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3/14/10 Very special sunny day with no lines. Details at http://web.me.com/snowind/Site/Kkz_Ski_Blog/Entries/2010/3/14_Sun_and_More_Fun.html Kkz

3/13/10 The mountain is recovering nicely from slush and freezing with some new snow. CD's summary is good, more details at http://web.me.com/snowind/Site/Kkz_Ski_Blog/Entries/2010/3/13_Crowds_and_Fun.html Kkz

03/13/10 Went to bed last night not feeling very well, but figured I'd head to the mountain today and blow it out. First warm up run with LD down Lucky Shot confirmed a good choice to go skiing. Snow like we haven't had in quite a while and a welcomed change. Met up with the Z's and headed for Northway for the second run with Penny Dogs being the choice. Very nice with lots of new snow. Headed for round two down Bruce's Bowl where LD did a header. Slow going from there on down only to find a 20 minute line at the bottom. Same at the bottom of GV, so out Kelley's Gap which was only skiable on the trail. Back to Rex to find the left lane of Rex was a 15 minute line because it went from 10 wide to 4 wide. Bad gate setup. Next time, hit the right side only 4 across and it was a five minute line. I have to say, biggest Saturday crowds I've experienced this season. I thought ski schools were over, but lots of special events today. Started making runs in Bear Pits, Outer Ferks, and chair line. All great with the nod going to BP. Heard the lines on six were bad, so didn't head that way. Plus, couldn't time the fog quite right. Seemed to be the only part of the mountain in and out of fog. Weather was a little bit of everything, except no wind or rain. Some sun, some snow, a little fog, and a little hail once. By noon, the crowds on Rex were gone, so tried to rack on vert due to low vert morning cause of crowds. By 1:30, dog tired and realized I still wasn't feeling very good, so called it a day with less than the CD vert minimum. 26.7K CD

03/11/10 A day that just kept getting better. Started out with 2 or 3 inches of new which only really worked on the low angle slopes, preferably north-facing. South facing all had ugly crunch underneath plus pretty bad wind effect up high. There was some wind early on in the day, but it quickly died down; still Crystal couldn't seem to find the wherewithal to get chair 6 open. Northway was open though, and as the snow piled up, coming down hard pretty much all day, steeper and steeper slopes got better and better. By 1:30 Northway Bowl (skier's left) and Morning Glory were turning into geniune powder skiing with only occasional bottoming out on the old hard stuff. Very light crowds all day. Friday could be great if 6 opens up, assuming wind and warming temps don't do it in. JG

03/10/10 Another one of those up and down days. Cold temps, only a couple of new overnight, but that helped the 8 from the previous two days. Found some good things, any north facing slope was good and better than recently, any true south facing slope didn’t get enough to make me jump in – especially based on what I heard others doing. Went out Northway for the Amigos, since it had been closed for two days, good things and bad things and something were deep, but it was a slow cold ride back so I only went out once. Today was a particularly short day since I’m leaving for three days up at Blackcomb this afternoon. Crowds where very very light, Pay lot trying to be full, C and D had some cars in the lots, only 5 HHW buses. Have fun the rest of the week…a little heavy wet new snow will only make things better. ddk

03/07/10 Just an echo of DDK's post. A most excellent spring morning was had. Coverage is still pretty much 100% and the snow was just starting to slush up a bit when we bagged it at 1. TomK

03/07/2010 Lucky nice start to the day based on all the nasty prognostications I read about for today. Glad the timing must have been a little off (as usual this season). Must have been a good thing for me, since the forecasts must have kept the crowds down and the lift lines mostly non-existent today. Blue skis cool early, but very smooth grooming on Lucky and IceFerkberg. Valley Bowl skier right was nice from the start. Powder Bowl skier right was pretty much the same as every other day, big carveable bumps in places and smooth styro/chalk in others. Did one run out to Hamburger with SMS. Good but still firm with are early traverse over there. There was enough early sun and radiation to soften the front side of REX. I think any semi warm day will now soften the front side. The gully between Sunnyside and Memorial was super soft. Sunnyside and Showtime very nice soft bumps. Lucky Bumps nice early afternoon – anything to stay off those high speed relatively crowded Lucky Shot groomer runs. Muscles definitely were starting to feel three days in a row, so quit early before I made the CD minimum. But I finally broke the 2 million mark today with 60 days at Crystal. The A paylot made a big effort to almost be full, B lot maybe ľ full, C D and E lots all with lots of cars. Another great day. ddk

03/06/10 Pretty perfect spring day, big blue skies, views from Hood to Baker, great not to hot temps (just right), great early screamer runs down Lucky and Valley bumps (very nice) to IceFerkberg. Lots of Powder Bowl runs. One big King Braindamage trip! Lots of run runs on the front side of REX in the afternoon. Some short lines on REX, little more on FQex when we passed through there, no lines on High Campbell. Almost a perfect day. Pay lot actually almost full, B lot 3/4, C lot mostly full, cars in D and E. ddk

3/6/10 An excellent spring ski day with a trip to The King. Details at http://web.me.com/snowind/Site/Kkz_Ski_Blog/Entries/2010/3/6_Game_ON.html Lowering freezing levels will not be kind to today's snow. Kkz

03/05/10 Great day all in all, good high speed groomers early, very nice Powder Bowl – mostly skiers right side, Green Valley (skiers right), West Face, soft spring slush on the lower parts of REX (will be a lot better tomorrow based on random forecasts), I did actually like the lines I took when I suffered doing a couple of runs out Northway with the amigos. I especially liked the bumps under the chair at the bottom – half and half icy/slushy fast, fun. Lots of nice easy bumps skiing everywhere else I skied bumps – I do really like that. Good company today, big views. Sorry I missed you again QF. No lift lines, some cars in B and C. ddk

3/5/10 Another Powder Bowl = Good, not much else day. Tomorrow should be warm and soft. Details @ http://web.me.com/snowind/Site/Kkz_Ski_Blog/Entries/2010/3/5_Powder_Bowl_Plus.html Kkz

03/05/10 FRIDAY, Well a mixed bag day. The good- Nobody there, only three buses, SUN SUN SUN. The bad, the front side sucked and it will take quite a bit of skier traffic to make it skiable if it goes off. The OK, the usual north faces were just that, only OK. Green Valley was a bit crunchy and beginning to form scrapy trough moguls, Snorting Elk was a fast, fast groomer down the center, skiers right the bumps were nice, grubstake entrance again had the scrapy big trough bumps, but both beat just bombing the groomed. Powder Bowl is starting to be worn down. A bit clumpy here, a bit firm there. and the bumps are rising. The troughs between the bumps all over the mountain are getting bobsled like- forcing one to ski them instead of taking a more direct fall line. The best snow of the day was directly under the Throne. Take the traverse all the way to the tree line then down from there. This still had nice winter snow. The traverse out was about as good as it gets , for this year anyway. Fast and not to bumpy. I made three trips out to the South Back gate without poling. What made it all worthwhile was good company in the sunshine. QF

03/03/10 Big day, flipflop on what I thought the weather was going to do – started with lots of sun and blue skies, 5+ inches of surprisingly good quality snow on north facing slopes, Valley bowl great early, Powder Bowl even better (got first line untracked off the top center). Nice grooming on Lucky. Door 4, Breakover to REX chair line and Sunnyside all nice deep smooth heavy new powder – the Coombas made it all easy (really starting to like those big wide planks, now that I know they are also good in sun baked stuff). Sadly there was not much wind today, so foggy clouds moved in and limited our options. Valley was the best vis during the early afternoon. Temps seemed to drop sometime mid afternoon, so anything that had any sun during the day started to get kinda firm packed stuff. Sun popped out again after 2:30, but the temps definitely had cooled. So after a lonely quiet day at Crystal we finally bailed. As usual the pay lot was way over optimistically large and empty, seemed like there might have been cars in B and C lots. Think I saw 5 or so buses. Very nice day. ddk

03/01/10 Went up today based on the last three days (and even this mornings) forecast for big sunny blue skies and warm southerly winds….hhhmmm....as usual this year it did not turn out that way. Filtered sun (made for nice vis all day), big south east winds, but at least warm temps and the wind direction was pretty much straight up REX. I was the last person on the early rush on CHex this morning – 3 chairs behind TomK and was right behind the other old geezers heading up REX, where I spent the entire day making gerbil runs, since no one was around to force me to do Northway and since High Campbell never opened – regardless what the Crystal web site indicates. It was exceedingly painful looking at Powderbowl all day in perfect light conditions and not getting a easy ride up there. So had to suffer Bearpits main center line which was soft and skied out enough, Lucky Shot bumps skiers right – upper face nice Green Valley quality, lower face nice slushy spring bumps. Lots of Green Valley bowl to IceFerkberg. Grooming on Lucky and IceFerkberg was very nice and smooth – plus the sun made both very soft and carveable. Set a vertical decent record for me going down IceFerkberg today, don’t think I’ll be able to bump that number up much more on the Avocet. No crowds, no lift lines, very few people to ride the lifts with, but I did ride with a pilot from Lufthansa which was very interesting. Don’t remember any cars in the parking lots other than the A lot, no buses. Lots of vert. ddk

03/01/10 Crystal > Snoqualmie. :-) Got up there for first chair on Chinook Express along with 3 other early rising geezers. They headed up REX, we went to the Queen for first tracks 3 times while they dealt with the wind up top. Spent the morning enjoying the groomers where the snow lent itself to high speeds and good control. The sky was overcast, but with higher and thin clouds, so viz was pretty good. Blustery up top, so Campbell never did open, but there were so few folks out that we never saw a lift line. Not a bad day at all for end of April. Too bad it’s first of March :-( . TomK & Kerry, and Chad.

