Crystal - 03/04

Short Report - Another day on the slopes...sadly not as Blue Bird as yesterday looked, but light early crowd, a couple of nice early groomers, a inch or two new (where did that come from) to make the north facing slopes nice and smooth...Mostly a Hamster day running GV Bowl to MIFB'ish to mostly PB/BP laps (when FQex was not totally big).  Very nice day especially running the singles line.

Long Report - Easy fast drive up, arrived early and did not park in the front row of the A lot - huh?  Still got one of the prime slots on CHex, big nosy crowd in the lodge for the final day of the FreeRide. Fairly small lineup early and didn't notice any crowds till I passed through FQex the second time - ouch the line blew up fast - lucky I be a single line user.  No lines ever on HC even with the King comp.  Skied some nice untracked by the rope line off the Throne.  But spent most of the day doing PB/BP lapes or BP runs via REX....Had probably my best PB/BP run after lunch - even HHH would give me some credit in BP's - perfect vis, perfect turn on any part of any bump snow down my fav line - Yee Haa!  Quit a little early to save some for casual Monday...so finished with the never ending traverse to EH (EH was great hard skier right packed pow top to bottom along the trees) - had to stop and rest more than I've ever done on EH...and then the painful never ending Ho Chi Minh trail back to the base...
Great short day, wanted to watch some of the top kids running the King...but the vis was getting iffy so skiing is more fun than standing and watching.   North facing was great today and the relatively cold grey day should keep it nice - though some of the bumps are getting really really big.  Snow pack is big but the rocks are noticeable on top of  The Queen,

Other - There was soup at CB lodge...but it was not memorable enough...pizza was great...conversations with all the tourists or parents of competitors the last few days as been nice - all have been impressed with Crystal Mountain (at least the slopes and variety).  Pay lot big and not full, seems like B and C were full - didn't notice any of the other lots.   

Nice!
I went walkabout.
Arrived at 9 and after a warm up run, I dropped the Cache and met three friends at the skin transition area. They were heading out to Crystal Lake Area for a tour and kindly invited me along.
We skinned out to Windy Pass and then over to Ch 6 and out to the Beach in SB. From there we dropped into Crystal Lakes but encountered 2" new on breakable sun crust so we traversed off to intercept the standard skin track up the valley. There we came across a side-stepping track heading up the valley  We followed that to below 3 way and then it headed over to Morse Creek Col were we where heading. At Morse Creeek Col we skied down variable conditions to the valley below.
We decided to head down the valley and then skin up to JBAS and then up the Gunbarrel Peak. We came across the sdiestepping again and followed it all the way up to JBAS.

From there we did some nice technical skinning up to the top of the peak ( i think I enjoy technical skinning as much as skiing). From there we dropped the big triangular face( Kim/Blake Face)on nice snow and then over the rollover to the steep face leading down to the valley.

Was surprised to see a skintrack with people on it crossing the bottom of this big face and heading up its skiers right side below big cornices. Very dangerous skin track given the conditions and we waited till they got out of the way before dropping the face. I try really hard not to judge others actions anymore but it was a really bad and dangerous track.

After the big face we found a nice untracked gully full of snow and after a ski cut, had beautiful calf deep velvet pow to the valley floor.
On reaching to base, I talked to my friend Jim who works for Crystal and found that the sidestepping has been a guy who got lost at 3:30 pm yesterday afternoon and took a wrong turn down to Crystal Lakes on Alpine gear. Partrol was out looking for him. Glad he found his way out and he must be exhausted and have thighs the size of a bull by today.

Great day, great group and thanks Blake, Dave and Robert for letting me tag along.