Crystal - 2/8

Early report. Had a nice drive up today and was surprised by 3 - 4 inches of new that had fallen since the 5am report. However, the day was a bit challenging. I thought maybe it was just me not getting into a rhythm, but I noticed my three skiing partners suffering from the same thing. The new snow was "grabby" and sitting on top of yesterday's layer which was locked down. Made for some very transitional conditions and tiring snow. There were also some visibility issues with very flat light, continued snow, and occasional light fog. Never made it up C6 or out to Northway after it opened. Skied the Doors, LS trees, Valley, left side of Ferkberg between Bull Run and Ferks, a run down upper Bull into old C1 chairline (a hoot, but tiring), Kelly's Gap, and several top to bottoms out Deer Fly which had some of the easiest skiing. As it snowed most of the morning, the conditions just got more of the same, not really improving. There was a power outage at 10:45 and a short wait until REX and the rest of the chairs fired up on diesel. At noon, the wind started to pick up as forecast, so we bailed early more tired than many previous full days.

Weird tough snow as CD said. But, we did what was needed to be done before tonight/tomorrow’s weather cluster. Not a lot of big grins as we dodged from fun spot to fun spot via leg burning toughness. In hindsight some good fun came of it all. Crystal closed south and north early due to avie concerns and announced the top will be shut down tomorrow due to expected winds and avie concerns. Will be some hell to pay with friday’s cool down of tonight’s rain.

Ken
+

I totally agree this snow was tuff to enjoy,after all the deep pow skied this storm.Beyond the rope....perfect ...dream quality snow...This was a grate storm and crystal skied very well all the way through...it's February its crowded....thats the way it is, but with a little perseverance awesome pow was there for everyone....and not very far away is March and some way less crowded powder days...till then "live the dream"

We found great mank plowing, plenty to smooth out the grown-up bumps.  Did Northway open?  It was closed when our party went over.  Up to a foot of fresh that was light enough up high.  Memorial, Melbys, Snorting Bowl and trees all nicely full.  It kept refreshing all day and the place emptied early.

Other:  Hamburgers are $5 cheaper in the lower cafeteria than in the Bullwheel.  Today was the most snow for our Wednesday bus and the first time the driver chained up---maybe there's a connection.....

CONS: arriving at 10:30 am, viz, closed areas (South, parts of North, C6 after lunch)
PROS: reliable buds, Right Angle to Hole-in-the-Wall and all that lie beneath, skier's right of C6 (a snake dance in the low viz), pow everywhere

...a TREE-mendous day with smiles around...anytime you can ski top to bottom at Crystal in the deep trees is a great day...i showed up expecting to get some boot work done and to get rained on...instead, no boot work and very nice throughout...skier's left of Waterfall was a great adventure -- we had to go into memory mode to recall some of the lines in this area that we had long forgotten (and to not make any mistakes)...Melby's (respect) Trees were especially nice with boot top cut and untracked...as the day went on, things got better and better...happy smiles all around before the big rain...

...Ops + Mother Nature have assembled a ~20 foot high wall of snow on the track under Rock Face from Kelly's Gap -- mighty impressive! Do not stand around much in this area!