November 12, 2005, Crystal BC

Headed down to crystal with low hopes, with news of a thick crust.  Arrived at the parking lot around 9:30, lots of people skinning out of the parking lot.  We climbed out of bullion basin, passing three parties and then skied down the other side of the ridge.  There were quite a few tracks - we ran into about 15 people skinning up while we were going down.  Stability was so-so, so we dug a small pit and found what we had expected - about 10" of light powder on top of a thick crust.  There was no evident wind loading, so we went.  The top layer had no cohesion whatsoever, so slid off of the crust easily, but it wasn't worrisome.  It was pretty tracked out, and the skiing was marginal due to the crust...

in search of better turns, Jerry and I cut a skin track diagnoling south on the ridge, eventually ending up down the ridge above the hourglass.  Someone had gone down already, and the snow looked to be bonded much better, with much less of a crust evident.  On our way down, we ran into a party skinning up, who said the hourglass was pretty stable - the turns we had made thus far verified this, so we went for it.  Couldn't feel the crust at all!  1-2' of blower powder!  So we did another lap, and headed back to the parking lot.