2/28/10 Another Powder Bowl day with perfect views. Details and Pics @ http://web.me.com/snowind/Site/Kkz_Ski_Blog/Entries/2010/2/28_Hard_to_Soft.html Kkz

02/28/10 A last minute change of plans for today allowed me to go skiing. Figured I'd surprise KKZ and DDK at the mountain. What's this? No DDK. Hmmmm. It was overcast upon arriving at the mountain in spite of a 7:30 Crystal update saying it was mostly clear. Everything was frozen due to the warm temps yesterday and the groomers were very hard with some funny waves in them. No edge to be had in Iceberg. So, the usual. Lot's of runs in Powederbowl early with an occasional GV and suffer down Iceberg. KKZ hooked an edge in Gandy's at high speed and crashed hard. Not only did he loose his skis and poles, he fell so hard his gloves flew off his hands. You don't even see that in the Olympics. Really rung his bell and he wasn't 100% after that. About 11:30, the clouds cleared and we got some warming making Iceberg tolerable. By 1:30, clouds were back, so made two more runs to get the CD minimum vert and left. Also, no crowds in the lodge this morning. Very weird and no crowds on the slopes until 10:30 or so, then there were hordes. Did a good job avoiding them most of the time. CD

02/26/10 Wwwhhhooowwww! Lucky for me (and JD, BB and Ferd), didn’t think the 5am report (or the telemetry) sounded to bad. Driving up the blvd looked grim though, rain all the way to the flats but snowing pretty hard above the bottom of Lower Northway. Was thinking it might be a “pay the dues” kinda day. Luckily it wasnt. Bad day for Crystal Mt. expectations, pulled into the A lot at 8:15 and got parked in the old helipad/truck parking…and I was really only a couple of rows back in the free part. Hugh pay lot expectations! Typically way to big. Lots of early morning bombs going off, fair number of folks waiting for CHex to start loading – 8:50am – line gone at 8:55. First couple of runs down the Doors – kinda wind blown on the very top(duh, check the wind gusts last night and today), but was blowing from the East – very good thing, no lift impacts anywhere – surprising. Poked around pretty much everywhere, found really good deep cascade powder on all the lower parts of Chair 6 and REX. Oh did I mention I was on the big Coomba’s today – praise the lord for that, made today very easy and nice. Suffered a couple of runs out Northway for JD and BB….dang those were two mighty fine runs – but it was kinda wet at the bottom of NW, so we stayed high for the rest of the day. A few runs in the Valley – all untracked, a few nice Sunnyside runs for JD – ouch nice, OuterFerks ( saw Mr Ferk at the top of REX, he was having lots of fun). Did runs in Bearpits and K2 (!), few of the lines off chair side on High Campbell…did I forget anything? Probably, all was fun on the big skis in northwest untracked pow. Lots of wet gloves and stuff. Might be good tomorrow, but will not be as good as today – expect for maybe Southback. Left at 2:30, pay lot mostly empty, C lot maybe ľ full and B lot had some cars in it. No lift lines today. ddk

02/24/10 The snowy days are back…plus the wet snowy days. Incredibly small crowd for even a Wednesday. Snowing good quality stuff early, groomers nice and smooth with the new, but vis was limiting early. Did mainly Lucky early with short burst onto the edges, then a few Valley runs – good in places, but did not poke around to much. Did a couple of be nice to spouse number one runs on FQEX and then a very tasty Teriyaki bowl. Relative good vis appeared during the 12oclock hour, so did a couple of runs on High Campbell – number three and below the Throne. A little firm under the new on #3 but very nice under the Throne. Next Powder Bowl – got the first line off the top – would have been pretty perfect if the vis had just been a little better, but it was still a pretty cool trip with the new sliding snow below me. Spent the rest of the day up in the Valley – a little higher and cooler, but still pretty wet on the chair ( the lift opps on REX brush the chairs the lift opps in GV sit on their bu..ts in the shack…hhhmmm). Vis was in an out, snow quality was good and getting better every run. Snowed most of the day. Gloves got pretty wet today. Quit kinda early, based on feeling kinda sick and the wet conditions. Didn’t make the CD minimum vert…dang….oh well. Pay lot empty as usual, B and C lot totally empty! Still a nice Wednesday – my season every Wednesday continues still. ddk.

02/22/10 Aaaahhhh, finally the day I’ve been waiting for – at least based on sunny skies and no new snow for a while. Light crowds, light winds (from the southwest!), warm temps, Hawaii shirt conditions! Yee Haa!. Started with cold feeling temps and screamer smooth runs down Lucky and Valley bumps/IceFerkberg (talked to Steve F.and wife at the top of REX for a few minutes in the afternoon– very nice with the big views today). Finally decided on a PB run around 9:45…very good but the bumps are getting pretty big in lots of places, still found some easy styro smooth down the center of the bowl. Temps were perking by 10am so decided to check out some of “our” main lines off High Campbell…my oh my…what a bonus. Numbers 2 and 3 and all the trees between, just smooth and skied out enough, plus warming sun made for much fun. Pattern from then on was a couple of runs off Chair 6 side and then a Powder Bowl run back to REX for either a Sunnyside or chair line run. Sunnyside was easier with smaller bumps and very nice slush. Bumped into a long missed friend – Kelly and got introduced to the private party spot! It was very nice on a warm sunny Hawaii shirt kind of day. Lots of rocks on top of Chair 6, but the lift op was working very hard up there to move some snow around…many thanks. Only parking lot that had any cars was A lot. ddk

02/21/10 To add to the other reports... last run south to drop below 3-way had wind-affected "crust" surface that became tricky sun-crust in the flatter areas below ... a disappointment. Some north aspects in the trees lower down had unexpected very nice sugar snow. Frzlevel sunday seemed even lower than saturday, with less wind, which made my one attempt under rex at 1pm a nasty experience except for a short section lower down that did soften. Monday is probably the frontside day... we got jipped! RB

02/20/10 Gorgeous spring day (in February!) and Crystal Mountain was not all that it could have been. The snow was firm pack and very scrapey with lots of bare spots in the lower elevations. Lower Kelly’s Gap Road ate my skis. Queens run and Down Hill and Mr. Magoo were good to spend the day on. Snorting Elk Bowl was also not too bad, except where everybody funneled through the narrow bit towards the bottom and then it was ice city. Lucky shot was all scraped out so not too much fun on it. Called it after 4 hours due to legs being really tired trying to hold an edge on the ice. Kerry & Nick

02/21/10 Another dang sunny terrible day on the slopes….big views, blue skies, fairly light crowds on REX (almost lines on FQEX), no lines on High Campbell all day and I was glad of that…since PB (no W) was definitely the inbounds run of the day! Bumps were bigger but the snow was all very nice packed styro/chalk/something. Lots of rocks getting off of the top of the Queen, but not to bad. Sadly the front of REX never got spring soft, but IceFerkberg was trying (skier left). Main groomers off of REX got pretty skidded out as the day progressed – all nice early. Fun day with the core amigo group. Ready right now for tomorrow (based on it being a Monday and Kkz says it will be the day we’ve been waiting for – at least for spring skiing). Pay lot almost got full, B lot was maybe ľ full lots of cars in C….Great day. ddk

2/20/10 last rpt fm RB.

02:20:10 front side half way down softened a bit but didn't get soft top to bottom like we wanted. North exposures like Pwdr bowl were nice. Last run pinball continuing down spine off king old pow and exci ting. Try again tomorrow.

2/19/10 I'll chime in kinda late here. Friday was excellent, on 2.5 runs. Powder Bowl, Green Valley Bowl, and Showtime after noon (with hyper speed runouts down Iceberg and Luckyshot. Pics and Video at my blog http://web.me.com/snowind/Site/Kkz_Ski_Blog/Entries/2010/2/19_Powder_BowlDay.html Sunday looks good as well and will be posting again tomorrow. Kkz http://web.me.com/snowind

02/19.10 QF....I try to wait to post most days...not....check out Kkz blog - pretty easy to find with a google search...he does lots of pic's that should give you some idea what we look like. I'll try to pay attention based on your descritpion. Will be up with most of the crew on Sunday morning before the lifts start rolling...and in the same places most likely during the day on sunday as today...at least for me. Lookin forward to seeing you. ddk

02/19/10 As usual DDK beat me to the punch. Ditto ditto ditto. Only thing to add is followed the sun across powder bowl. The skiers left chutes were nice. Under the Throne was also nice. Tried the farside of Iceberg and out to Upper Bull as they are usually the first to "go off" on a sunny day, but ended up traversing back to Iceberg. What do you guys look like anyway? I'm suprised we didn"t trip over each other in PB. Me- look for an old guy wearing a red Elmer Fudd [ baseball cap with ear flaps] hat. QF

02/19/10 Dangit Janet (sort of mild version of Rocky Horror line) another crappy, lousy, blue bird sunny day skiing a limited number of possible runs for the hamsters!!!! Three runs mostly – Powder Bowl to Lucky screamers, Showtime REX chair line (sometime late morning to afternoon), Valley Bowl to IceFerkBerk (nice to see Steve F on top of High Campbell during one of our many passes). Didn’t have to suffer Northway or any GV runs and I was to weinnie to head out to the King with JD – dang it….suffered a upper M-World right to lower Sunnyside gully once – oh well, and then another lower Gulley area between Sunnsyside and M-World below the early season road – I was happy and thought it was worth a yee haa. Had lots of fun doing our main repeat lines of Powder Bowl and REX chair line – at least 6 or so PB runs – “perfect packed pow stuff, Valley bowl was also very nice easy packed powder and the groomers early this morning before the small crowd showed up were all super fast and very smooth – glad I’m old and easy to please! Thanks to the Z’s and JD for a nice day in the sun. As usual there was to much parking saved for the pay lot (??????? How surprising), rest of A was full, cars in C and some really widely spaced rows of cars in B lot. Had no lift lines on the chairs we did, maybe a few chairs wait on Forrest Q. Sounds like I get to take a day off tomorrow (hope its not to nice), so see you'all on Sunday. ddk

02/18/10 Sorry for the wordiness of this report...if you dont want to suffer the whole thing then the basic info was that today was very nice and tomorrow should also be very nice if you dont pay attention to the forecasts....REPORT - Waited extra long for CD’s post (so he could fess up to a bad pick and I could drive the Spitfire around for some late afternoon sun – that part was very nice). Had a lot of big Anticipation ( Rocky Horror ) for some big warm sunny Hawaii conditions today – sadly I checked the telemetry late last night while watching that danged delayed Olympic NBC coverage – my oh my big huge winds out of the east gusting into the 50’s, plus the extra bonus of cold temps….please CD call and cancel for today….luckily he didn’t, cuase the day was mighty fine all in all. Started with boiler plate off piste (not skier packed per the Crystal phone line) and luckily much better grooming on Lucky and IceFerkberg (not very icy today), plus very much better conditions in GV bowl. I kept lookin at PB, but CD had some big thing going for a run out to the Zen zone of Northway???? Oh well its his wife and kid and I’ll suffer it once….Zen zone was very zenny but the rest of it was pretty much kinda Chainsaw Massacre….glad we survived. Spent the rest of the day doing what I knew would be good, multiple PW runs!!! Excellent! Even better than yesterday. Lots of REX chair lines runs, big bumps in the center of the skied out line but nice soft easy slush on the sides. LD and cd (young D) had big days skiing big runs and lots of them…anyway long winded report. Today was great, tomorrow should be good enough. No real lift lines, but probably more than a normal Thursday. Pay lot empty as usual (whats with all those rich folks), B lot pretty empty, some cars in C lot. ddk

02/18/10 Based on the forecast for light winds and 60 degrees in Seattle today, left for the mountain early this morning with visions of Hawaii shirts later in the day. Arrived at the mountain to those darn easterly winds blowing a good 30 mph. Clouds were blowing over the east peaks threatening to blow fog into Crystal Mountain like so many other times this weird season. Luckily, that didn't happen, so was clear skies most of the day and bluebird by the end. Sunny slopes were horrible, but the groomers were good as was GV. Feeling cocky, I convinced our party to head out Northway. Huge mistake and one I don't deserve to live down for quite a while. Back in bounds and over to Powderbowl. Very nice. Campbell Basin side not as nice. About noon, we noticed the wind starting to wind down, so DDK bravely suggested a front side. Knowing it couldn't be any worse than my earlier suggestion of NW, we powered into chairline. Woohooo. In spite of the wind, the sun had warmed the snow. Many round trips. Ended the day with a run out Kelley's Gap as Amigo jr. was with us (mid-winter break)and had not skied it before. About like Northway. All in all, a good day except for two runs and will be great tomorrow if no wind and the front side warms again. 37K CD

