Saturday at Crystal delivered the groomers that Whistler the previous weekend had denied. With plenty of opportunities to jump off piste and play in soft snow, it was a fine old ski day. It was fun to ride at high speed on Crystal’s great terrain.
Then about 5pm it started snowing. We retired to the Snorting Elk and watched the snow dump. There were no groomers to be found Sunday. Everything was buried under 18-24 inches of light blower pow. What a storm. What a ski day.
Sunday morning at the Snorting Elk
Kathy
Crystal storm
Kathy
Bottom of Middle Ferk
Left of Middle Ferk
AT 2pm teh sun came out
Kathy
With so much snow, the upper mountain lifts were slow to start. With the sound of bombs ringing around the peaks, I hopped on the Chinook chair – singles line magic – before 9am and bolted to the Forest Queen to get in some quick laps. The terrain over there has flat spots which are challenging in knee deep snow, but the steeper pitches were truly amazing. It was powder cloud time. Every turn.
By 10.30 the upper mountain lifts opened and the line at REX (Mount Rainier Express) shrank to a couple of minutes. So we just lapped the bowl in Green Valley, the trees to the left of Middle Ferk, and the steeps down to the base. Wash, rise, repeat. There was so much deep untracked snow that short traverses delivered huge rewards.
There may not be many better days than Sunday this season. Although I said that about Whistler last Saturday. That was a great day. This was even better.
Saturday 9000m vert, Sunday 6100m vert
Season totals 5 days, 32,800m vert, 4 powder days
Pacific Northwest Ski blog (and a few other places!) 
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