Crystal - 12/28 Big Sunny

Very Big Blue Bird day...sun and views forever (but sadly I didnt notice...Mt Rainier might have been
out today, my eye balls were focused on inbound areas and lift lines! so sad).

Snow report - Better quality on the limited areas I tried. Grooming felt kinda funny in spots.
GV Bowl had good packed powder and also scrappy icy whatever in spots...only did it twice do to
increasing lift line crowds. LS good on the groomer and happy on the upper bump face. Spent
most of the morning on HC lapping Hamburger (I prefer Thrown Bowl), bumped into a friend I see but
never ski with...most we've skied together ever.  Rocks on the top of HC! OUCH! Nasty! Till
after the first try, figured out my line out south (and to PB), which was very safe and doable -
sorry I cant say how...dont want to waste it if I get to go again before the next big snow
storm.  Hamburger had happy packed snow that kept getting better with repeated traffic.  PB was
the best happy packed cold snow and if not for FQex lift lines would have been the big
Hamster repeater.  But with no line on HC the Hamster run was Hamburger after the 20 min traverse
out there - ha ha!  Made my most vert and time on the hill in the last two weeks. Lineups on 
many lifts, but probably not as bad as other days.  Heard skiing with light crowds most of the
X-Mass days and this last weekend. Fun day, finally got a quad workout and some fun bumps.

Other - Checked for the soup of the day at CB lodge...guy said he thought it might be Veggy 
something or other?  Quality info!  Parking...pulled into the free part of the A lot (new this
season like the old days last season).  When I left A pay lot was almost full, all the
rest down to H lot full with F just starting to fill...fair number of cars driving up  410 
on my drive down.

Bottom line - Great big sunny fun skiing with a somewhat smaller crowd than most recent days.

Beautiful weather and it stayed on the cool side all day in spite of the sun.  I found the snow much firmer than the nicer snow we had last week.  Some of the better runs were GV right to chairline and Breakover on the front side.  But the winner was Powder Bowl as ddk said.  The top of C6 is a mess and the chair seemed to be running at 70% speed all day, but the lack of a lift line was nice.  Crowds were consistent with last week, but we managed to get hampster runs from 8:30 - 10:00 on REX, then GV before the lines got too long.  The longest was 15 - 20 minutes on FQ to get up to C6 just after 10am.  By 1:00, the line on REX had gone down considerably making the last laps on the front side more fun.