02/17/10 Spring kicked into gear today, looked like a Hawaii shirt day early (even the telemetry showed that), but the east winds picked up in the late morning to slow the slush cup. Still good enough to soften IceFerkberg and REX chair line (lots of folks doing it), but I spent most of my time doing laps on Powder Bowl – plus one run out to Hamburger, would have been okay if more folks had skied it). Grooming early was eye rattling spring hard pack, but Lucky and IceFerkberg got pretty nice after the first hour. Small crowd today for mid winter break holiday week. Good coverage everywhere except for the few rocks at the top of Chair 6. Big views from Hood to Baker and very blue skies. Hoping for more warm temps and light winds over the next couple of days. A lot almost full (cause the pay lot was kinda small), not may cars in B lot. ddk

02/15/10 Big day, thanks to the Z’s for finally paying a few dues on Sunday…it made today really great. Expected cloudy skies and frozen bricks, got blue skies and soft left overs from yesterday. Light crowd for a holiday Monday, good groomers on my first couple of runs – Lucky and then Valley(nice soft packed powder) to IceFerkberg. Then a door and Sunnyside, both very doable, but would have been even better with the Coombas. Powder Bowl looked good so headed up there. Powder Bowl was also very nice, Bearpits was a little more challenging (as was Outer Ferks), but I decided to head back up to check out the Campbell Basin side!! Chutes 1.9, 3 and the other side of the gate on the Throne, all good, even better was Rabbit Ears! Have not done it in a long time, it was worth two untracked runs – smooth with soft lumps down below the Ears. Another Powder Bowl run and I then spent the rest of the day being lazy doing Valley/IceFerkberg and Door runs till things started getting a little grey around 1:30. Would have been a great day if JD had been around to drag me up the King. Easily made the CD vert minimum. No real lift lines on Chair 6 or REX, might have been some lines on other lifts. Pay lot was as usual very spacious and empty, B lot was ľ full, C, D and E all pretty full – so there were a few folks up today. Lookin forward to some warm sunny days starting on Wednesday. ddk

02/13/10 Good cascade pwdr mid mtn up. deep in places. Thick lower left angle. Skied mostly northway. Rained at base all nite with snowline visible around 5K feet. expect thicker snow tdy. RB

02/12/10 Was trying to outwait CD and Kkz for their reports…oh well…Snowing most of the day a kinda wet snow fall – especially at the bottom when we ended our day. Snow quality was variable on the upper parts we did, but improved as the day progressed – very nice the last couple of hours do to better visibility and what felt like colder temps…not sure about the telemetry info (?), looked pretty cool all day, but it did not feel like that during the morning hours. Lots more new snow than expected, but definitely Cascade Powder, my legs were plastered with snow pretty much every time I got to the bottom of a lift. No crowds, no lift lines on REX and GreenV, only lifts I ran today. Will have to wait for other folks reports about other lifts. Found lots of really deep pockets of untracked in various places and a lot better conditions than I would have expected. Doors pretty nice, Bearpits very good, Valley bowl excellent when the vis was good. All in all a great day with the ski amigos on my big b-day. Thanks SS, CD, JD, Kkz and Az for a very nice social and suffering our first every break in the fancy food place at the top of REX. Tomorrow will be great if the temps don’t spike to high, or its not to wet. A lot was kinda full, B lot sort of half full, C lot had lots of cars. ddk

02/10/10 Another not exactly as expected day…nothing much unusual about that this year...5am report clear sky’s and cold, driving up I had visions of sugar plums and sunshine in my brain….reality in the parking lot, pretty thick high overcast with possible filtered sun breaks. Other surprise…parking close to the sphincter of the A lot???? at 8:20….what day of the week was today? Crystal parking management was expecting a lot more folks (or buses and cars) than actually showed up. Still had more than the normal buses – 14, but the rest of the lot reserved for the other no shows was pretty much empty…oh well…made the empty chairs and no lift lines much more enjoyable. Groomers would have made the Blue crowd very happy today again – if they would just show up. Based on some early filtered sun and the grey clouds off to the west did a PB run around 9:30, kinda grey flat light the first time, but the vis improved greatly during the 11 to 1pm hours when I did a couple more PB runs. Snow in PowderBowl, GreenValley Bowl and Bearpits all very nice – though the bumps are starting to get big even for me at the bottom of Bearpits ( or at least the long slider turns some folks do). Was snowing pretty hard at 1pm when I was bailing for the day – since I had made the CD minimum. Did one foray out to Upper and Lower Exterminator – per Kkz for the betterment of the skiing public – would not recommend it for most folks – only part skiable (barely) was tight to the trees skier right and even that was tough. I don’t expect anything on the south facing slopes that is not groomed is skiable right now…will take at least a foot or so to recover. ddk

02/09/2010 Blue sky, nobody there, perfectly edgeable groomers and soft in Powder Bowl. Cooler than usual temps and very few skis on the snow meant everything stayed good all day - even Iceberg, top to bottom. JG

02/08/10 Finally, at least for a while this morning….big blue bird sunshine, incredible packed powder groomers – for the groomer crowd, were where you all? One or two new on top of the one or two from yesterday, nobody on the lifts or slopes (only A lot was sort of full…pay lot was the not full part. Missed having JD today…would have gotten to do the King if he would quit working at the Lazy B….Please quit!....Did Powder Bowl loops early morning while the vis was big. Otherwise I was a nice spouse skiing the Valley, Snortbowl to Kellys Gap and lower E…just to make up for Saturday…it was all still good. Lots of Valley IceFerkbergs with alternating Lucky Bearpits runs. Checked out Showtime and Sunnyside (Sunnyside was for the REX lift op - Trevor). And for the crazy M-World folks – pretty nice all in all, would have been even better with the Coombas, but I never had time to actually make it out to M-World….maybe Wednesday. Best place for me today was definitely Powder Bowl untracked to various Beapite lines – Kkz’s, my fav, CD’s fav main line – all good, though the bumps are starting to get pretty big on skiers left of Bearpits. Conditions are as good as they have been all season….wish I was not going to be a Ant tomorrow…but will make Wednesday and Friday. No lift lines at all today...kinda have missed doing Mondays! ddk

02/07/2010 Very, very light crowds - never a line. A couple inches of fresh overnight followed by mid-late day mountaintop showers made for better than expected skiing. Skied the groomers in the morning. Iceberg to Deer Fly worked particulary well for the first few. Visibility started out ok, then deteriorated as the fog spread out. Early afternoon trip down Powder Bowl felt good, but no idea what it looked like. Green Valley seemed to escape the fog in the afternoon, so multiple trips down Grubstake (under the chair) were good and stayed good with occassionally intense snowfall. With the increasing fog and afternoon Superbowl, crowds dropped from light to nil as the day progressed. JG

02/07/10 date fix

1/7/10 The fog controlled where we could ski again today but found some good snow. Details @ http://web.me.com/snowind/Site/Kkz_Ski_Blog/Entries/2010/2/7_Where_Is_Everyone.html Kkz

02/06/10 Ditto CD...and my comments - Another day another couple of hamster vert. Didn’t spend to much time on the fringes, a few runs out Northway to satisfy some folk – heard big things from Ferd about MorningGlory – vis was nice when we where out that way. Vis was definitely in and out in the core area off REX and looked kinda tough out south – but we never went out that way to find out. Only real lift line was at the bottom of GV when we returned from Northway – so we did Kelly’s Gap and lower E instead…very okay! Best places we did – GV various lines especially the main bowl, a couple nice IceFerkbers, lots of OuterFerks and Bearpit runs, Bruce’s Bowl, Lucky Bumps (sweet and easy). Worst run we did not do – probably M-World – thank the lord. Not many rocks or hard traverse lines today for us. Pay lot and B lot almost got full today, pretty full C lot. But again if you’re a hamster on the treadmill of REX it was kind of a no lift line day. ddk

02/06/10 The weather patterns this year must be driving the forecasters crazy, because they've had difficulty getting it right. Today was no exception. Instead of broken clouds and light winds, we had the moderate E/SE winds again today. And that just blows the fog into Crystal Mountain. The early runs were not too bad for vis, but by 11am, pretty fogfull and just darted around the mountain wherever there was a hole. Never got into Powderbowl due to fog. A couple of runs back in Northway were pretty nice, but not as good as the day before. In fact, GV, BP, and OF all pretty equivalent, so went back to core area for most of the day. Crowds were a little heavier today than last Saturday and at 11 when we hit the bottom of GV out of Northway, there was a good 20 minute line, so out Kelly's Gap. Lower E was surprisingly good. In fact, the Gap was pretty fun. Quit a little early with just over 30K. CD

2/5/10 One of the best days I've had this year. Sunny and Powderfull. Details @ http://web.me.com/snowind/Site/Kkz_Ski_Blog/Entries/2010/2/5_North_and_South.html Kkz

02/05/10 Glad you had a big day at Crystal QF...even more glad we had a big three days at Blackcomb!....ddk

02/05/10 Friday WOW, what a bonus day. The report said another 3" of new and the weather man said cloudy am, then partial clearing, then cloudy pm. Wrong big time. We got there and instead of our usual warmup rum on REX we did Rolling Knolls. On the way up Forrest Queen , got a look at 6. Only a few tracks and it looked pretty good. It turned into a bunch of laps on the front side and a bunch more in Powder Bowl. Lots of untracked and comments like- that was really good lets do another, and another. Oh Yea and the really big bonus - it was sunny. A few clouds blocking now and again but otherwise BLUEBIRD. Bluebird and NO LINES. Got the stoke-o-meter way of the peg on this one. Eat your heart out DDK . [though maybe Whistler was good ] QF

02/04/10 For the guy who thinks this website is a waste- take a hike pal. Went up to 4" of new, 3 of which fell overnight. Arrived a bit after 10am to clear blue skies above the summit. However by the time I reached the summit, the 30+ mph winds had pushed clouds over most of the mountain, making GV a total whiteout. Headed to Northway for first run, where vis was considerably better. Dropped into door 4 at Paradise Bowl, thinking the north aspects would be better protected from the solar pressure of the previous days. And while it was, the boilerplate was still under there. Fortuntately with the wind direction the 4" was more like 6" so it wasn't too bad. From there headed into the trees which was great. Stayed on Northway for 4 runs, hitting Bruce's Bowl, then the trees off Otto Bahn by O Meadows but never made it to west side of the chair which could have been pretty good. Poked into the Bear Pits next, where the new snow again was piled but the hard and large bumps underneath dictated where and when you turned. Made it up to Campbell Basin for a spin but found that even underneath the Throne the hard layers underneath made it only really skiable if you went fast and stayed high in the new layer. After heading down (Powder Bowl was a whiteout so skipped) and heading all the back up and over to Northway then down to bottom of GV looking for something halfway decent, I headed down Kelly's Gap and called it a day. All in all one of the worst days I've had this season... despite the new snow. Perhaps the 3" they got last night will help, but they're going to need a lot more than that to fix the problem of the 'skier-packed' underlayer. What a difference a year makes! PTUX

02 05 10 I know this this the first report of the ski season what a pathetic web site why bother?????????????????????????

