Crystal - 11/28/22

Snow on the road from Enumclaw on up.  No sign of snow plows until past the Ranch.  Nuking snow when I arrived at the mountain.  No grooming on REX or GV.  Lucky Shot had 4" new on top of yesterday's skier grooming, but you could read the snow well enough that it skied fine.  However, the sweet spot was everywhere in the Valley.  6" on top of a fairly smooth and carvable base.  Coverage was fairly good.  Snorting Elk into Mr. Toad was excellent, but the go-to today was Grubstake right tight to the trees.  Powder all day long as I was the only one skiing that line.  Headed up C6 right when it opened at 10.  Surprisingly hard and lumpy under the new snow (avie debris?) and that coupled with marginal visibility made for a no-repeat.  Kept waiting for the cloud sitting on top to clear, but it never did, instead keeping GV clear.  One thing to note about GV...the chair was running about 70% speed.  When I asked the operator about it, he said if they run it full speed, it randomly shuts down due to sequencer issues.  Even the white board at the bottom stated the chair was running slow to keep it from stopping.  Princess lot was maybe 1/3 full when I left.  Didn't look at the other lots, other than there was a lot of RVs in B lot.  

We were there also for our opening day for the season. The morning was very nice, one of our better opening days. There were a lot of areas that gave up untracked turns. You did bottom out on some uneven crud here and there and there were some hidden rocks which I managed to find. The visibility was it's typical white out to OK and everything in between. There was no wind to speak of. The steeper faces of Lucky Shot did get scraped off between the moguls down to an ice layer later, so if you're going tomorrow, watch out for that.  As CD said, there was no grooming except on the beginner runs at the bottom.  No lift lines anywhere even for the morning ride up on the gondola.  The Campbell basin lodge was open but only on the wing that is right by the bathrooms, the rest of it was cordoned off. There was no food service but at least you could sit inside and eat your snack.  We also bailed on Chair Six as it was only Powder Bowl and the visibility just sucked when we were thinking about going up there.  There are no parking shuttle buggies this year. Instead they have shuttle buses which are a real pain. They are hard to get on and off, the roof isn't high enough for you to hold your skis upright when you're sitting in your seat and there's only one door so when it gets to be crowded it's gonna be a cluster. A mountain host said that it had something to do with liability issues with the old buggy system. B lot was maybe a third full. C and D lots had just a smattering of people. It was cold but not too bad. All in all it was a fun day.

Quicksilver Chair was having about a foot of untracked powder until about noon!
It was super-duper as there was a soft deep groomer base with no worries about the cover underneath.
Quicksilver also has the advantage of going up within the shelter of the trees and the trees/snow guns provide extra visibility on stormy days. 
Slow, peaceful and like having your own private chair lift as no one seems to go there.
There are 2 and half decent pitches there with no flat out run.
I did one run up on Forrest Queen, realized it was a battle up high, went directly to Quicksilver as it was a happy place to stay.
In the afternoon huge winds came up and there was wind refill, but it became very cold with strong winds coming up hill and in your face. 
 
 

Quick foot wrote:

There are no parking shuttle buggies this year.... A mountain host said that it had something to do with liability issues with the old buggy system.
 

The shuttle buggies went away because somebody told the State about them and since the CM road is a state highway, those buggies aren't permitted vehicles.