I flew to Seattle Sunday and drove Monday with Larry up to Crystal Mt., where we met Tseeb. Weather all 3 days in Washington was Great Gray North, so my only volcano views were on the Sunday flight. Mt. St. Helens:
Mt. Rainier:
Rainier is right in your face at the top of Crystal, but we never saw it.
I checked in with Larry when we got back from the Alps Feb. 4, and he said conditions were not good then. Decent Crystal skiing was all on the groomers and no one was skiing the all hardpacked off piste. But it has since snowed 4 feet, highlighted by a 2+ foot powder day Feb. 12 that Larry skied with Powderchaser Steve from Open Snow.
The new snow was well chopped over President’s weekend, but with Seattle’s record low temperatures the new snow has been low water content and skied very well. And with some refreshers the new snow was not packed down much except in the busiest places.
Temperatures both days were around 20F at the base and 15F up high. There was thick overcast with fog patches moving around the upper mountain. On Tuesday the next storm started with light snow around 11AM.
On Monday we warmed up on Ferk’s, then took the road from top of Rex to get to Paradise Bowl and the Northway chair, which did not exist on my prior in-season visits in 1993 and 2000. From Northway Larry led us along the ridgeline to Employee Housing, a 2,000 vertical fall line created by a massive avalanche taking out a swath of trees a few years ago. View down:
Tseeb about to drop in:
Most of Employee Housing is comparable to Jackson’s Hobacks but there are a couple of pitches a bit steeper. This is one of the runs that lures Powderchaser Steve to put Crystal on his powder day rotation along with Snowbird, Jackson and Squaw.
Larry is a powder princess like admin and his favorite part of Crystal is the Southback, which requires lengthy traversing to reach powder that remains very lightly tracked several days after a storm. It takes about half an hour to get to Silver Basin including couple of short bootpacks behind the Throne and Silver King, but he didn’t think it was worth doing that with the persistent fog up on that high traverse. So we took a lower and shorter traverse to the closer Avalanche Basin. Looking back up where we skied there:
We went back up top on Rex and skied Snorting Elk Bowl.
We then skied through Kelly’s Gap to the Alpine deli for lunch. Kelly’s was groomed which Larry says is infrequent but it was President’s Day. Crystal handled the crowd well. The top-to-bottom gondola had a 5 minute line but other lift lines were much shorter. There was moderate traffic on the easier groomers but plenty of room on Crystal’s abundant steeper groomers.
After lunch we started down Lucky Shot and got this decent view of Powder Bowl, which drops off the north side of Chair 6.
We traversed right below Powder Bowl into tree scattered Bear Pits. View after we skied there:
We rode Forest Queen, hoping to get up to Powder Bowl, but chair 6 was completely socked in when we got there, so we returned to Rex and skied Sunnyside. Sunnyside is direct south facing but even here the old subsurface was usually well buried by the last week’s snow.
We finished up on Gold Hill on Crystal’s east side, and some break in the clouds for an overview of Crystal’s central terrain.
Ferk’s/Sunnyside are at left, gondola and Exterminator at center, and Employee Housing at far right.
Zoomed profile of Employee Housing:
Larry and I skied 16,200 vertical; Tseeb had an extra top to bottom run before we arrived.
All 3 of us spent the night at Crystal’s Alpine Inn, great for the convenience but since a lot of Seattle area schools were out it was charging steep weekend rates.
On Tuesday we started up Rex and skied first into Green Valley. From there we took the road far skier’s left behind the Northway lift and traversed to the edge of the farthest Morning Glory Bowl. This area has been gladed to comfortable spacing and has a sustained steep fall line of close to 1,500 vertical.
However there are a couple of cliff bands which Larry did not feel comfortable navigating in variable visibility. So we skied Glory Days along the skier’s right edge. Tseeb got this pic of me there.
Regrouping:
From here we did move farther left to Pucker Gulch for less tracked snow, where there were a couple of choke points we had to sideslip through.
We moved back though Green Valley, then moved to Forest Queen to take another shot at Powder Bowl. Vis wasn’t great when we got up there but after a few minutes there was a break. I dropped in and skied as continuously as possible to take advantage of the light. As I got to the bottom the fog closed in again, so no pictures.
We all skied to the base, where Larry headed home.
Tseeb and I rode the gondola to the top and finished the day on Exterminator, another sustained 2,000+ vertical fall line favored by Powderchaser Steve.