01/31/10 Last day of January report...Great day all in all…expected kinda marginal conditions based on the way the snow felt late yesterday…but another inch or two and fairly cold temps overnight allowed for some fairly nice snow conditions over most of the areas we skied today up high. The big limiter today was the in and out foggy conditions. Powder Bowl would have been awesome…if you could have seen any of it…so sad…especially since I’ll more than likely miss the next good day there. Best places most of today was close to or in trees, even then it was tough sometimes. No real lift lines again today. Valley bowl vis opened up big time at 2pm, wanted to stay up there and ski big soft bumps, but I had just made the CD vert minimum so had to quit and head home to get ready for Whistler – that will be my place most of this week. Again pretty surprised about the parking lots (except for the ľ full pay lot – barely), B almost full, C and D and E(?) all full….where are all those folks spending there time? Snow quality is probably the best of the last month or so or longer. Still a few rocks in the bad wind impacted spots, but everywhere else things are pretty nice. Groomers should make that crowd very happy. ddk

01/30/10 Very lucky me, that CD called Friday night…I had thought about taking today off…glad I didn’t. Lots of the runs we did today were better than Friday, the new snow really improved things. Powder Bowl was by far the best, smooth untracked the first couple of times we did it. Door 2 to 3 and 4+ were actually pretty good. Very nice vis early, but sadly during the lunch hours it really socked in which limited our run selection. Suffered another run out Northway today, snow was good, chair ride was slow and long. Only lift line we ran into today was GreenValley on the return from Northway. Valley snow was nice and found some really deep left over pockets. No lines on REX today. Lots of rocks poking out at the top of GV and Chair 6, but easy to dodge. Parking lots all full down to E (even the pay lot was pretty full), don’t know where all the folks were. Thanks again CD for making me go, and Ferd for the company. ddk

01/30/10 Cleared Enumclaw at 6:45 to very little traffic up to Crystal. Parked in the front row of A-lot non-pay. Seemed like a long wait for the lifts to open at 8:40. Most of the concerns from yesterday on KKZ ski blog were taken care of by 1 - 3 inches of new snow that helped a lot. GV good. Powder Bowl and Bear Pits the best. 3 cycles early with one rope line thrown in for good measure. From there, poked all over the mountain with the worst being lower M-world, but DDK nailed it. Snowed off and on all day and about noon it got foggy and started snowing harder. You could feel the snow packing in because it was wet, but didn't require goggle wipes, so not too bad. Quit at 1:30 with 31K. This was my 14th day of the season averaging 31.7K/day. A good day with DDK and an unexpected Ferd. CD

01/29/10 Heard the 5am report…didn’t sound to good, warm 33 and pretty good southwest winds, but luckily by 8:50 when we jumped on CHex the winds had slowed down, there was no precip, the vis was very good, the groomers where fast smooth and sweet for old folks. Next bonus was after I dropped off my pack the Z’s agreed to a Powder Bowl run!!! After one Hamburger try we got to cycle three very nice Powder Bowl runs – very nice. Then I had to be nice, so out to Northway – figured it would be okay and Northway Bowl and Bruce’s Bowls were both very nice, but the big groomed ski out to the bottom and the long chair rides led to some quick Green Valley runs – very nice – and then back to bigger Bearpits and OuterFerks runs (did see and talk to Mr. Ferk on our first run out Northway!). Vis was kinda marginal for a while mid day, so a lot of BP runs. Saw a little vis, so we managed to get another PB run – still nice. A little clearing around 1:30 allowed for some nice Green Valley bowl to IceFerkberg runs…wanted to do another PB, but the legs started to die. Was snowing ice balls pretty hard late up high, raining at the base. Only rocks I saw were getting off the top of Northway and High Campbell - but they really were not to hard to get around. Great day all in all – as usual, whats new about that. Thanks Z’s for the company. Made the CD vert requirement again. C lot sort of full, a few rows in B lot, no lift lines. ddk

01/27/10 Another day that was not what was expected, more sun early, less sun mid day, but sun came back for the afternoon, colder all day, more east winds than expected, better snow quality (but still sun impacted on the south slopes), lot better snow on north facing areas – Green Valley Bowl, Northway, Bearpits, Powderbowl!!!!(best), Throne rope line to Southback – all good. Groomers I did were perfect early – Lucky and IceFerkberg – fast and smooth. Sunnyside and Doors a little more challenging. Very typically light Wednesday crowd. Good to have JD back on the slopes, did great for a short day. SS still weak from being sick, but getting better. Few cars in C and B lots, but no lift lines today. ddk

01/25/10 Didn’t plan to go today…but “relatively” big overnight snowfall drug me out of bed. Great day of boot top to knee deep Cascade Powder, frenzy very efficient crowd pretty much cut up every place very rapidly this morning. I was lucky on the Chair 6 opening, managed to get a couple of runs in before the line got to big (short lived line), crowd really was pretty small – except for the fact that it was a Monday. Lots of very warm sun mid day, south slopes will be impacted by it, North slopes best, Powder Bowl was good enough for 5 cycles. Snow was getting heavy and pretty cut up by the time I left. Used my Crossfires today – they worked okay, but the Coombas would have been better. Legs and body pretty tired after the last 5 out of six days skiing (and driving). Day off tomorrow to get ready for HHW Wednesday. B lot had some cars, C lot kinda full, A lot pretty typically normal (except for the big pile of snow in the front). ddk

01/23/10 Easily one of the best days of the year. 5 trips to the Southback, 1 Hourglass, 3 3Way--each exit chute, 1 Nat Geo. Each run got better and better. Cold -- Snowing hard at the end of the day. 2 pitchers Pike Kilt Lifter - Snorting Elk Cellar. Life is good. dmg

01/24/10 Another day like many this season, early promise for clear sky’s and nice packed pow…but clouds and big winds moved in before the lifts started loading…oh well, like other days had to suffer a hour or so of slow REX and then even though the winds kept up (at least they were from the right direction) everything started to click. Hard snowfall filling in everywhere we had been earlier and it was pretty much doing that all day. Thanks to Kkz and AZ for a nice chase around the front side of REX today. Snow quality was improving all day, felt cold. When I did my exit run down Exterminator (first time ended that way for this season) it was dumping and looks like it is continuing right now. Might be changing my week plans. Tomorrow might be the day. No real lift line issues today for a Sunday in prime season. If your sitting on your hands trying to decide whether or not to go….stay home…it will leave more for me, Paylot had good number of folks, B lot was maybe ľ full, C full….another great day. ddk

1/24/10 Dumping Pow this afternoon for a great day, probably better tomorrow. Details @ http://web.me.com/snowind/Site/Kkz_Ski_Blog/Entries/2010/1/24_Big_Changes.html Kkz

01/22/10 More Friday. Yes, it was a fun day. We rated it a good solid B. Run of the day was definitely Powder Bowl. Chair 6 under the Throne also good as was the north face of Green Valley from just below the Warming Hut Bistro. Paradise Bowl and some of the other usual North Back areas were also good. The Doors were very skiable but getting scraped of in spots. Same could be said for Grubstake. Visibility was pretty good with filtered sun. No wind and no lines! QF

01/22/10 Whhhoooo Hooowww…what a day, especially since I had the pleasure of the company of two long missed ski amigos…one very sick one that did it up big early and one who filled the afternoon in very big. What can I say, everywhere that has been good the last few days was even better today – no wind, more sun, light crowd, good fast company, big runs, new suggestions that I had not picked the last few days….!!!!! All very good. Early morning easy poking around with gradually more entertaining lines. Then a few runs out Northway (first for me this season????), nice but the groomers and long chair ride out there made me pine for some real hamster action. So late morning back to High Campbell and….line .8 to 1 skier right of chair 6…very nice especially down low! But for me the number one run – drop of the top of Powder Bowl center line (big new wind drift in there) to a very easy high speed smooth center bowl run to the bottom…then a quick right hook out to many fine Bearpits lines – all the way over towards the old chair 5 line!!! Fun stuff over there – thanks Trevor! If you’ve been waiting for good conditions….dont wait anymore, everything is pretty much the best of this year (except for M-world…kkz?), groomers awesome, off piste great!....can I please go again tomorrow? Lots of buses in A lot, a few pay lot folks, a couple of rows in B lot…C lot??- I might have not been paying attention at that moment. All in all a very very nice Friday this season!. Thanks Kkz and CD for a really fun day. 120k last three days….(ps check TAY web site for some Bandit photos for today. ddk.

01/21/10 Yee Haa, another big day for the squirrelhopper (aka grasshopper)…looked really tough early with the little voice in my ear about big nasty winds on top and REX running almost painfully slow for the first hour…but the snow was good in the places I did yesterday, GV chair was running a little faster early and lucky for me the winds finally slowed down around 10:15, High Campbell opened around 10:35, REX started running faster and the hamster runs were in overdrive. The snow quality on the higher parts of the front of REX were a little less nice than yesterday, but lower down was better with the new snow from last night. West Face was deeper, skier right of Valley was very sweet as the vis improved and the winds decreased. Door 4 area early was pretty good, Sunnyside for JD and Trever (sp? the REX lift op) was very nice all in all. IceFerkberg was better than expected the one time I did it. Lucky Shot trees great. Heard that it was nice out in NorthCountry – lots of grooming? Sounded like best out there was Bruce’s Bowl down. Best places today for me – Breakover to lower Showtime, Powder Bowl to Bearpits (no stop runs! Lots of hard breathing) – did it four times! Twice with a new good skier friend – will try to meet up again tomorrow. Sunnyside and late runs down the Door 3 area, Outer Ferks and the oh so nice Bearpits – all the way over to K2. Had a couple of good runs with one of the lift op’s today and lots of good conversation. Only bad things noticed was a lot of rocks and ice at the top of GV chair and lots of rocks showing at the top of Chair 6 chair line. Everywhere else conditions are great! The next three days should be awesome. Looked like it would be a low vert day early, but ended up with another 40k+ day. Only lot that had cars in it was A lot – and there were not a lot of pay folks up. ddk

01/20/10 Big great windy day (CD would have liked), nice smoothed out packed powder over most of the upper mountain with 2 or 3 soft new something down on the lower slopes of REX. Best places – skier right Green Valley Bowl, West Face (fairly deep untracked areas in the trees), Grubstake Trees, SunnySide (for JD), Breakover to lower Showtime (skier left of REX chair line), Doors 4 area, Lucky Shot trees, OuterFerks to Bearpits!! Spent all day repeating most of those lines. SS was skiing really big and fast today, didn’t want to quit. Snow surface quality was even more enjoyable than last weekend…it changed my mind about going tomorrow and the fact that I missed out on Powder Bowl, since Six was closed most of the day because of the big winds….did I mention big winds…check the telemetry…lucky it was the coming out of the southeast…perfect direction for big east winds when there is good snow. Vis was iffy high up early, but improved as the day progressed, was even some sun late when we had to leave. So if you don’t have to go to work tomorrow, or are feeling a little sick, I would recommend skiing (I will be), if the weather is no worse than today then the conditions should be great. Biggest vert day since the last 40k day with CD…a long time ago. Pay lot as usual – pretty empty, 8 buses of HHW’s, most of the rest of the lots empty…dang…ddk

