November 3, 2005, Crystal

Since Crystal was opening on Friday thought I'd check it out before the hords.  Started skinning from the car with a couple inches on the ground.  That soon changed to a foot plus by the time I reached the cat to Rex.  Wind was really blowing and there were drifts easily a couple feet deep.  I made it to top of Iceberg where I could see absolutely nothing.  With temps in the 20's, 40 mph plus, stinging snow, and total whiteout I just rode the cat track down most of the way.  Track had couple inches to foot plus on top of tank tread.  Once I veered off onto the main run things got crazy deep.  Never really saw the tip of my board or anything below my waist.  Once the slope petered out I was hiking to the neariest track, whether snowmobile or cat.  I was able to board to my car which was now covered in 6 inches of snow.  It was some real variable snow up there.  For the most part killer powder but lots of windloaded layers.  I did find some instability on steeper (about 30 degrees) windward slopes just above the cat track, as I had to traverse around a broken down cat.  Didn't release easily while skinning but once I stopped and hopped it released about 6-8 inches down to a strong wind crust.  That's was on a windward slope.  Couldn't imagine what it would have been like on lee slopes.  On the way down I saw 4 cars that had left before me in the ditch.  Here's to a start of a good base!