Crystal - 04/07

Hhhhhmmm - guess this is the first of many reports about today? Pretty perfect day at the Crystal Mountain Beach today. Main REX groomers soft from the start, temps early on the high speed screamers seemed a little cool for my “old” bones, but that just kept the snow quality better longer today. Total hamster mode for me today, other than being nice and “occasionally” skiing some runs with #1 (who was also having a lot of fun today). After 10am jumped into some Memorial and SunnySide runs, still some untracked left over lines – nice soft and mucky and slow and fun (the Coombas were very happy again today). Did a early lunch to get the Chick Noodle soup – still good for me. Frisco/old chair 5 line skied happy back to the REX hamster treadmill. Spent the rest of a somewhat short day skiing REX chair line, Lucky (top bumps from Crystal peak to Windy/Powder pass skied smooth big and fun), and lots of GV Bowl to MiddleIceFerkBerg runs – how many? Only a hamster would know. Finished chasing ( not very well) MR. Joedabaker down Lower FerkBull, nice fast soft and I couldn’t keep up. (need some radar guns to slow him down). Snow was sticky at time, but not as bad as yesterday and actually seemed to be improving before I quit. Did a number of on mountain rub on wax stops - seemed to help a lot!

Other – As noted CB lodge had Chick Noodle (good but short on the noodles), great beer and lots of pretty views of the King. Pay lot had some cars, bus lot had no buses, some overflow into the slot towards C lot, probably only employees in the B lot. No lift lines today. Only one more Monday left to ski Crystal. Lots of employees are close to there last day working at Crystal – and some are looking forward to it. Again a great nice warm fun day at the beach of Crystal Mt….probably better at Whistler with the Fireman, or wherever The Eskinmo was today!

Started the day in the tropical wear due to warm temps. What a beautiful day in the mountains! Piled on the vert early with many fast Valley/Berg/Deerfly runs. Very fun, fast, soft, carvable groomers. At some point in the morning, saw DDK making Showtime look pretty good. Jumped in to find the top very nice and the bottom a bunch of mucked up mashed potatoes that threw my little Aftershock skis all over. Guess some coombas woulda helped. I much preferred my favorite…the gully skiers right of Memorial. Maybe because the line I pounded into it last week was still there. However, watch out for the 18 inch hole half way down. It's 6 feet deep and melted all the way through to the creek below. It's only going to get bigger and you definitely don't want to dig a tip into it.

Around 11am, noticed the snow on all the flatter areas getting very sticky. I waxed with 50 degree wax and checked to make sure the hot wax was holding up. The wax wasn't warm enough. So, hunted the steep and headed for anything that was earlier in the shade for the flats. Snorting Elk skied great and it was only slow on the flat back to the chair. Tried to do a top to bottom out Kelly's Gap, but it was closed because of slides coming off Rock Face in the heat.

Ended the early day doing the hamster GV/Ferkberg run many times. Once I hit the CD minimum, decided I'd have more fun having a beer in the sun at the bottom than fighting the sticky snow. Was pleasantly surprised that Deerfly held up really well including the flat section to the base.

Once on the deck with friends refreshing ourselves, patrol set off three choreographed bombs across the top of Rock Face within 1 second of each other. It was loud and cool. Thanks for the pyrotechnics patrol! Nice to have DDK's #1 join us.

Looks like some drizzly conditions tomorrow before returning to the warm sunny pattern. It isn't forecast to be quite as warm Wed - Fri which will be good for the snow. Mid-weeks to end next week. So sad.

Had to leave my coat in the locker, as it was very warm out of the gate. Soft groomers and T2Bs won the morning (before 10:30) round. The Frontside was already keep-light-on-your-skis glop at 10:30. As CD said, Greg's Gulch was a sign of the melting. 18" of snow and a pole length of space below with rushing water. The steeps were slush-flinging fun; the flats were ready-to-endo sticky. Surprisingly, the late-day lower mountain wasn't sticky. An end-of-the-season light crowd had a sun-filled great time. Rex ran at full speed as it hasn't for a month. And it stopped only once when a coomba clad [redacted] caused a stop and the only line of the day (5 chairs). The "crowd" demanded a patio pitcher, not delivered.
Ken
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Adding: Lots of wet slides today. Rock Face slid naturally this morning closing Kelly's Gap. Not sure what the 3 afternoon bombs did. Powder Bowl slide all over with ski patrol ridge cuts with lots of rolling slop over the Luckyshot cat track. All the north-facing slopes we saw were full of goat-head rollers.

Had to leave my coat in the locker, as it was very warm out of the gate. Soft groomers and T2Bs won the morning (before 10:30) round. The Frontside was already keep-light-on-your-skis glop at 10:30. As CD said, Greg's Gulch was a sign of the melting. 18" of snow and a pole length of space below with rushing water. The steeps were slush-flinging fun; the flats were ready-to-endo sticky. Surprisingly, the late-day lower mountain wasn't sticky. An end-of-the-season light crowd had a sun-filled great time. Rex ran at full speed as it hasn't for a month. And it stopped only once when a coomba clad [redacted] caused a stop and the only line of the day (5 chairs). The "crowd" demanded a patio pitcher, not delivered.
Ken
+

Pato crowd was leaving when I finally showed up - sorry I'm so slow.,....and one reason REX was running at speed was cause I asked the lifty about it before my first ride this morning, ...speed increased a lot, faster than the bucket early. 5 chairs???? lordy you shouldnt stand around so much Mr. [redacted]. PS I knocked over one of the load here signs to get the lift opp out of the shack...ha ha....Shawn is so hard to work with sometimes , twas a fun scene all in all apparently.

  5 chairs???? lordy you shouldnt stand around so much Mr. [redacted]. PS  I knocked over one of the load here signs to get the lift opp out of the shack...ha ha

Knocked over the sign, hilariously funny. Stopping the chair for the only wait of the day. Ha ha. Bet the lift ops love you. Ha ha

Knocked over the sign, hilariously funny. Stopping the chair for the only wait of the day. Ha ha. Bet the lift ops love you. Ha ha

Yep..or at least put up with me..... ....