Crystal - 02/21

Check check? Yee Haa! Winner. Pretty nice day – one of the top 10 powder days of the season at Crystal (yesterday in the Valley looked like it was one of them)….how many powder days has Crystal had this year? Not many. The 2 or more inches in the off piste ungroomed areas of Lucky were very pleasant, smooth and soft and getting sun baked today. Felt cool all day, wore more clothes than any time in the last month or two – even big warm puffy gloves. Got in the front of the Gondy line way to early, but it was worth the early morning screamers in the unexpected sun. Crowd did show up so I only did a few runs in the Valley early – most of the day was hamstring Lucky main line early and mostly the edges for the untracked. Heard the Valley had waits that felt like 5 minutes…never had more than 30 seconds on REX. Lots of folks hiking the Queen (some leaving very nice turns in PB), think most were heading south to the really big smooth lines.

Other – Think the base lodge had Autumn Harvest (huh?). Top of the Gondy had a big crowd and a big wait and some really big looking food (sorry for all the b-g words in a not skiing context. Things were mellowing out when I left at 2. There was a bus in the A lot, the Pay lot was not full as usual, rest of A with overflow into C (1/3) and a couple of rows in B. So for a very sad year the crowd was pretty good and they were eating lots of very big priced food.

Rinky Dink, Rinky Dink and Rinky Dink were my 3 favorite runs today, holding the only "good" snow on the mountain. That is the short north facing pitches, not the sunny front side seen from the chair. Upper Lucky bumps and GV bowl (between race courses) were ok too. Not so fun were 2 tries on Grubstake, 2 tries on chairline, and West Face past the grooming. Lots of frozen underneath and some BIG frozen chunks. The upper Grubstake traverse into Snorting Elk was roped off. Looked like avie debris there. There was an interesting traverse across the entire top of Bear Pits; I guess going to Downhill/Rolling Knolls. Low down near Rex was showing lots of loose rocks by mid-day. On my final run to Rex I took the closed Gandys and got through much more cleanly. One that looked good but I was unwilling to try was upper Sunnyside to the road. Not sure if that was just a trace of new over rocks, or worthy skiing. Lines at GV chair were ok, none at Rex. With extremely low expectations, it was a very good day.

Did multiple runs in PB with freshies all the way down , especially far skiers right, out of the sun and no debris. Slight wind crust but skiable if you kept em running. Last run in Campbell into DFF was the best run of the day with untracked all the way to Forest Queen. Not great by Crystal standards but superb with this years low expectations.