Least words report – Cold, windy ridge tops, no lift lines, high overcast, snow covering most of the mountain, groomers fast and smooth early, off piste very variable, lots of rocks in places, lots of tree parts everywhere else.
The more wordy report….after a week of sickness the skiing withdrawal shakes were getting kinda intense…so I decided to check out the first “busy” Saturday in January and see first hand the wind damage. The winds this week did change the conditions…blew off most of the snow along the top of GV Bowl, ate away at all that nice Rocky Mountain quality cold snow (snow quality off piste reminded me of the tops of most high Colorado ski areas after a week of no snow and “normal” winds). Based on early runs did not think I’d survive very long, but thanks to some info provided by one of the smarter and better long term Crystal skiers, I started skiing the gully between SunnySide and Memorial Forest…nice enough to repeat a number of times and work on my thermostat. Also noticed a couple really good skiers in BearPits – I did not make it look as good, but survived and could have skied it a lot more times. And the other tip was that lower E was skiing very nicely – it did for my last run via Kelly’s Gap. Ended up a really short day, no energy, no lungs still, frozen feet…but the shakes have subsided.
Other – No soup reports (other than TB at the base), Pay lot not full, B maybe ¾ full (left room for the med evac helli), C almost full, D and E full. Lots of folks with kids in the base lodge (I assume CB lodge was similar based on cold conditions). CMAC kids everywhere. Drive up early was at speed as was the early drive down. Good to be on snow again after to many days away.