01/17/10 Many powder turns in various northback areas. Flat powder after the hike was great, and various un-nameable lines navigating the cliff areas mostly untracked and not too rocky. Went too slow for patrol doing sweep on last run, so arrived to closed northway chair. Had option to ride up to waiting patrol who wanted to cut our tickets??(so said lift-op) or ski down lower northway which we did instead. Nice snow until last pitch which was bushy but passable. Low elevation snowpack hurting bad and the horse trail back to northway road probably bare which limits options going far north. Overall great snow and minimal lift lines. RB

01/17/10 Ahh what another great day of real Northwest pow, heavier and wetter than yesterday, a few more wet goggle wiping clouds mid to early afternoon, very nice boot top deep new on REX early and a small enough crowd to not cut it up to soon. Doors to Lucky Shot trees where the early ticket, with some runs into the valley early before the valley crowd hit. Pretty much a ski anywhere kind of day. Best for me was the bonus of the low Throne gate being open – really unexpected, thankyou ski patrol – just past the rope line back to the chair was smooth deep heaven (I’ve really missed doing that area). I imagine the folks heading out south were on an even higher cloud. No real lift lines today – what month is it on a holiday weekend? Snow quality down lower was getting pretty wet and heavy as the day progressed, but the Coomba’s made it all good. Sorry for most of the Ski Amigos missing probably the best two day sequence this season. Got some sore leg muscles now. Parking lots were full all the way down to E lot…well the Pay lot was not totally full. Great day, lots of powder vert. ddk

01/16/10 Lucky for me I made plans to carpool today – thanks Big Bob…I still had sympathy sickness (I felt pretty marginal this morning) for kkz…sadly apparently he was sicker or he listened to Justice’s early morning Crystal report. CHex started loading at 8:35 (???) and the crowd was pretty small and slow this morning. So with the 5 to 6” (at least) new up on top it was a race around and try to beat everyone else. Untracked areas lasted a lot longer than normal since both High Campbell and Northway opened in the morning spreading the crowd. There was wind effect on the upper parts of Showtime to Memorial (and probably Upper Bull) – not as deep and lots of hardness under the new. But anywhere lower down or in wind sheltered areas the snow was great Northwest Pow (not Utah). Spent all day pretty much doing mostly Doors and Lucky Shot trees, plus Bearpits , with a few M-worlds mixed in. By the time I finally clicked on, I was to beat up and tired to bother poking around further out. BB and Ferd did do Powder Bowl a few times and said it was great, also a run out Northway, good in places but still marginal at the bottom of the lift. Never any real lines on REX, but most of the parking lots were pretty full down to E – except of course the pay part of A, but that was fuller than any time this season. So Crystal should have been happy with the turnout today and I was happy to not stand in any “real” typical January weekend lift lines. Sorry no news about the Campbell Basin lodge soup nazi today (see tay). ddk

1/14/10 thank you ddk for the updates. much appreciated :)

01/14/10 Worse than hoped for, but better than expected based on the early morning Crystal report (report was 1in, but partly cloudy, light winds….hhhmm). Reality was greyer early, more snow (4 to 5 in lots of places), firmer snow under the new, still very light crowds, good grooming, some almost sun late morning, Chair 6 running and Powder Bowl open, not enough rocks and stuff on the traverse out to Hamburger, Valley Bowl better than yesterday skier right and even better as the day went on, front side was not as nice do to the firm lumpys underneath, PB and BP had some dangerous lumps, didn’t have to do a lunch break. Some of the bad, having to follow a construction convoy from the Greenwater fire station all the way to the Crystal access road (state patrol lights flashing all the way) at 25 to 45 mph randomly. A few minute wait leaving do to one way road at the slide event…looked pretty serious. All in all a very nice day while skiing. ddk

01/13/10 Was hard getting motivated this morning based on the first two Crystal phone reports, especially since it was pretty wet in the parking lot at 8:30 when I arrived, but I could see the snow line on the trees on the upper part of the mountain. Loaded CHEX at 8:55. It was snowing at the bottom of REX with about 3 to 4 inches new. Today was a hunt around kind of day on REX, not so good in GV bowl when the vis was bad early, better on the bottom half of the front side, lower M-world very nice and deep enough, Lucky Shot trees very good (protected from the winds on top). Winds on top? Check the telemetry! I was sort of surprised that REX kept on running with some of the big gusts. Clouds parted at 10am and it was sunny for the next couple of hours – very pretty looking at the King and Queen. This was the bounce around and try anything that looked good. Pretty heavy/wind blown northwest powder with hard snow on the top of the mountain, pretty nice soft snow down low. But around 12:30 the winds really kicked up, grey clouds started flowing back over the mountain, the snow was starting to firm up and I called it a day when I reached the CD base line vert. No lift lines today at all…cause the A lot was not even full. Hopefully more new snow will fall tonight. Lookin forward to tomorrow. ddk

01/10/10 Arrived for the PM shift as others were leaving front row a-lot parking. Surprised to find soft snow on memorial for the first hour, and soft enough snow and bumps on left side iceberg once you got down the first 200'. Cycled these two runs until closing, then did a lower E down the headwall for thrills and found some softened snow there too. Icy below that. Lower deerfly for last run which softened nicely. Had low expectations which were exceeded. RB

01/10/10 Not the expected day based on forecasts…this season I would not base much on forecasts! Early sucker hole of sun sadly faded away by 10am with fairly strong east winds and fog rolling in. Thought it would be a really short day based on the 10:30 REX line rush and weather conditions…and it was still a pretty early quit day- 1:30pm or so - but the crowd was very light, the groomers we had to do held up better than expected (except Northway Bowl – sorry AZ or CD on that pick). Luckily I was not involved or around in the Showtime pick – except I did find the last 100 ft very sweet and did it a bunch of times. No lift lines except for a little bubble at 10:15 to 10:30. Did mostly Lucky with a some IceFerkberg’s early…had to check out the lower mountain when we lost the other amigos – ended up on Dearfly – not recommended till very late in the day….I found a few short burst of spots that made me happy – what is new about that. Noticed that the main amigo pack left around 12:30 just as I (and spouse #1) where starting to really find our fav lines (and the small early crowds had disappeared). Sun and temps (check out the telemetry) started spiking up….but we still ended the day around 1:30…I could have suffered a few more runs in the late sun. A parking lot almost full (including most of the pay lot), C lot full, B lot ??? half full. Lots of sun when we pulled out of the parking lot. Just enough vert to beat the CD avg. Day 30. ddk

01/10/10 Only thing skiable today was firm, somewhat icy groomers. Anything off piste was frozen solid glop. One run down showtime under Rex chair line was a mistake. It never warmed enough to soften the snow in spite of forecasts to the contrary. They need new snow or temps in the upper 30s, low 40s to be able to ski anything off groom. Northback and High Campbell both closed due to the conditions. The only real positive of today was low crowds on the hill. Quit at 12:30 with 29.6K CD

01/07/10 Aaahhh…..visions of soft slushy bumps and Hawaii shirts were in my brain this morning based on last nights weather forecasts and the 5am Crystal report… but it was not to be. Big winds in the lowland past Mud Mt. Very pretty sunrise. Sucker view of Rainier with sun on it just past Greenwater, but very grey skies in the parking lot and even greyer skies at the top of REX in all directions at 9am, plus some pretty good winds and cool temps. Luckily the crowd was very light, the grooming was a whole lot better (made for some very very fast runs). Sun finally showed up at 10:30 to 12:30 for a little heat and some extra improved vis. Quit with a full day of vert. Managed to find a very nice soft super smooth run heading towards Windy Pass. So for the packed pow crowd…tomorrow probably will not be pretty, unless it is very warm. ddk

01/06/10 Based on reports here and on TAY – I wish CD had come through and made me go on the Sunday…and that I had been up for the 4th and even the still wet slop of the 5th (based on a couple of lift op’s and the visual evidence of the front side of REX). But had to wait till today (trying to do every HHW Wednesday of the season…so far so good - maybe)…but it was by far the worst day of the season! Even for a half full glass kind of guy. Marginal grooming on the steeper slopes – to be expected, except for IceFerkberg which was still smooth enough and carveable with the Crossfires when the vis was good (glad I did not take the Coombas based on the 5am report and expected conditions). Anything off the groomers would have made the Powder loving folks squeal with pain!....even made me hurt the one very short trip through some of it. Temps felt colder than the telemetry would indicate, might have been some of the fog that started flowing in mid day. Saw promises of a sucker hole sun shine early and when also when bailed at 1pm. Groomers should be a whole lot better tomorrow, a little more sun may make some of the off piste stuff skiable – but I’m not counting on that. The new snow the last few days on the top of the mountain should cover the last of the rock situation in most places. Crowd was super light…duhh…but more A lot buses than usual. Only lot that had any cars was the really the free part of the A lot. Lowest vert total in a long time, but we quit pretty early. Based on forecasts I’ll probably check out tomorrow. ddk

01/03/10 Mostly agree with QF (except for northway grooming!) but want to add that low elevation cover is really hurting (though upper stuff OK). I discovered a closure line across the entire face from below ermas (left of niagaras) and across the entire left angle area depositing you at the last hairpin of kellys gap road. Since I missed the signs I ended up in lower left angle in one of Rogers tree-cuts where the snowpack had reduced to bare ground in spots under the trees requiring stepping. HoChi was still OK but getting spotty in places. Would not recommend lower left angle now. RB.

01/03/10 SUN. Was riding up the Northway chair talking to some dude and he rated the day a good solid B. I gave it a B+ cause I didn't wait in a line all day. The snow was pretty darn good in a lot of spots. Northway was GROOMED in the mid reaches. Some super grooming guys lowered a winch cat down spook hill and got rid of all the ruts and bumps in the middle of the run. It made doing laps a whole lot easier. grooming stopped just before the last ugly spot, but what the hay- an A+ for effort. Good packed powder/ crud in lots of spots. You just had to stay off of the usual scraped off spots. REX had a very small line. Good snow on Doors, Old Sunnyside, Memorial. Visability was OK. Even got a Powder Bowl run in, had it all to myself. A few snow flakes falling here and there, Was warming up as I left. Hey DDK Line Prophet 100's also rule on days like this. QF

1/2/10 A couple really good days, Nice to be into some good snow again. Details @ http://web.me.com/snowind Kkz

01/02/2010 Big fun day for the 01022010 day (can read the date in both directions). Pretty big crowds, and other than a few unlucky mistakes on picking where we were (right words and spelling?) going at maybe not the right time – all in all not to bad of a lift line day. Though Forest Queen was ugly when we skipped past it…and heard variably bad reports about lift lines on chair 6….also that the lift was having some uphill capacity problems. We ended up spending most of the day from Bearpits to M-world, with runs down the Valley when the vis was good…and the lift lines were not to big…Did have lines on REX for the real first time this season (especially for the 10:30am rush), but still not to bad. Snow was great for the big fat Coomba skies today…oh they are so easy…. Lookin forward to CD makin me go tomorrow (?)…Pay lot almost made it full…and everything else full with a few cars in the F-lot (ouch)…Parking lot guy said they had a new high number of cars for these season – 2500 – that’s a couple of people…ddk

