Crystal - 01/19 Nice

Ski report - Nice day, arrived late to a small crowd for CHex....filtered sun early to full on happy sun mid to late morning. Groomers fast and furious (almost to fast with the ski racer crowd).  Early GV Bowl rightish side nice enough to MIFB which improved all morning. No lift lines  to worry about. LS grooming skiable ad upper LS bumps happy for me.  Totally a hamster kinda day.  #1 had fun on FQex with a friend till that line grumped her....so we skied the Valley and LS till after the 10:30 typical crowd rush.   Did PB late morning, getting off the top of  Ch 6 pleasant, dropping into PB way skier right very doable - but not worth repeating...heard from the Ferkenator that the sunny skier left side was getting good and probably continued into the early afternoon as likely the front side of REX and MIFB.  Fun day, #1 got a good work out as I also did.....cant wait for a Binx report? Other interesting thing noticed....a ground squirrel poking out of its hole skier right in GV bowl no far from the tree cluster....just sitting there watching the snow balls bouncing down around it.

Other stuff - Drive up was in traffic and somewhat slow, drive down was early enough to be very happy at speed.  No elk noticed either way.   Pay lot not even close to 1/4 full, B and C had so many single badly parked rows it was hard to tell how full - but not very.

Other Not so Important info - Grilled CB lodge about the soup of the day...not chicken noodle and good luck on that option this year - new food management and covid excuses and I'm not special enough?  Huh?  To get what I  whine  about?....So CB lodge only options are Clam Chow/Chili(sometimes very hot and spicy like today as noted by #1) and Veggy Vegetarian! Pretty much thats it for options at CB lodge - cuase thats what the mass of humans like and who cares if variety is the spice of life (no Triple C, no Chicky Noodle, none of the other frozen bags of Cisco food)....oh new food service provider.     Other - I cycled PB while #1 was waiting to order her  food at CB lodge - ouch!  Booze sales are the priority.

Well…. I vote Ice rather than Nice. What wasn’t icy was very firm. But, a fun day was had as we chattered, skidded, and hung onto what little edge you could get in the firm and icy snow. Valley Bowl and Iceberg opened the day and provided the best option as all our forays into other areas failed to find anything better. (thanks to CD who provided our test dummy for many areas to avoid). I saw only one taker on Powder Bowl and watched ddk’s long traverses that kept us from needing to try it. The sun failed in its advertised softening role. At noon, there was the slightest softening on Valley Bowl left and it became quite fun. But, that required IceBerg which was still filled with long skids between sugar covered skids. So, tried Sunnyside. Got some good runs where I could actually carve through the bumps and the lower half was nice and soft. Three runs later, the quickly setting sun was forcing the re-freezing and my chattered legs said go home. Lucky to have the group of friends to share the good parts with, and gripe about the parts together.

hhhhhhmmmm.....pretty sure I did not do really long traverses in PB, would have required going thru the ice bolder field in the middle of the bowl....but I did indicate it was not worth repeats?  So I guess the lookers win!

opps, sorry if it wasn't you, but red coat and black pack had everyone fooled. They didn't go into the avie debris, but a lot of side to side looking for an aceptable turn. Still saved us from trying it.