Crystal - 12/04

Short report - Definitely not the worst day of the season (rainy FQex days hold those votes and luckily I was not up on those days), but today had some issues...Had to ride the Bucket (on diesel) to get to the top (no REX? Why - line was to not but to much traffic on LS???? What?). Light crowd all in all, but no CB lodge (not even the bathroom access - made #1 very unhappy). High streamer clouds kept the vis a little filtered, but it was full on sun when we left - way to early. All in all a good day, not my worst, but not very high on the 10 point scale.

More words....Got into the bucket line early (just in case anyone showed up), managed to snag the first bucket with Jim (a great guy on his mono bucket ski). Skied a number of runs in the Valley, kinda bouncy the first run, but main bowl was carveable small bumps, Anns was better than Dans (especially when doing all my turns 180 degrees from the icy trough sliders). Grubstake was skiing nicely, so the options in the valley to get a work out are better than not skiing at all...LS was perfectly groomed smooth and not to rocky, skiers right side on LS still had soft bumps to work on. Did a few FQex runs looking for #1, grooming was great. Lower down on Stump Farm and Skid Row (new name?) and lower QS were nice, but the snowmaking was kinda boiler plate in spots. Guns all working overtime again in the Disco flats. Did a number of T2B (cause I had to), no real lift lines on the bucket and actually did have nice socials to pass the slow ride. Views were big today.

Other - No soup at CB lodge, heard it was Potato at the base (did I spell that correctly?). Was not supposed to be any food at Cascade for lunch, but someone noticed that the crowd was a little bigger (and probably cheaper) than only the Top and Bullwheel could handle. Parking in the pay lot was nice and small and not full, rest of A with a little overflow into C and a row or so in B.

All in all another nice day on the mountain sliding on snow in the sunshine, working the quads and enjoying the early season small bumps. The Rock Coombas were happy enough again today....nice to meet Telemac and wife...and a lot of other hard core cant get enough ski area folks.

Heard from reliable sources REX isn't going to spin this week until the week-end to try to protect what little snow there is on Lucky Shot. That forces people to do T2B runs slowing down the laps on Lucky. Good thing...by noon the first face was full of loose rocks pushing us into the bumps on the right side which as DDK said, were very nice. Second face, the bumps were hard so had to straight-line the groomed. GV was very nice and I found some secret stashes that I didn't see anybody else in all day. Grubstake was nice as long as you could avoid the rocks at the top and chairline held good snow. Very light crowd with no wait for the bucket. Warmer temps this week with no precipitation will make the week-end tough for the REX and GV crowd.

Short Report -
Limited options resulting in some big second-first-day fun.

There's not been a lot of recovery since the Week of Rain. Only Green Valley and Luckyshot (might be some beginner/intermediate snow on FQ and Not-So-Quick Silver) were open/skiable up top. Unfortunately, we skied most of The Valley into icy spots and the Rock Skis were taking lots of hits later in the day. Luckyshot was full of gravel by noon. But, the gang had a lot of fun tearing it up.

The sad story -
Luckyshot won't last another grooming or the upcoming week of dry 10-11K freezing levels. The Valley will have some spring condition, rock ski bashing snow for a few more days.

The WTF report -
Crystal seems to be balancing electric rates versus snow making. Running slow on diesel in the morning, the only upload lift/Gondy finally changed to running slow on electric power mid-day. The snowmaking was a goggle freezing avoidance by mid-day as we race T2Bs.

Ken
+

Decent day, Lisa enjoyed her first time out this season. We're glad we got the first day of the clear spell
---will not be pretty by week's end. We got a few turns in with ddk but, like him, could not find his wife around Forest Queen : FQ held good coverage and was softer than GV. The knoll below the entry to Magoo's was dubbed "Rocky Point" because it kept coughing up pebbles and cobbles. We found one the size of two fists that was ready to roll and chucked it off the piste as a public service.
We did a visit to GV and found it more pleasant than he had indicated. Soft leftovers in the lower trees skier's right of the chair. The upper bowl skied well with good coverage in the PM, better than the scoured
hardpan of the entry by the chair.
In places I found the 1-2" fresh that snuck in after the lifts closed Sunday. Some parts of the lower mountain had manufactured snow atop a bit of new snow; interesting "freshies".