Monkey

Holy crap! Crystal was amazing today… if you weren’t there, you were in the wrong place. Tons of light fluffy pow, a little wind off and on (sometimes strong), it puked snow the entire time, and no lines. Bombs going off when we reached the parking lot, and bombs going off all morning. Visibility was poor when we first got there, but ended up just fine as the day went on. We ended up lapping Brand X in the Northway area over and over again and it was well worth the short hike to get over there. Our first run out there was essentially untracked over a fantastic pitch with anywhere from knee to waist deep powder throughout. It was honestly too deep in places. Subsequent runs were pretty much just as good, as we found that the dumping snow and wind essentially erased our earlier tracks as the day progressed. Those were some of the best runs since Island Lake Lodge last January

I left my camera in my pack, which I left at the bottom of Rex for most of the day, so I only have one picture: the car at the end of the day. You can see the wind effect on the car: a smidge of snow on the roof, but at least 8″ on the hood.

Went to Crystal today since, once again, the world was covered with White Armageddon and it was likely that few people would be at work. I was lazy about it… I left around 8:30 in the morning, and I only rode until 2pm or so. I’m sure my out-of-shape legs were tired after the first run. It was a good day, though. Nice snow, and pretty good coverage in most places. The temps were in the mid 20’s. Where there was low coverage was generally the stepper faces that too many people had gone through. It snowed a bit of the past few days, but the place is pretty much tracked out. I did managed to find many untracked bits here and there were I could make a few nice high-speed pow turns. All-in-all, a nice first day of the season.

We’ve had a few inches of snow out our way today, and even though it’s not as much as in, say, Redmond I still thought it was worth a turn or two. So I got out my gear and made my first turns of the season down Tolt Hill Road. A whopping 500ft of vertical (I suppose that’s on par with some runs up at Snoqualmie… LOL ) on packed snow with some fluff on the edges. Riding down the road really threw things into perspective. Tolt Hill is, well, flat. Super flat. Like bunny hill flat. I had to hang onto the side view of the Subaru a few time while Helen pulled me through the flatter sections. It looks steeper in the car, but it’s not. It was fun, though.