Crystal - 01/11 Hamster Heaven

Short Report - Almost normal weekday crowds, good snow off piste North facing  slopes, some groomers good (personally not MIFB when I did it early), bump heaven in the Valley and LS upper bumps and Lower BP....some areas have nasty deep cut bumps - upper BP line I did and lower LS bumps.   Snow quality was mostly good up high, not so good on the lower mountain.  Started light snow falling by 9:30, hard at times, enough to be noticeable in  GV bowl.  No lift lines.  A really happy day for a Hamster in a treadmill.

Other - Easy drive up and down today...few elk somewhere early morning?    Pay lot was maybe a 1/5 full - ouch!  B and C both maybe 3/4 full when I left and it was pretty wet at the base....like rain?  Was gonna check the soup of the day for CMSkier, but the FQex line was just big enough to send me home and a CB lodge worker had already told me first thing this morning that it was not Chicken Noodle, probably Clam Chow and Veggy something or other again.
 
Fun morning, best bump workout for me this season, most vert and runs in a real treadmill spin for me....want more....will feel the quads tomorrow, but since its gonna be a rain day it will not matter.....

Second day with normal week-day crowds.  Really nice and I hope the trend continues, but suspect today's forecast had something to do with it.  Snow was firm all over except the bottom half of the mountain where Lower Bull and Deerfly were nicely softened.  Up top, many of the runs had some good locked-in ruts.  However, it started improving run after run as the wet snow fell.  Even after the chairs were getting wet and our goggles needed at least one wipe per run, the improving snow kept us going in one-more-run mode.  When we finally quit at 1, we hit the rain level about 5,000 feet.  
 

With the incoming weather, today’s conditions will have no bearing of upcoming snow conditions. Firm bumps, icy groomers, a some bad visibility to start. As the falling snow got wetter, rain at the base, the skiing got better and better. A mid morning Lower Bull showed how nice it would get when the upper mountain warmed. Ddk left the treadmill too early as the upper mountain softened and it was game on. Until the “snow” turned to white rain and gloves and goggles started to get soggy. Arrived at the base wet, and with a soup bowl of grins. There’s going to be some dues that need to be paid when it refreezes wednesday.
 Ken