We have been in a dry spell recently. Strange weather has given us 50 degree temps at the top of the mountain and temps below 40 in Seattle (6000 feet lower.) This has resulted in rock hard conditions on the mountains after they freeze overnight. Sounds like a terrible time to ski, right?
Wrong. On Saturday, I headed to Crystal Mt. with ClemensK. I was a bit nervous to be there with someone who grew up skiing in Austria, but thankfully I don’t think I slowed him down too much.
We started off on Forrest Queen for some fresh groomers. The hard snow challenged us to make good use of our edges, and we had a blast bombing down the runs. Next we spent some time in Green Valley. After the sun had a few hours to beat down on the south facing slopes under Rainier Express, we headed over there to explore some stuff off the groomers. We found nice soft bumps and had fun playing over there. After a quick stop in the lodge, we ventured up the High Campbell lift. Ski patrol was at the bottom questioning our skills before we headed up the experts only lift. They were right to do so because it was really nasty up there. We picked our way down one run and decided to finish out the day under Rainier Express. Unfortunately I never got to show him the Northway Lift. There are not many south facing slopes over there and it must have been like a hockey rink. We left around 3:30 as the shadows started covering the mountain and freezing up our favorite runs.
All in all it was a great day. The skies were an amazing shade of blue and you could see FOREVER. We spotted Baker to the north, Adams to the South, the Olympics an Puget Sound to the west, and we could even see over the Cascades into eastern Washington! Here is a map to show you just how far we were seeing. The red dot is Crystal Mountain.
I was able to snap a 180 degree panoramic photo from the top of High Campbell which gives you a little idea of what we were looking at or better yet, view the panorama with HD View. Click on the image below for the full size view. If you look far off along the horizon, you will see two peaks. The one closest to Rainier is Mt. St. Helens and the other is Mt. Adams. You can see more photos in the photo gallery.
All week I heard people whining about how terrible the conditions were. I’d like to thank each and every one of them for staying home and keeping the lines short for us. We racked up just over 29,000 feet which ranks as my second biggest ski day behind only my ski marathon last spring. It was a great workout and much better day than either of us were expecting.
[UPDATE] I like this panorama so much that I made it the header photo on the site.