Crystal - 1/31

And now for something completely different.  Compact snow and ice on the road and snowing from the waterfall viewpoint on up.  4" new in the parking lot, cold, and howling wind.  They didn't start loading chairs until 9am and by that time, the Chinook line had merged with the gondie line and was up the hill.  However, once up the mountain, not another lift line, but a fair amount of people on the hill for a Monday.  The groomers had 6 - 8" new on top of the groomed on REX and some places off-piste had over 12" where the snow blew in from the west.  It snowed all day and fortunately, the winds weren't too bad on top and vis was fairly good all day, except when the snow occasionally turned heavy.  The groomers quickly got skied out and lumped up with Lucky Shot fairing better than Ferkberg (which started out very nice).  The big news is, the right side of Green Valley is skiable again and had so much snow blown in there, it was repeated powder runs never hitting the icy underlayer.  As the day went on, some of said icy underlayer was exposed, but as this new snow gets skied in, I think it will improve.  The front side of Rex is a no go and my one trip down Door 3 was a no-repeat.  The one trip out Kelly's Gap found Sluiceway a skidded mess, Berry Patch fun, and Lower E a complete mixed bag trending to the poor side.  It was good to have the new snow as the rocks exposed on Lucky Shot and Ferkberg last week have been recovered.  For now.  Northway opened just as I was quitting for the day.  Probably good out there, but saw a whole train of people heading out that way, so gone by now.