March 3, 2014, Crystal

What a lucky day for me!  My friends called last night to invite me to ski Crystal with them today.  With a leisurely start we never saw a lift line, got light fresh tracks for a few runs on the west face of green valley, snorting elk bowl, and Campbell basin.

Powder bowl to finish the day at 130 when my friend called from ski patrol to say he needed to head home for a heart checkup.  On the way skiing down to meet him I found two AT skiing nice ladies who turned out to be cardiac nurses!  They offered to check him out, but he declined and off we headed to Swedish hospital. 

Carl said we did not miss much, since the temperature warmed up and the snow got heavy later.  Very nice day with the Monday country club crowd of Greenwater citizens, plus a few of us outlanders. 

General rule of thumb: don't refuse to be checked out by two female nurses. That is my opinion, anyway.

A little bit of everything today. Puking wet snow when we pulled into the lot at 8:15, but by lift-opening, the snow had let up to light flurries. The 8 inches of new dense snow was just what the mountain needed to cover some of the ice wasteland left from last week. Any line that was fairly smooth underneath skied like nice powder for a run or two…it packed in fairly quick once skied. Lines that had big icy bumps underneath were more difficult. See Grubstake. The one trip from top to bottom out Kelly's Gap revealed light ran at the bottom of the mountain and lower E was thick and unconsolidated. As the day went on, it became obvious the snow was really packing in 5500 feet and below, so this kept us up in Green Valley for the early afternoon, where the valley was once again skiing good. I made one trip over to Bear Pits and was surprised to find the best skiing was down the mainline shoot avalanche slide. It looked really bumpy, but was soft and skied fairly smooth.

Early afternoon, both C6 and Northway opened. Not wanting to ski the bottom 2/3 of Northway caused me to skip it. I was on my way to C6 when the sun lit up GV, so stayed where the vis was great. When the sun went away and the snow came back, we bailed a little on the early side.

On a related note, many of the potholes that were "repaired" on 410 are back and more messed up than before they were fixed. I don't know what the WSDOT is thinking, but you can't just pour a bunch of loose asphalt into a hole and expect it to stay without packing it in flush with the road surface. As soon as a little water gets in, the stuff just blows out with the water when a car hits it. And, I'm getting tired of removing tar from my car every time I wash it. Fix 'em right or quit wasting my tax payer $ and I'll drive around them.

On a related note, many of the potholes that were "repaired" on 410 are back and more messed up than before they were fixed.  I don't know what the WSDOT is thinking, but you can't just pour a bunch of loose asphalt into a hole and expect it to stay without packing it in flush with the road surface.  As soon as a little water gets in, the stuff just blows out with the water when a car hits it.  And, I'm getting tired of removing tar from my car every time I wash it.  Fix 'em right or quit wasting my tax payer $ and I'll drive around them.

...get an app!...there are apps to detect potholes for the iPhone and Android operating systems...i'd be interested to know how well it works (like will it buzz and alarm that potholes, but not elk, are on the horizon) especially in the dark during rain/snow fall...

Other opinions from today - Sorry I missed you again Slias....Mentally tough start today…Crystal phone “butter” report not available, telemetry showing mostly snow top to bottom with warm temps at the base, winds semi okay, forecasts for warm conditions, oh well, 10 years ago before all the info overload we would have driven up to see it first hand. Pulled into the A lot kinda late, amazingly full, with a surprisingly small Pay lot. Snowing! Good. Spent a long time waiting in the lodge for the lifts to start loading. Bucket was running extra slow, so being anti social went up CHex and REX and got a run or two before some friends and #1 showed up. Lifts running slow early (do to wind gusts?). Lots of heavy go anywhere new snow, deeper than expected, bonded pretty nicely across the front of REX from SunnySide through the Doors to Bearpits. Very light crowd allowed a slow passed world. Did some runs in the Valley that were pleasant. Snow kept getting heavier and denser, plus some mid morning almost sun pretty much started to make conditions a little more challenging. Thought it would be an extra short day. Late lunch at CB lodge just as HC opened and by noon the sun was full on and all the folks on chair 6 were leaving some pretty nice lines across the whole basin. Did PB, nice skier right, most of the middle was a big slide zone. Thought we would be done by 1, but vis was nice, snow quality seemed to improve a little. Nice runs down the Valley and IceFerkBerg. Still quit kinda early. Northway also opened and the small crowd probably skied that out also…Mr Joedabaker? Happy today? You looked happy. Plus all the other hard cores I saw.

Other – BIG BONUS, that kept me from some nice HC pow lines…Chicken Noodle again at CB lodge! Ouch! Its Chick Noodle heaven this season – though its starting to impact my ski days. Was raining pretty hard when we walked back to the truck with #1’s new skis that she bought today. A parking lot pretty much full with some overflow into C lot and some cars in B lot. No lift lines today, lots of deep nice Cascade powder turns. I’m sure the NW afternoon was pretty hyper hamster happy. Mr Fireman?

General rule of thumb: don't refuse to be checked out by two female nurses. That is my opinion, anyway.

Especially ones that ski.