Crystal - 03/11

Sorta unconsolidated crud…that describes the snow conditions as well as the mountain operations for part of the day. At opening, the gondola was closed due to patrol and avie work and the Chinook Express took a power hit and was down for most of the morning. This resulted in a hike up to the bottom of C4 to watch the lift ops dig out the chair. Finally got it running and got the go-ahead from patrol to load, so a brutal ride up C4, then over to FQ. Top of FQ allowed viewing of the carnage that was once C6. Impressive. Over to Rex and on the chair at 10:15. Ouch. First run revealed 6 inches of light snow on top of overnight frozen chunks. With the warming sun, it packed as soon as skied and the whole mountain turned to heavy crud. Further compounding the problem was lack of grooming. There was a bit of grooming on FQ, but nothing on REX or GV. Plus, the entrance to Lucky Shot from Windy Pass was mostly blocked by the huge slide down Powder Bowl yesterday. Many intermediate skiers very frustrated and struggling to get down the mountain. Found a couple of really nice snow areas, one under the GV chair, bottom half over the rock face, and another in the narrow sphincter far right of the bottom half of Snorting Elk, although some wouldn't be impressed.

Around 1:00, the runs with the most traffic packed in then warmed in the sun to nice spring conditions. This resulted in a flurry of top to bottom runs. There must have been a bunch of them when I checked my vert at the end of the day given the late start.

Ran into my favorite patroller and found out Crystal only had three patrollers to open the mountain this morning, thus contributing to some of the delays getting the gondy open.

Looking forward, Northway, Exterminator, and Grubstake will be closed for the foreseeable future. They all pose avalanche danger, but patrol isn't going to bomb anything that would pose a risk to another chair, so the runs are closed. They were pulling a lot of lift tickets today from people trying to poach the runs. Also, Lucky Shot could be a mess as they are heli-bombing Powder Bowl tonight after closing which should unleash a mess into the top of Lucky Shot closing it off. May have to drop in through the doors to get to LS. We'll see. I'm hopeful Crystal will do some grooming elsewhere on the mountain like Iceberg so there will be something to ski in the morning until it thaws.

Ended up being a nice day after a tough morning. Oh, A lot loosely full, 10 cars in C lot and only employees in B lot when I left, so light crowds.

night groomers didn't groom to the southern resorts high standards today is about all i got from that.
spend a day at alpy and you'll go home and thank your grooming crew every day!
give it a try
b

...spend a day at alpy and you'll go home and thank your grooming crew every day!
give it a try
b

Gotta say its highly unlikely...X-tal skiers many of us be....Alpy is some foreign world....I like Alpy...wish it would stay open for late spring skiing, dang thing being managed by Crystal!  PS - I thank Crystal grooming normally, they got some nice machines and the guy that does IceFerkBerk usually does a great job....Think Crystal is a little out of sorts right now... PS....Crystal grooms a little more space than Alpy....normally....

Maybe after everything slides to the ground and all the lifts are uprooted, Alpental will offer Crystal passholders $25 lift tickets

Ain't karma a b?

Gosh I'm really sorry everyone had a tough time today. Snow was definitely challenging. On the other hand I watched the owner spend $6,000 an hour heli bombing all afternoon because he was concerned about his guests safety. Where else can you sit on a picnic table and get a birds eye view of live bombing ? I watched patrol lay out miles of boo and net to keep guests out of hazardous areas, only to watch said guests duck under for a closer look or a couple sweet turns. Yesterdays carnage was of a level that I was surprised the mountain opened at all. Yeah there wasn't groom in the valley or lucky shot but then again the cats didnt get buried under more slides last night. I totally affirm managements decision to keep 'em locked up until conditions stabilize. Rumor has the mtn manager snomoed up to blade a path out to Queens for the all sight seers. I pulled in to b-Lot about 7 last night and watched a convoy of patrolers heading down in a blizzard, only to return at 6 this morning. The pic will give you an idea of the magnitude of the slides. Taken at the cmac cut off to queens.

Maybe after everything slides to the ground and all the lifts are uprooted, Alpental will offer Crystal passholders $25 lift tickets 

Ain't karma a b?

Gotta say Alpy is a lot nicer than that...at least a few years ago...pass comp was both areas had to be open to get the comp tix's...I got a lot of spring days in May before X-tal put in the Bucket when they were closed...enjoyed many of those days...kinda miss them...so sad...but as many folks know I'm to lazy to hike...sad days for PB and South, but good for the skinning crowd....sooner or later....