Tseeb and I finished with 17,700 vertical and got on the road by 2:30PM. The incoming storm was supposed to be big and we wanted to beat both traffic and accumulating snow on the road.
Mt. Rainier:
Rainier is right in your face at the top of Crystal, but we never saw it.
I checked in with Larry when we got back from the Alps Feb. 4, and he said conditions were not good then. Decent Crystal skiing was all on the groomers and no one was skiing the all hardpacked off piste. But it has since snowed 4 feet, highlighted by a 2+ foot powder day Feb. 12 that Larry skied with Powderchaser Steve from Open Snow.
The new snow was well chopped over President’s weekend, but with Seattle’s record low temperatures the new snow has been low water content and skied very well. And with some refreshers the new snow was not packed down much except in the busiest places.
Temperatures both days were around 20F at the base and 15F up high. There was thick overcast with fog patches moving around the upper mountain. On Tuesday the next storm started with light snow around 11AM.
On Monday we warmed up on Ferk’s, then took the road from top of Rex to get to Paradise Bowl and the Northway chair, which did not exist on my prior in-season visits in 1993 and 2000. From Northway Larry led us along the ridgeline to Employee Housing, a 2,000 vertical fall line created by a massive avalanche taking out a swath of trees a few years ago. View down:
Tseeb about to drop in:
Most of Employee Housing is comparable to Jackson’s Hobacks but there are a couple of pitches a bit steeper. This is one of the runs that lures Powderchaser Steve to put Crystal on his powder day rotation along with Snowbird, Jackson and Squaw.
Larry is a powder princess like admin and his favorite part of Crystal is the Southback, which requires lengthy traversing to reach powder that remains very lightly tracked several days after a storm. It takes about half an hour to get to Silver Basin including couple of short bootpacks behind the Throne and Silver King, but he didn’t think it was worth doing that with the persistent fog up on that high traverse. So we took a lower and shorter traverse to the closer Avalanche Basin. Looking back up where we skied there:
We went back up top on Rex and skied Snorting Elk Bowl.
We then skied through Kelly’s Gap to the Alpine deli for lunch. Kelly’s was groomed which Larry says is infrequent but it was President’s Day. Crystal handled the crowd well. The top-to-bottom gondola had a 5 minute line but other lift lines were much shorter. There was moderate traffic on the easier groomers but plenty of room on Crystal’s abundant steeper groomers.
After lunch we started down Lucky Shot and got this decent view of Powder Bowl, which drops off the north side of Chair 6.
We traversed right below Powder Bowl into tree scattered Bear Pits. View after we skied there:
We rode Forest Queen, hoping to get up to Powder Bowl, but chair 6 was completely socked in when we got there, so we returned to Rex and skied Sunnyside. Sunnyside is direct south facing but even here the old subsurface was usually well buried by the last week’s snow.
We finished up on Gold Hill on Crystal’s east side, and some break in the clouds for an overview of Crystal’s central terrain.
Ferk’s/Sunnyside are at left, gondola and Exterminator at center, and Employee Housing at far right.
Zoomed profile of Employee Housing:
Larry and I skied 16,200 vertical; Tseeb had an extra top to bottom run before we arrived.
All 3 of us spent the night at Crystal’s Alpine Inn, great for the convenience but since a lot of Seattle area schools were out it was charging steep weekend rates.
On Tuesday we started up Rex and skied first into Green Valley. From there we took the road far skier’s left behind the Northway lift and traversed to the edge of the farthest Morning Glory Bowl. This area has been gladed to comfortable spacing and has a sustained steep fall line of close to 1,500 vertical.
However there are a couple of cliff bands which Larry did not feel comfortable navigating in variable visibility. So we skied Glory Days along the skier’s right edge. Tseeb got this pic of me there.
Regrouping:
From here we did move farther left to Pucker Gulch for less tracked snow, where there were a couple of choke points we had to sideslip through.
We moved back though Green Valley, then moved to Forest Queen to take another shot at Powder Bowl. Vis wasn’t great when we got up there but after a few minutes there was a break. I dropped in and skied as continuously as possible to take advantage of the light. As I got to the bottom the fog closed in again, so no pictures.
We all skied to the base, where Larry headed home.
Tseeb and I rode the gondola to the top and finished the day on Exterminator, another sustained 2,000+ vertical fall line favored by Powderchaser Steve.
Tseeb and I finished with 17,700 vertical and got on the road by 2:30PM. The incoming storm was supposed to be big and we wanted to beat both traffic and accumulating snow on the road.
