Crystal - 01/01/2016 Happy Big New Year!

Very very nice New Year Day….Not as cold, not as windy (still some in places), early crowd was pleasantly light, groomers were screamer smooth and fast, you could see from Baker to Hood and the Olympics to Stuart, the sky was ultra blue, the setting moon over the little bump of Rainier was photo pretty…pretty much a perfect first day of 2016.  No real lift lines, though FQex had some stop and go problems late morning when I was passing through there and HC had the ultimate dumb situation one of the times I passed through there….Some older (adult or teenager?) went up with at least 5 pre teen snowboarder/skiers….that had to get down loaded!  Ouch!  Stop and go!  Three Patrol available to do the download….I stayed away from HC for a while…But the skiing in PB was very nice smooth packed powder with lots of nice wind blown snow smoothing out the bowl (I love when the winds are blowing up PB!).  Had fun on the big Sunnyside bumps.  My #1 was having a BIG morning …so we had fun in the Valley and REX and she got her big run down through Kellys Gap!  Great for her.  Very fun day.

Other – Soup looked to be Ched Broc at CB lodge.  Crowd was filling it up mid day.  Parking lots where typically (what?) full with lots of cars in F lot? Ouch.  And the more impressive situation was all the cars driving up to the snow on 410 all the way back to Enumclaw!  Busy Busy!  And slower than my Dad’s driving…another ouch.

will this be the official southern resort thread,
you know to save bandwidth and space n shit?

have they begun valet parking service yet?

will this be the official southern resort thread,
you know to save bandwidth and space n shit?

have they begun valet parking service yet?

Valet parking...I'm sure the pencil pushers are thinkin about it...Single thread for Crystal?  Lordy it would break the web site in a week...   Especially since I'm obviously kinda verbose!

Meanwhile-- Lots were full to F which was 1/2 full. Per DDK the lines just weren't that bad. A bit on GV 10:45 or so but not from 12:40 on. FQ wasn't all that bad. The gondy had the worst line. It stayed big all day. Other good runs: Snorting Elk, Grubstake, Sunnyside later in the day, the right of Iceberg. Did Employee Housing for the first time this year. Top 1/2 good, lower down was a bit more sporting, but skiable. The most tourists I have ever seen were at Crystal and along the highway as far down as the waterfall. A beautiful day in the mountains for all.

Other: Had a chance lunch with Zap and Jill in the HC lodge. Great to finally meet them!

A nearly full parking lot of empty pay lot spots greeted the early arrivers. Nicely, most of the huge lodge crowd was slow getting up after the new year’s eve “festivities”. Great snow for my first fast-groomers of the year. Then Game-On Green Valley and Frontside softish bumps. Headed up for some Powderbowl Left (JD’s Chute we call it), as the last of the weak winter sun faded (3 runs). The snow is in great styro-snow shape, especially off the groomed. The crowd was stupendous - on the groomed. Off Piste, no one. Finally the Rex line grew at noon and it was another T2B and out. The steady line of up hill traffic as I drove down does not bode well for the weekend.

Ken
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will this be the official southern resort thread,
you know to save bandwidth and space n shit?

Unlike the wxw (?) thread, I'd prefer an identifier/unique thread by day. Otherwise, scroll, scroll, what's new, scroll. Bandwidth saver? Text based post? Someone needs to get some internet.