Crystal 02/21

The crowds came out today…A, B, C, D, and E lots all full when we left. Of note, there were no busses in A lot for the first time since early January. Not sure if public school ski school Fridays are over or it was because of mid-Winter break. I guess we'll find out next week.

What a difference a day makes. With the crowds and the wetter snow that fell yesterday, the mountain skied more like packed powder than powder. Plus, Crystal did a good job of grooming some of the runs that have needed it this week, but were unable to do so because of the heavy snow. Everything from Exterminator to Bear Pits was a blast. Now for the downside (besides the crowds). Crystal lost power again today and everything went on diesel generators. All the chairs seem to run fine on diesel except REX. By time, REX was running at 60% speed. This resulted in a constant 10 minute line. Add this to a long chair ride and a 3 minute ski down, and round trips were taking 25 - 30 minutes. Ouch. I certainly hope Puget Sound Energy gets things fixed.

The only attempt to head up C6 revealed at least a 20 minute line. So, no C6. Also, patrol is still trying to get Northway open. No luck today. Also no luck with help-bombing Southback. The helicopter was there, but the visibility was not due to the fog. Also a bummer, JD took a hard fall and had to leave early with a sprained knee and torqued back.

The mountain is skiing really well, but the power issues have to be addressed.

And some other rumored info I heard….Nice day all in all, weather started out decent, got some early runs either side of Ch 6 lift that I had not done in a long time. PB off the top was good snow and lucky nice vis all the way down early, BP’s skied great packed pow every time I did it.  Front side of REX from the Doors to Memorial pretty much the same packed pow building bumps.  Surprisingly light REX lift lines based on the multiple complete mountain power shut downs – had more time sitting on REX today than I’ve had in the last few years.  Seemed like Crystal finally decided to run the mountain on diesel during the afternoon, so less stop and go action.  Vis was in and out in places, but Sunnyside area was mostly clear if not “sunny”.  HC chair was probably the best consistant lift at its slow pace – running about a minute slower than in the distant past, slow but steady.  Crystal seemed to keep trying to run on electricity, but there still seems to be big problems down at the power station – heard it is an old locomotive engine that does not have the power output of the previous generator?  Anyone heard that before?Running solo did not get the big lift line impacts.

Other – Soups at CB lodge were the same as yesterday and the worst part was the beer bucket was totally empty for the second day in a row – there is some lost profits for Crystal.  Parking lots were amazingly full (except for the Pay lot), Helicopter took up a lot of space in the F lot – they’ve been trying to bomb northway, but the fog was hanging around to much out that way.  Another nice day, I quit increadibly early due to just a little to slow “high” speed chairs. 

Already had this typed in when CD posted, I'll pile on with repeats.

Excellent snow of the cut/packed pow variety. A very large crowd by friday standards kept the lift lines growing. An 11:00 power outage stopped the chairs for 10 minutes. When the chairs powered up on diesel, Rex ran at half speed the rest of the day, increasing the wait to discouragingly long. We'd abandoned a poke at Six when we saw the line, just as the power went out. But, from K2 Face to Snorting Elk, we didn't find any bad snow; correctly dodging the migrating fog helped.

All parking but F lot was was full. F Lot was reserved for the helicopter that was to do some bombing in Southback and Northway. The heli was grounded by the fog, as I only heard one bomb out north. With Northway already having slid big in many areas, if they can't fly tomorrow, looks like it will remain closed. Patrol said they need to heli bomb and then manually check, so it won't open quickly.

Ken
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