tracks runs gown Green Valley before anyone showed up. Snow was knee / wait deep but a bit slabby as others have mentioned. I was very surprised that patrol's bombing didn't kick off more visible slides. Anyway, after four great trips down GV we headed back over to REX where the lines had abated somewhat. The rest of the day was spent in various runs off REX where the wind and continuous snow had filled things in nicely. Sorry no pics of the great snow (there's no time for that when it's good).
All in all, not the best day ever at Crystal (due to Northway closure and the slightly slabby nature of the snow), but a pretty darn good day nonetheless.
That ticket line is nuts. Same thing for me on Sunday - fearing Rex lines immediately hit 4 laps in GV with no line and making my own tracks, plus 2 more over in Snorting Elk with small line and cutting my own tracks before hitting Northway and getting 2 more runs with fresh tracks before the crowds finally caught up with me on my 3rd NW run for a 25-30 minute peak line of the day wait. It really bites when HC/NW do not open they help spread the love so much.
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