01/01/10 Yee Haa, a very nice surprisingly good first day of 2010! Looked grim early, raining in the parking lot at 8:30 (we arrived at 7:40), but white stuff was falling at 8:55 when Chex finally started loading. Snowing wet hard at the bottom of REX, snowing hard pretty nice cold snow at the top in GV at 9:10, and only got better as the day progressed. Perfect transition from boiler plate to smooth new soft. First run down Elevator door 4…hhhmmm better than expected. Only got better. Snowing pretty much all day, light crowd for the lift lines. Only neg was that 6 never opened – winds just a little to gusty – check the telemetry. Bearpits, Elevator shafts(doors), Valley trees all good and getting better all day. The hard crust was there in places that lots of folks skied, but it was easy to avoid. The worst part of all the above was the bottom hundred feet of REX across the front to BP’s. Lookin forward to tomorrow. Parking lots – pay lot almost made it to full, B lot might have been half full (except for all the RV’s – more than I have ever seen), C, D and E lots pretty full with over night folks. ddk

12/30/09 Another shoulda coulda kinda day….for those that did not show up. Two to six inches new made for pretty good conditions if you had a good idea of where to go. Good grooming early, but scrapped off on the steeper slopes as (Lucky and IceFerkberg) the day progressed. Very much fun in the Valley early, Powder Bowl late, Bearpits (kkz line very nice, plus others), rope line gate off the Throne very nice– should have gone down to the lake, but I just cycled back to the lift through the trees. Wanted to get one more day for the 2009 year, so will probably and today was a nice way to end. Will probably wait till Friday to check out the big new snow and year. Crowds pretty big for this year, at least on Forest Q – lucky to be running the single line. No line on Chair 6 and not much on REX when I was doing it. A little filtered sun early, very grey when I left at 2pm. Pay lot fairly full, B C D and E lots all full. Crystal must have been happy today. ddk

12/29/09 Another nice sunny morning with light crowds and screaming good groomers, plus good bumps in Green Valley bowl and very nice snow in Powder Bowl – at least the wandering line that I have been doing down it. Seemed like a cold day, winds on top, plus filtered sun at times. Really greyed up around 12:30, which got me to leave a little earlier than normal. Never any lift lines, though I did usually have someone on the lift with me (except chair 6). Everyone I talked to was having a great fun day. Lucky and IceFerkberg were getting pretty scrapped by the time I left – not enough heat to soften them. Watched a guy from Ohio bounce and slide most of the lower half of Showtime/Rex – skier left of the chair…he probably was not having so much fun when I saw him – patrol was not to happy having to sweep the slope of his stuff. Lots of folks doing Powder Bowl. Rocks are finally starting to pop out at the top of the Powder Bowl. Views were big again today…hopefully for the last time for a while, forcast indicates some precip!. Pay lot might have been half full, B lot half full, C kinda full. All in all a great day for number 24 with 30k and ľ of a million for the season….what a hamster/grasshopper I be….ddk

12/26/09 Another cold sunny day, strong ridge top winds, very light crowds – no lift lines, good grooming early on IceFerkberg and Lucky Shot made for some very fast runs. Soft snow blown into the bumps of the main Green Valley bowl. Hard ice off the main runs. Talked the Z’s into doing Powder Bowl after my first run down it…they did not repeat…but I did after they left. Coverage off the top of Chair 6 is pretty good right now. Actually had some nice snow up the center of Powder Bowl from the winds. Big views in all directions from the top – from Hood to Baker to the Olympics. Quit early with lots of vert. Pay lot actually almost full for the first time this year, B lot about half, C pretty full. Great to be done with X-mas and back in the moutains – based on what I heard and saw about Friday – I wish I could have been up. ddk

12/25/09 Afternoon frontside session on softening bumps and old sun-warmed sloppy powder from earlier in the week. Breakover, sunnyside, memorial, LHS iceberg skied in that order. Telemetry showed 41degrees with no wind which was verified. Very pleasant up top. Uncrowded. Exceeded expectations with nice spring bump skiing. Found occasional old dry pow on north exposures but did not get into northway areas to assess how good north exposures in-general might be. TBD if tomorrow will warm-up enough and winds die down to re-soften as 11pm telemetry shows 31 degrees up top w/38mph E wind ... not good. Should re-assess tomorrow before heading up. RB

12/23/09 Today was a little more crowded parking at the end of A lot by 8:30. Still no real lift lines on the mountain. Crystal on their morning report was advertising wall to wall grooming which turned out to be true. For the most part, it was a good thing due to the hard conditions. Ended up finding the best snow was in Green Valley and the bowl was pretty good skiing with packed powder moguls and little ice. Stayed there most of the morning until we all took a lunch break at 11:15 due to SS’s birthday. The line at the bottom of FQ was maybe 3 minutes, the only line of the day. After lunch required a run down Powder Bowl which was good, but not any better than GV, so we headed back that way. IcyFerkBerg got nice with 4 inches of granular sugar sitting on top of the firm groomed, so alternated runs in GV, then GV to Ferkberg. All in all, a pretty relaxing nice time in the mountains with mostly sunny conditions. 31.4K today and 228K for the year so far. With 4 days at Whistler after Christmas, I’ll be looking at close to 350K before the New Year. Been a good year thus far. CD

12/23/09 Was hoping to just write ditto (better spelling than yesterday), but CD has not posted yet…dangit… Was a very tough day, sunshine, left over powder in places, very nice where it was smooth, pretty good grooming, but also some bad choices on some runs – Stakeholders (CD) and Bearpits (me). One PB run, okay but not worth a repeat at the time. Heard that the north side of the King was the place to be, but we were too lazy to do that. We did a lot of runs in GV, IceFerkberg, Luckyshot. Valley had some nice soft packed bumps (tops). Was ice in places….duhh. Crowd arrived late, but the lift lines really did not happen . Pay lot half empty, B lot 2/3s full, C lot full. Thanks to CD and LD helping celebrate SMS’s big day, sadly a snowboarder did the usual – running into SMS late in the day. ddk

12/21/09 Pretty much dido CD's report, cant add much - all he said was what I seem to be able to remember, only other point was that it was a hold lot of fun and a clawing/flying monkey kind of day (at least by my grasshopper standards). Its gonna need a lot of snow to cover up the lumps. Pay lot pretty empty, rest of A full, B lot mostly employees and cars in C lot. Was snowing pretty good when we left. Wednesday will be the next. ddk

12/21/09 Arrived at Crystal at 8am to rain and wind in the parking lot. Even though the pay lot was much reduced and we were in the second to front row of regular A-lot parking, got pretty wet walking up to the lodge. By 8:30, the rain started changing to snow and by 9am, it stopped with a blue sucker hole opening up the mountain. Perfect time to head for elevation. Only problem, REX wasn't open when we got there at 9:15. So, one quick run down FQ, then onto REX. First run down LS was same as FQ, really firm where groomed with 4 - 6 inches of wet snow on top. Next run launched into GV. The new snow was deeper, but lots of frozen carol heads lurked below the surface. Figured after we pounded it into submission for a few hours, it would get good. Ferkberg was OK; not great, not bad. Weather was great at this point as the wind had just about quit and lots of broken clouds and sun making up for the funny conditions. Then we found some good stuff starting with West Face. Then skiers right on the second face of GV into Ann/Dan's run. None of the carol heads were frozen and the snow was great for just stormin'. A kid told us Shareholders was good. Woohooo...Shareholders to old chairline. Awesome. Then C6 opened. Weather was starting to turn and it started snowing a bit. Shoot 3 kinda funny. Next run, cut the trail to rope line. Worth it. A great run, but it was starting to snow more, so headed to PB before it got fogged in. Too late. cloudy, snowing wet snow and poor vis. Too bad. The snow was pretty good. By the time we got back to the top of Rex, really snowing hard and it was very wet. Lots of goggle wipes. Stayed in GV until gloves needed to be swapped out. A little after noon, the temp dropped and the snow stopped sticking to the goggles. And, it was dumping. Took some runs down elevator shafts, M-world, Showtime, and B-over. If you could find places it wasn't skied, it was awesome. As soon as you skied it, it set up. Quit at 1:30. All in all, a day filed with everything and pretty fun poking all over the mountain and getting surprised by a really nice run where it wasn't expected, as well as some challenging runs where not expected. With a big dump of snow tonight, tomorrow should be good getting us set up for 3 days of cold and clear into Christmas. Back up on Wednesday with spouse #1. 30.7K CD

12/19/09 Tough start today, wet precip bottom to top, grey sky, wet fog, could have used some goggle wipers.…but nice soft spring snow…to soft in some areas like Bearpits and Memorial Forest….but doable on Sunnyside and some of the Elevator Shafts. Light crowd do to the weather…around 10am precip slowed down, spent a lot of time in the Valley – not so wet and better vis. Great snow coverage pretty much everywhere. Groomers pretty good and soft. Only went through two pair of light gloves. Had to chase off the Ravens…which were digging out my pack in the woods…will have to bury it deeper from now on. Good day with Big Bob and the Z’s plus SMS….better than expected after the first few runs. Half empty pay lot, B lot a maybe a quarter, C lot kinda full. ddk

12/18/09 Big day for a GrassHopper/SquirelHopper. Forgot that today was a holiday week for the Lazy B amigos…last year would have been me also, but this year – not!….great blue sky early, perfect grooming (even IceFerkberg), packed cut up (mostly) pow everywhere else, no crowds, lifts running, almost Hawaii shirt kind of day (did get to sun glasses and fun gloves – could not quite drop the coat due to some wind action on the lifts). Skied Elevator shafts, Showtime, Sunnyside, M-world and had some fun runs down PB/BP ( my line in Bearpits). Rocks off the top are still there for the PB entrance, but better than last time I was there. Traverse across to the Throne was very nice, no rocks and pretty easy. Went over mainly to check the low Throne gate (got a sign now at the gate to Southback) – as expected sign indicated that the gate was closed…hhhmmm…folks skiing the Throne and the King for two days at this point – 10:20am…but the avie danger was still to great (per comments from one of the ski patrol at the top of 6 ) to open the gate to “Mighty Fine Trees”….might have a gate but I suspect it will still be pretty hard to get through it when its open….ski patrol suggested I traverse out to the low point in the hike to the King and traverse back…yyyaaa! That’s the ticket. Anyway after that rant it was a great day, got pretty warm on the sunny slopes (even Bearpits) so things might be crispy. North facing slopes should be great tomorrow. Hopefully there will be lots of sun and heat. Quit kinda early at 1pm since my quads still hurting from Tues/Wedn heavy Northwest Pow days, and to save a little for the rest of the Amigos tomorrow. Looked like yesterday was a big day...Pay lot pretty much empty today, rest of A lot full, few rows in B lot and C looked pretty full, but I never saw a lift line. Lots of vert. ddk

12/16/09 Good day to be an unemployed grasshopper. Arrived at 8:30 am to light precip of the wet kind, but it was trying to look white. Luckily it was snowing from the bottom of REX up. Light crowd early allowed for plenty of nice untracked northwest powder. Heavier than on Tuesday, but the Coombas still made it easy. Did Elevator Shafts and Memorial early and then BearPits (very nice – kkz preferred line plus my entry left of kkz line – even better). Coverage is improving daily. Only went through two pair of light weight gloves today, less precip today, but what was falling and the winds filled in early morning tracks. Chinook was running on diesel today, REX seemed to be running normally. There was a rain crust layer under the new snow today, about a hundred feet up from the bottom of REX. Vis came and went as little storm cells blew through, but I spent most of the day in the trees. Only a few spots where scrapped down to the ice layer and rocks are disappearing. Pay lot was pretty empty today, rest of A lot, a few rows in B lot and some cars in C lot. ddk

