March 30th, 2014, Crystal Mountain

Off Piste offered surprisingly high-quality snow on top of yesterday's carnage. Quality began to deteriorate once Ra burned off the clouds and seared the pow.

NW was a good place to be, but buried chunder and warming temps kept it real.

Heading over to hike PB was one of the better decisions I've made this season, as the gate was closed for more control work* soon after I got to the top, and I don't think I've ever had as clean a line down a spine in PB as happened today. Chair #6 may you rest in piece, but truth be told your death was probably the best thing to happen to PB since I remember.

After that, the park was an entertaining diversion, but the day ended on a high note for me by noon.

* word from patrol was that they were aiming to open BP.

This morning was the best cold snow of the week, it was a sunny Sunday ,so it went fairly quick. Skied alot of really great snow early but the Powder Bowl runs were epic quality.It really has been a great March.............long live the queen

And the long winded wordy report about today - Tough day…had to get up early since I wasn’t sure if the season really is over and today was a Sunday. Double tough with colder temps and 5” advertized new! Great day for a hamster, lots of untracked new, the biggest sucker hole ever blew into the Crystal Basin! – sun was kinda sad though, it pretty much baked the sunny slopes, should be a good process for the next few days. Big plus was all the shady slopes held up very nice packed pow fun. Bumped into Ferd and his devil voice in my brain got me to do West Face, SnortElk Bowl (both nice pow left overs) and also suggested Snakpit which was passed its prime but still fun. Biggest weird thing was watching all the folks doing nice lines down PB! Get ready for the big shocker! The PB report today from me – very excellent, my fav line was sweet and deep and oh so fun. The numbers – 20+ wheezy minutes up, 1 very nice minute down! Cant imagine my lungs being able to do it 4 straight. I thought Highland Bowl was a big hike…but at least that was above 10k. Finished the day cruising around, taking easy front side and Door runs, nice and heavy and the Coombas had some pretty big smiles today – I really like those skis and maybe they get the rest of the season. Finished with a GV to WestFace to Kellys Gap to Lower E – all very much fun and soft nice spring snow at the bottom.

Other - Big crowd and lines at CB lodge, soup was Ched Broc again. Not much on the lift lines today, heard big reports about Northway and maybe Ferd will let us know (he headed out that way when I left to save a turn for big sun Monday, I hope). Pay lot was very big and not full, C lot looked pretty full, B lot was ¾ full or so – don’t really know where all those folks were today. (did I get the were and where right?)

Ahh DDK the man, the reporter, the legend,and yes the hamster.... but what about the story behind the man...the "back story", well tonight TAY reader your going to read little of that " back story " in a little segment I call, Backstory the story behind the man. DDK was born extremely poor his father was a Jamaican bobsledder,he never knew his mother.It is assumed that she worked in a pet store selling rodents. After swimming an incredible distance to reach the shores of America, he made his first pair of skis with his own teeth.....this man is tough.......years went by some eventful some not so much ......he skied Grubstake repeatedly, then he skied it again ,twice.....he told people he was too old and to tired to even think about going to Northway .....he ate soup....he skied Grubstake .....then one day in Post-apocalyptic wasteland of bombed out chair lifts and hikes so steep you wheeze,he made it to the top, the very top after an unbelievable "20+" minuets of walking ,NO hiking,and all of it uphill.....................The rest of coarse is history ,DDK skied the best run of his entire day..............Crystal Mountain and TAY were never the same after that..........everything changed.....soup...... parking .....animal references.... everything

All around great day at Crystal. First run upper Exterminator then left into Kellys Gap area (below Eagles Nest) all good. Then Laps in Northway to an early lunch at the Elk, soup was? Had Chili instead. After lunch we coined a new term - Banana Laps. 4 runs down Banana chute, excellent northern exposure snow and some fun ripping upper FerkBergRidge. Lots of deep, good snow turns found today.

Ahh DDK the man, the reporter, the legend,and yes the hamster.... but what about the story behind the man...the "back story", well tonight TAY reader your going to read little of that " back story " in a little segment I call, Backstory the story behind the man. DDK was born extremely poor  his father was a Jamaican bobsledder,he never knew his mother.It is assumed that she worked in a pet store selling rodents. After swimming an incredible distance to reach the shores of America, he made his first pair of skis with his own teeth.....this man is tough.......years went by some eventful some not so much ......he skied Grubstake repeatedly, then he skied it again ,twice.....he told people he was too old and to tired to even think about going to Northway .....he ate soup....he skied Grubstake  .....then one day in Post-apocalyptic wasteland of bombed out chair lifts and hikes so steep you wheeze,he made it to the top, the very top after an unbelievable "20+" minuets of walking ,NO hiking,and all of it uphill.....................The rest of coarse is history  ,DDK skied the best run of his entire day..............Crystal Mountain and TAY were never the same after that..........everything changed.....soup...... parking .....animal references.... everything 

  Gotta say pretty funny. Some of the early life is a little fuzzy. And I hardly ever eat the soup. the big wheezy part was accurate. Cant what to do the the King! Not! Think I heard there were a lot of Earthquakes in California today.