Crystal - 12/17 Zoo Day

OUCH!  Big new snow and bigger crowd than even I expected.  Arrived extra early (7:30), but not
not early enough. Got into CHex line by 7:45 and stood around watching a very big early crowd
show up before the 8:45 opening.  By the time I got to the top of Crystal the full on frenzy
was going strong and my run down SunnySide was already mostly left over patches.  Snow felt 
a little heavy and my legs were not powder ready. One more not to long wait to get REX ride
number two and the line was growing. Did one run down GV Bowl and should have done a second 
lap, but decided to try LS and LS Trees.  Line up on REX was past my tolerance level so headed
over to a reasonable early on FQex.  Chair 6 was spinning and loading, but I decided against it,
should have gone up cause by this time all the other chairs had significant lines...So after one
more  FQex ride it was to the base and way to early to leave, but I did.

Other - Parking lots were already almost all full, with A lot about 3/4 full and F lot filling
up fast...with many folks not waiting for the totally full shuttles walking up.  The traffic
on the Blvd was backed up over 3 miles down (where did all those folks get to park?).
Bottom line was the new snow has really helped just in time for the Holidays and just as
I expected today was a total zoo.  This season has seen some of the biggest pre Holiday
weekday crowds that I can remember.  OUCH!

Thanks for the post, confirmed how I thought today would go. You have more patience than I. Sure is hard to find a decent day to go up anymore. 

I concur on the zoo day. Left at 11:30 and all lots at capacity with a ton more cars coming up the boulevard. People were desperate to cram their cars into any crevasse. Saw this one try to park on a snow bank.

A few good runs on chair 6 but my board was squirrely on the groomers. Found out I had a hanger.
Crystal needs to figure out maximum vehicle capacity and then count cars at boulevard and stop cars when the are at capacity. A car goes down, a car goes up, ect. They do this at Hurricane Ridge. 

More zoo, 
We hit the turn off to the Boulevard about 8:20 and it took us over 30 minutes to get to the parking lot. By the time we got up to ChEX the line was at least 15 minutes. We opted to ride up the beginner chair and Slow Silver to get to Forest Queen.  A warm-up lap on Rolling Knolls led us to at least a 15 minute long line on Rex, so we opted for another Forest Queen lap. We found the same big line so we hit Deer Fly thinking that maybe the lift line on Chex would be cleared out some. Wrong. We waited at least 15 minutes in line at Chex another 16 minutes at Rex so we ended up spending about 40 minutes to get to the top of the mountain. We had we had one good run down GV and ran into an 18 minute line on the Green Valley chair.  This led us to a rundown Kelly's Gap. The line on CHEX was only about 10 minutes.  We were heading for chair Six, but now the line on FQ was huge, so we headed to Slow Silver for a couple of runs with no line and then an early out.  

Management said they capped the reservations at 4000,  Bull,  all the lots were full,  they were people standing around everywhere at the base.

 These were the worst lift lines I have ever seen at Crystal.  

Not so fun fact - taking current lift lines into account - Slow Silver is now the fastest lift on the mountain!