12/15/2009 Skied with ddk and crew until they left for lunch so I headed for Northway. Paradise bowl had the best snow of the day. The trail down was reasonable but the snow got heavier and slower with the elevation drop. Second run on Northway was down the finger chute to Bruce's Bowl. I may have the names screwed up here, it was the steep little hill right under the chair at the top and into the chute with the old school wooden sign. Anyway, the chute was decent slide material with a good helping of new. Beyond the chute it looked beautiful but with the lower pitch and very thick snow, turning was optional. I headed back to Rex where the wind and lack of riders allowed some partial fill-in and some nice turns. I took one too many runs in BP and headed out about 2:30. bb

12/15/09 Missed the big day Monday…did see the cam in the afternoon….but spouse number 1 had today off….relatively big crowd early, we arrived mid week late – still in A lot at 8:20, going to have to get out of bed a little earlier in the future. Plenty of heavy Cascade Pow to ski early in the day – somewhat wet, but not to bad on REX. Temps and winds up high seemed to keep it cold enough…but I cycled through 4 pair of light non water proof gloves during the first few hours. Snow quality improved as the day progressed…M-World and Doors 2 to 3, plus a few runs out to Bearpits - very fun! For those folks that don’t like icy groomers….the front side of REX is very good now. Snowing hard when we left at 3pm, but raining at the bottom. Parked at the end of A lot this morning, but nobody around at 3:30. Great day all in all with SMS, Big Bob and Ferd….ddk

12/14/09 Kind of a bonus day. Wasn't expecting to go at all . Was going to hold out for Wed but when I checked the report at 6am and it claimed 8in of new snow I hit the road. Turned into an awesome powder and blue bird day. Boot top powder over mostly smooth frozen base for great turns everywhere. Almost no crowds. Looks like the snow is back!

12/11/09 Looks like whatever posting problems I was having are fixed…so the 11/05 post was actually 12/05…duh…post for 12/09/09 – super cold! No skin exposure, extra layers of clothes, hand warmers in puffy gloves, 2 degrees up top early morning…but no wind, lots of sun, no crowds so the groomers held up longer than normal, off the groomers – like GreenValley bowl – not to nice really, the winds early in the week must have been something, the bowl was all cut up with wind effect – lower bowl was still pretty smooth hard pack bumps. Fast groomer day with bumps in some places to work out on. A lot parking was not even full – the free part. Report for Friday the 11th – warmer, the crowd almost filled the A free parking lot, no wind, sun, good grooming, chair 6 open! So first ride up 6 was a Powder Bowl run….did not go back right away – it was definitely not soft – very firm carveable ice layer with a lot of wind effect varability at the top, got better down lower. Went back up a hour later to verify the first opinion, luckily Mr. CD’s voice was in my ear, so I did a couple long painful runs out to the Throne – actually not to bad only a few rocks at the top of chute three. Did main bowl and rope line, actually nicer hard pack in Hamburger and some nice carveable new stuff left over from Monday just outside the rope line off the Throne – lift op indicated reports of good snow in Southback. Some softening in IceFerkberg as the day progressed, it was nicely groomed early. Valley stayed boiler plate all day, but was smooth enough with the easy Crossfires (really like these skis – stable at high speed and carve the ice very nicely). Good couple of days this week. Lots of fast vert...ddk

12/11/09 test post

11/05/09 Very late Saturday report…warmer than expected and very light winds, but I wore extra layers and puffy gloves all day, also tried to protect my face for the high speed screamers down the groomed parts of the Valley/IceFergberg/LuckyShot. Grooming was good mostly, though IceFerkberg could have been a little smoother, but as the day progressed the sugar piled up enough to allow for some nice turns down the middle of IFB. Lucky the crowd was light, since the steeper groomed runs would not have been able to survive a lot of traffic and the light crowd allowed for a lot more fast straight runs than a normal Saturday. After many skeptical comments about the potential quality of Powderbowl (based on my previous report from Thursday) we finally went up around 11:30 just as the sun was finally breaking through the clouds and the temps were spiking for the day (almost felt warm riding 6 and REX for the next couple of hours). Best part of PB was skiers right off the top, after stepping over the rocks down the shoulder about 20 ft. Relatively smooth varying conditions of carveable snow that proved more than one trip would be worth it. Best places – center GreenValley bowl, West Face, main bumps in SnortingElk Bowl and of course PowderBowl. All in all another enjoyable day in the mountains for most of the small amigo crowd today, maybe not knee deep powder, but still very nice with the new super easy and sharp Crossfires. The grooming crew has been doing a great job of covering the rocks. Looks like there was a little new dust overnight, but the big wind today (Sunday) will be blowing it away…into some deep piles in some secret places. Pay lot half full (maybe), B lot a quarter full, C lot mostly full. Planning on next Wednesday. ddk

12/03/09 Went to Crystal based on the forecast…arrived late to not as blue skies as I was expecting…up-loaded CHex at 9:35 to a lot of high overcast – but recent experience says that after the leading edge of the front pass’s through…more blue skies will follow. So true again today. Spent the first hour cycling the main groomers off of REX/GV – plus mainly GV bowl to IceFerkberg – improving all the time (IceFerkberg skier left was pretty fun during my short afternoon) . Lucky Shot screamers intermixed during the day. All fast and actually pretty good grooming – except IceFerkberg which has not seen a cat in a couple of days…would assume tonight is the night – could be really fast straight lines down IFB tomorrow. Had one semi-straight line that clocked in at 2 ˝ minutes top of REX to the bottom - fast for me anyway, plus numiorous 9 ˝ minute cycles on REX. But the main bang today was when I was sitting on Chair 6 at 10:45 (how did that happen?)….and all of a sudden I was sitting on Chair 6 a 11:15 again just to verify the last ride….and since no one else was cycling PB, I was there again at little after 12pm just to make sure I really was having fun – I was! – Nothing like being a unemployed Grasshopper! If Friday has good vis then my first or second run would be PB! It was firm (ski patrol chalk, me firm styro), smooth in the wienie line – down the ridge skiers right – Kkz might make the main line chute look good….I did not try it…it was pretty narrow, but I did not see any rocks from the top. Not that perfect pow day!, but a fun screamer day in the bumps I skied. Pay lot was not even partially full…A lot was not even full today…where are all the hard core skiers? Oh it was not a big pow day and we might not see that for a while! Crystal grooming crew is doing a great job covering the rocks. ddk

12/02/09 Big cold sunny day, almost got down to Hawaii shirts, no crowds, only A lot full (free part), never had to wait to get on a lift…REX and GV anyway. Groomers great, good coverage in places I saw rocks on Sunday. Very fast conditions on Lucky and IceFerkberg. Valley bowl and any truly shady slopes had good hard pack carveable styro stuff….as least it was carveable with the new Crossfires. IceFerkberg got a little soft and was smooth from yesterdays grooming. Not a day for those that like a lot of variety. Skied up into the bottom of PB at some late point today, seemed okay, will have to try it tomorrow – at least once. Thanks to SMS for a great Wednesday in the sun. ddk

11/30/09 Sun- Addendum to DDK. The rock report. Coverage is still pretty good. The only bad spot is the top of Green Valley. Lucky Shot, Rolling Knolls, Ice Berg all OK Even Lower Bull Run is still good, we did it twice. The best snow quality was the upper part of GV, Right below the REX get off. Free advice for the week--If it is sunny, go for it. QF

11/29/09 Big day, especially since I did not have to pay all the early morning dues….wet foggy mist on goggles like normal by myself – had a couple of amigos along. Wet early, but not as wet as last Tuesday, snow was pretty good when you could see it. A inch or so new on top, which improved some of the early turns in places. As the day progressed, and dried out, our main line ended up being Valley to IceFerkberg – most often that was the best vis and IceFerkberg got nice and carveable smooth. Did a couple out SnortingElk way, luckily reasonable vis and lower down skier right in the trees was very nice – thanks AZ for that pick. Other picks for all of us had varying votes of goodness. No lift lines – only skied REX and GV – conditions improved as the day progressed with a nice sucker whole around the noon hour, plus a very big whole after the Z’s left - honestly! Had a couple of nice big sun breaks for my valley/iceferkberg runs during the 2pm hour. But the legs were fading and the snow was firming up. So after toasting the CD vert total the other day….I quit! Pay lot was huge this morning (big Crystal expectations) was half full when I left, B lot a third full (? I think) C lot mostly full. All in all a great day – thanks to the Z’s for suffering the early day pain….hope your not hurting to badly Kkz after that one bad hit!.....ddk

11/27/09 Hiked to silver basin 3-way entrance last run. ~6-10" good powder over firm layer, with avy debris and death cookies. If you avoided the death cookies and kept your skis flat the powder was pretty good. No evidence of instability. More powder needed! RB

11/27/09 Ditto CD - and here is my version: Another ugly day in the sun at Crystal. Boot top new, fairly heavy which was good cause it slowed you down on the steeper slopes. Low angle protected places best, till the sun baked the sunny slopes….IceFerkBerg…only sunny slope we worked today. Good social with the D’s – except for when CD got to pick some runs that I was pretty sure would s..ck…, like OuterFerks, Bearpits, Snorting Elk bowl – heard that the CD boys did PB (?) don’t remember hearing what it was truly like….though I did not see a lot of folks in it. Also heard that Southback was nice from the cute blond patrol lady. Rocks in the usual locations, but managed to miss them. No lift lines – at least no people in the lift lines – but a stupid immovable lift maze for REX that made everyone hike around to the back of an empty line. I have to send the head guy a note about maybe some intelligent/common sense gate management when there are no lift lines at all (multiple lift opp’s said they were not allowed to remove any gates). Snow conditions were pretty firm under the new. But you could find packed pow in the Valley as the day went on. Lots of very blue sky – not like last Tuesday. Pay lot half full, B lot half full…C lot? Sort of full. All in all a great unexpected (as usual) day after Thanksgiving. Lookin forward to Sunday…Lots of vert…ddk

11/27/09 Today exceeded my expectations. That doesn't mean the snow was good, but does mean I had fun. The first thing to exceed my expectations was the crowds. There wasn't any. Eveyone must have been out shopping. The second thing to exceed my epxectations was the weather. Clear, cold, and calm on top with a thin fog layer that hung around all day about 2/3 of the way down REX, but didn't really cause any vis problems. And on top, wow nice. As for the snow, about what was expected. 6 - 10 inches of medium light powder on top of boiler plate. They groomed early last night, so even the groomed was set up hard under the nice new snow. We kept getting suckered into places like outer ferks and bear pits, then regretted it. But, as the day went on, anything that got skiied a lot started packing in the new snow and smashing up the lumps underneath until it got pretty good. That included lucky shot, green valley, and icy ferk berg that wasn't groomed again this morning. ???? Actually, the nicest snow on the mountain was on icy ferkberg where it turned into smooth bumps covered with granular sugar snow. Very smooth, fast, and fun. So, lots of runs in GV and lots of runs down ferkberg with the occassional volley into various parts of lucky shot. The kids did a couple of runs down powder bowl which they reported as bad, but they did two runs. ???? Coverage must have been good as the bottom of their skis had no rock hits. With some new snow, it will be good. But, without a lot of it, you'll be sticking to GV and groomers. 31K CD.

