On Sunday Crystal Mountain got 17″ of new and we had an EPIC time. One of my top ski days EVER*.
Ming and I were on the road by 6:25 a.m. and were there before 8:30. We thought this would be early enough to catch a first chair but no! They fired up the chair early. We will need to wake up earlier next time :(.
Here’s a view from riding up Chinook:
Our first run down under Rex was actually quite bad. The snow was variable depth with a definitive crust hiding underneath (I also started with my boots too tight). And then at the bottom of Rex we encounter a massive line and I started questioning not going to Steven’s Pass.
After riding up Rex we headed to Green Valley where we encountered another massive line, fortunately at this point Northway opens up and we get a GREAT run in. We dropped into Northway Bowl into literally chest deep powder.
Being one of the of the first down Northway, since it opened late, we had an epic run. Second run down we encounter a massive line. I took two photos of the line. Here is looking towards the lift:
And here are all the folks waiting behind us:
Some folks skipped the line and headed down on their own (read how on the Crystal patroller blog).
After waiting in such a line you may think you should either go to lunch or ski somewhere else, and many did. We did not. On our third run down we encountered no line and in fact didn’t hit another line at Northway all day. This one traffic jam scared every one away ALL DAY. Which meant that even on our last run of the day (note, we skipped lunch!) we were still waist deep in fresh lines. It was incredible! Run after run it was face shot after face shot. We were drowning in snow (by the end of the day we were both soaking wet).
Here’s a photo from our second last run:
And here’s a video of me loving it!
And one of Ming:
Now all fun must come to an end… At ~2:30 we got to the bottom of Northway to discover they had shut it down because of wind (read more about wind holds at Crystal), along with almost all the other chairs on the mountain. Unfortunately the only way down from the bottom of Northway is to pull a McGarty and post hole out or option 2, which is what we did. It took us about 30 minutes to get to the parking lot and get shuttled back to the base for beers and a late lunch.
More videos and more photos. Someone else’s blog post about the day.
*Matt’s top ski days:
- Today!
- Heli-skiing with Rk Heli Ski in Panorama, BC
- Last Sunday at Steven’s Pass
- Cat-skiing at Steven’s Pass
- Bluebird-skip-work-type-powder day at Baker a year or two ago