Crystal - Dec. 5

A beautiful, mostly sunny day with nice views of Rainier.  Low crowds.  All the north facing slopes were effortless packed powder.  A couple of runs on the front side were good as well, but rocky.  Top of C6 is a mess and requires a lengthy side step.  Just when you think you're done, you're not.  The base of my skis can attest to that.  Bear Pits was bony and the only time I got some serious quad burn today.  However, they have cut a wide, straight trail out the base, so no more whoop-d-doos in the trees.  It's wide enough they can run a cat in there and groom the runout to Gandy's.  Neither were groomed today.

Heard on the mountain that ddk is sick with that nasty respiratory thing going around.  Patrol said they are down patrollers due to it.  Get better ddk.  We need more consistent condition reports.