11/25/09 What a huge terrible day. Would have been a really great day in late April or the middle of May…firm groomers early, very soft off piste on the sunny slopes, very firm crusty on any shady slopes and they stayed that way all day, so no main valley bowl or PB runs for us boys today. Started with Lucky and groomer Valley/IceFerkberg runs early – Lucky screaming fast and surprisingly smooth grooming, IceFerkberg a little firm early, but the groomer Crossfires liked it. Got suckered into M-world early based on some good skiers…and it was doable soft, but kinda would have been better on the Coomba’s or some other big fat wide planks. So we picked old Breakover entry into Showtime gulley and lower REX chair line – ouch! The frenzy was on! After going to Hawaii shirts and fun gloves – all was heaven. Sun early, one big grey band moved through as usual before the next front, but the skies where the “bluest skies you every saw in Seattle” for most of the noon hour and the afternoon. Pretty much stayed with cycling supper screamer Valley groomer to IceFerkberg (sweet soft) runs (to rest some muscles) and doing the Breakover/Showtime line (Yee Haa), with a Lucky mixed in every once in a while for variety. Incredibly fun day with CD – as both of us agreed, we could have done it alone, but the company made it great! Took one light rock ding somewhere and some edge nicks, but managed to miss most of the rocks out there – it was getting very ugly at the top of GV chair and some other spots where showing dirt. Biggest vert day of the season! Thanks again CD for a very nice social on the slopes…..oh ps no lift lines at all, no cars in any of the lots other than the free part of A….they saved a lot of space for the paylot folks this morning – they did not all show up today. What was the date today? ddk

11/24/09 Not a day for those folks that pay attention to the weather sites, or those that live for Colorado pow, or Utah sun…but very good for those like me with a very high pain threshold and a very low pleasure threshold! The day started with a pair of light gloves per hour conditions…drippy wet, but good vis (except for needing some wipers on my goggles) and a lot of great snow for the middle of May – hhhmmm. Was testing my “new” last year model of Crossfires, after the last two days on the big wide board Coomba’s. Crossfires worked great, but the Coomba’s might have made things even easier. Stayed high early (didn’t help with the precip) for the first hour or so, good easy deep snow, nice groomers, nobody on the slopes (duh!). Only bad spot was getting off of GV chair and cutting towards Grubstake…lots of rocks visible, but no real problem missing them. Valley to IceFerkberg was a great run today and sucked me in more than once. At 11:15 with a “dry” pair of gloves the clouds parted the rain stopped and my rock salt world kicked into overdrive. PB vis opened up (center line off the top was challenging due to the soft “spring” snow conditions), the middle bowl was great soft slop – boot plus deep, getting off the top was a big side step everywhere – very ugly. Stiff skinny ski’s cut up the PowderBowl stuff very nicely. A couple of runs down Bearpits – great coverage, could have used a few more folks cutting it up. Doors, Sunnyside, M-World, Vally/IceFerkberg runs all good and heavy!…didn’t notice anyone else trying them….but the crowd was “very” light today. All in all a big screaming clawing Monkey kind of day (ski amigo joke). Lookin forward to a little more dry sun tomorrow and maybe a skiamigo or two… Parking lots not worth mentioning….glad I got a season pass…ps heard that it was nice on Monday, but firmer snow, saw the cam yesterday afternoon. ddk

11/22/09 Oh well for any reliability in two day forecasts....Today was a trip. Cold, windy, slow chairs, windy, snowing hard all day, REX stopping often, improving snow conditions all day, great teriyaki at Campbell Basin lodge, great snow, cold, windy, lift lines that would not have been if it had not been so windy, big Coomba skis (they are nice), no rocks except for the top of GV, somebody buried in a avalanche below PB....lots of late afternoon blasting on the Queen and out Snorting Elk way. No afternoon lift lines on QV, did a few FQex runs since there was no lift line and the snow was good, but it was to cold to stay over there for us, we suffered REX for some nice Doors/Sunnyside and Memorial runs. Truck buried when we got done around 2:30. Pay lot half full, B lot 2/3rds, C pretty full, cars in D and E... Wish I was going tomorrow, maybe if weather does not go totally bad on Tuesday. ddk

11/22/09 Go tomorrow! Today was extremes of awesome snow but nasty weather and very slow chairs. Details @ http://web.me.com/snowind/Site/Kkz_Ski_Blog/Entries/2009/11/22_Extremes.html Kkz

112109 The report below--QF

11/21/09 SATURDAY A real fun day! No big lines anywhere, 5 inches of new fluff, pretty good Visibility and all of the upper mountain from midway up had good coverage except for the top of 6. The top of 6 was a rock pile . After the first run we took of our skis and walked down 50 feet or so on the traverse side to save the bases, but what you got was worth the hassle. The snow under the throne was for real pow, and south back was open. Powder bowl. GV, Snort Elk, all fun. Even the Lucky Shot moguls were in good shape. Finished of the day with a cold one at the Natches Tavern. Smiles all around.

11/20/09 Late report for Friday. Lots of whinning about conditions in the parking lot early in the morning....rain/mixed snow, high winds on top, possible wind holds, I'm only going to ski till totally wet....but as has happened on many days in the past - winds died down, temps droped, we poked around till we had found the best snow on the mountain....and pulled out another very nice day. Not many people on the mountain...heard that Igred was there - didnt see her. Rocks were popping out at the top of GV and Chair 6, but most places have good coverage. Good snow on north facing protected slopes from the big winds over the last couple of days. Should be good on Sunday. Skied the big Coombas...worked pretty nice. Thanks to the core amigos for a good ski. ddk

11/20/09 A good day with the amigos and a good transition of the weather and snow back to cold and snowy. Details @ http://web.me.com/snowind/Site/Kkz_Ski_Blog/Entries/2009/11/20_Transitions.html

11/18/09 Very nice day after the wet windy last couple. Was cold, sunny blue, smokey sweet snow kind of day, big winds at times – never to much of an impact, except I screwed up and missed PB’s two hour opening, dang!, I was a nice amigo for skier spouse #1 during the window when chair 6 was running. But other than that miss it was a great day. Could have had the big Commba’s today, but the old Axis XR’s worked fine. Not much sign of rocks – a couple of dings in odd places (getting off REX ). REX didn’t open till 10am so the first hour was boot top runs on FQX. Line up waiting on REX was so small that when I skied up there was no line. Front side went fast and the surprisingly warm sun cooked it all – will be crunchy on the sunny slopes. But the north facing slopes….hhhhhmmmm….sweet. Valley bowl!!! Ouch!! Great freefall conditions and nice and deep. No lift lines…nobody showed up today, free part of A lot was the only full lot. Might sit out tomorrow waiting for the worker amigos…..maybe. SMS had a great day and many thanks for the company. 34k ddk

11/14/09 Another great sunny day at Crystal. Enough new to smooth thigs out. Very cold early made for nice quality. Most of the ski spouses showed up today finally...so it was a big group. PB opened and I thought it was good. Sunny slopes got pretty baked and got crispy late. Crowd was early season okay...B lot 1/3 full C lot mostly full. No real lift lines on chair 6 when I was there. Lots of rocks, but no really bad hits for me. Thanks to the group for another big day. Pray for a bunch of snow after the big rain event on Monday. 31k ddk

11/13/09 Fri, the !3th continued BRING YOUR ROCK SKIS. All of the steeper faces on FQ had rocks showing through. The top of the Down Hill, mid DH and Rolling Knolls. The top of the main run in GV was especially rocky. as were the mid GV faces with a few at the bottom approaching the lift. Snorting Elk had its share also, with a big one in the middle of the traverse track getting out of the bowl. That last SN face was also bony. Nothing was groomed last night. Lucky shot held up OK but had its share also. Iceberg was kinda funky, crusty snow, flat light we only did it once. However, It was a fun day. The snow was very good, there were pockets of fresh to be had and the new snow that came during the day helped. Visibility came and went. GV was where it was at QF

11/13/09 Yee Haa...glad to be a grasshopper and a layed off Boeing employee...thankyou Mr.Boeing.... day started slow...front of the free part of A lot at 8am, wind hold on REX at 7:45 on the report...uh oh...but nice smoke easy wake up runs on FQEX and then arount 10:30 the good times on REX and GVEX fired up. Snow quality improved all day, super light crowd - couple of rows in B lot - empty pay lot, never wait to load a lift. Snowing hard mid day, cloud breaks early afternoon, meant good Valley runs intermixed with LS bumps and pocket of trees. Got my first chest hits of pow. Bonus day based on early look...glad I didnt check the "real" forecasts. Thanks JD and SMS for a great day...and making me stay at late as I did....and it was a friday the 13th! Yee Ha!!....32k ddk!!!

11/12/09 Very nice second day of the season….cold, sunny early, no crowds – good for me. Still very nice snow on north facing slopes….lower 2/3’s of IceFerkberg was not so nice…as I expect most of the front side of REX – got very sunny/warm. A few really nice tracks down PB from sometime late on Wednesday. Ski Patrol was continuing the process of putting up bamboo and rope. Valley was nice packed pow, but very rocky off the ridge top and even a few rocks below the GV traverse line. Late (12:15 for me today) the rock field I could see on the main entry to GV from the GV chair was pretty impressive. Any new snow over night – if its not a lot – will make things dicey early for those that are getting their first day. Did one valley run – only one because I got a 20 minute break sitting on the lift, till the snowmobile guru finally got to the bottom – it was nice snow, but I’ve already spent more sitting time on dead lifts than most seasons. I spent most of the morning building the LS bumps skiers right. Nice snow easy turns. Decided to save some leg muscles for the skiamigo spouses the next two days, so quit early at 12:15! Ouch! Oh well, still been up everyday that Crystal has been open. Thanks to Boeing for laying me off...when of the best days so far…22k ddk

11/11/09 Big first day. Sun, boot top new smoke, sliding on snow….holiday, big late arrival crowd, REX opening! Denise Whitaker from KOMO! Ouch, even better in real life! Great day for the 11th of Nov. Snow early was great, grooming awesome, off piste great pow. But crowds kept arriving, so spent more time than most “seasons” skiing C4 and CEX…actually only twice on C4…second time was a half hour sit – hate that chair…but snow was good along skier right in the shade….oh shade! Big warm sun pretty much baked the sunny slopes. REX opened around 2pm – after waiting in the mass at the bottom for 45 minutes – kinda felt like some kind of big powder day…wasn’t, but was good. Only did one screamer down LS – skier right in the bumps(?) was still nice untracked deep soft. But since I was thinkin about the next three days…decided to leave. Amazing crowd, lot A (pay and cheap), B and C all were pretty full, even cars in D and E. Big lift lines on FXQ most of the day after the late folks arrived. Groomers very nice today, but I missed the late day conditions on FXQ. Ready for tomorrow! 18k ddk

11/10/09 The winter life starts tomorrow!!!! Yee Haaaa!!!!

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