Hadn't seen or read a report for X-tal in a while, so had to go to find out, figured from past experience that Sunday of a holiday weekend can be a little more mellow...hhhmmm...not so much anymore. A very nice day, light early crowd in the CHex lineup, filtered sun at the base, full on sun up top early morning which made the front side pow fun...pow...cold smoke nice early from late yesterday and overnight plus piles of left overs made for some fun. Never really had a lineup on REX - singles line has a new configuration and was short and fast. Chair 6 opened kinda early with nobody around, BP's opened kinda late (?) which was lucky for me when I headed that way for the second time and found much deep untracked fun...first time I had to ski Outer Ferks line which is now pretty prime. Got multiple morning runs down PB/BP's (rocks are still on top, but it was easy to get through them). After a kinda late lunch had one last PB/BP run in the best vis on the mountain at that time (clouds had moved up valley and kept rising making some areas pretty grey)...spent the noon hour going hamster in the doors! Very Very nice. Other than my last pass through FQex that had big lines, pretty much light crowd, but not a light crowd based on the lodges and parking lots. Noticed improvement from the 7 feet this last week, but some spots still skied to the ice layer and there are still rocks in places.
Other - Had Veggie Minestrone at CB lodge plus a to big(?) piece of pizza, both good, crowd was building when I left and the area in front of the lodge was a field of skis and snowboards. Got almost the last space in the A lot at 7:15 - big pay lot and lots of folks with kid racers already there...racing looked like it was on Gold hills. All the rest of the lots were crammed full when I left with late arrivals circling around looking for a spot. Drive up and down early both times was prime.
