Blog Crystal : Crystal Mountain Washington : Skiing, Snowboarding, Backcountry Skiing, Snowshoeing, Lessons, Rentals

Another fabulous season at Crystal Mountain has closed.  The patrol took down the ropelines, signs and tower pads, storing them away for the summer.  Skiers enjoyed a final hoorah with sunny skies and warm temps.  At the top of the King, Martin Rand hosted the first annual Tacky Tiki Party while bikini clad women and brave men fought for a season's pass at the Second Annual Bikini Downhill on Gold Hills.  See photos below. 

Keep checking in over the summer.  I will periodically post photos of the Gondola project and other Crystal news.  See you all next season! 

Martin Rand at the Summit of the King

The Fabulous Tacky Tiki Bar

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This was actually from CHRISTINA, and I forgot to post it back when it was snowing!
 

4:15 AM: Ring, ring. My phone wakes me up. “Hullo” I groan, full of sleep.

“Christina, we are out the door at 6,”  Says my fellow patroller doing the morning call-outs.

“OK,” I mumble and roll back over; it’s another avalanche control morning so we are in two hours early today.

At 5:45 we're in the Patrol room and booted up ready to go, all ears for the weather briefing.  We receive our route assignments—which could be one of the 23 on the mountain.  At 6AM we check our avalanche beacons and head to the bottom of Chinook, headlamps blazing and a tangible excitement for the powder ahead.  When we get to the top, we lace our explosives with fuses and wait for first light—which can be as late as 7:20am early in the winter. 

Our routes take anywhere from an hour and a half to three hours depending on conditions, winds, visibility, and about a million other factors.  If all goes well, this early morning work is completed on time. Some days, however, things don’t always go as planned—lifts get rimed in bad weather, high winds keep us sitting at the bottom, snow drifts make hiking the ridges sometimes waist deep. We have perfected the hurry-up-and-wait  technique.

While avalanche control is often considered the best part of our job (who wouldn’t love it?), it is surely not the easiest.  We need to be fast, safe, and efficient to get the mountain open on time. In addition, we also need to know that when we call our routes in clear, we did our best to mitigate the hazard for our guests that are chomping at the bit to shred the powder.  Once our routes are complete, we must cycle back up to do our daily opening runs—checking boo, rope lines, slow banners, tower pads, medical gear, and other features that are all an integral part of mountain operations.
 

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This year's King and Queen:  The very deserving, Zach Kurferst and Terry Kilbourne.  Congratulations you two!!  Thanks to everyone that attended this spectacular event. 

Extremely cool King & Queen "crown" hats courtesy of Past Queen Debbie Grubb and Wapiti Woolies, Greenwater, WA

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William Richmond has a blog with some cool pics of Crystal and he reviews some of the skis he's used.  Check it out at  http://williamrichmondski.blogspot.com/

I swiped one which is my fave, because I got caught in an avalanche just to the left after entering here once.  (Actually it was ON an avalanche....I surfed down to the bottom of the bowl on the top of a very very hard chunk 'o wind slab.  They never discussed the importance of scooting, at National Avalanche School!)   Verrry scary!

Plus, I (heart) my Volkl goats, which it looks like he's on:

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I don't know if you've had a chance to read Kim's previous entries CLOSURE POACHING on March 30th and RESPONSE TO COMMENTS ABOUT CLOSURES on April 1st, but if you haven't, this will make more sense if you take a moment to do so now.  (dum-dee-dum-dee-dum)

After repeated unfortunate encounters with guests not exercising common sense, we've come to the conclusion we need to amp-up our enforcement of terrain closures and penalties for violators.  This isn't anybody's favorite part of the job, but after this past week or so, we all want to make sure we're sending a clear message to people whose actions put us, and others, in danger!

Line-duckers we catch will lose the privilege of entering Boyne USA resorts like Alpental, Brighton, and Big Sky, as well as Crystal, for the rest of this season for sure, and possibly some of next season.  That's for a 1st offense.  People we've caught before should plan on getting trespassed, and dealing with a Sheriff anytime they return.  And the way we're feeling now, there's very little to discourage us from sharing names and photos with our buddies at White Pass, Steven's Pass, Whistler/Blackcomb, Mt. Baker, Mount Hood, etc.

What I'm trying to convey here, is that we're serious!  From my own selfish point of view, I need to be able to come to work each day with some measure of confidence that I won't be blamed for blowing up or burying someone who skis/boards in under an explosive charge I've deployed.  Poachers always claim "I'd never sue for anything like that", but I know from experience that the kinds of people who don't respect ski area closures come from the kinds of families that certainly WILL find someone else to blame for the bonehead decisions of their injured or perished loved-one.

We LIKE to get terrain open quickly.  We enjoy seeing our hard work result in our customers having fun, and skiers and boarders tracks help mitigate future avalanche hazard.  Yesterday, we "cut it close" when we opened Northway.   The sun was coming out and we wanted to get track compaction into the avalanche starting zones before the warmth of radiation caused post-control releases.  

So the 4 poachers who ducked into Paradise only a couple minutes ahead of the ropes being dropped were lucky they didn't head slightly to the left into the path of our lit shots.  The scary thing was that the dumb girl (with the 3 dumb guys) didn't even really understand that it was a close call. 

OK, sorry to be a downer!  Back to happy skiing and riding stuff!

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Seems as though winter's trying to make up for lost time.   With only a few weeks left in the season, winter storms have been lined up off the coast, dropping several feet of snow on the Cascades.  This next week looks like more of the same.  So don't put your boards away just yet.  there's still time to redeem the season.  Here are a few pictures to tantalize. 

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So I have this idea.

I want to compile all the place names at Crystal.  I want to compare new and old names; I want to share the source of these names.  For example, many of you can probably guess why the gully in Memorial is called Gregg's Gulch.  (If not, see earlier post about said Gregg trying fat skis for the first time.)  But how many of you know why it's called Reynold's Chute, Kemper's or Penny Dawgs?  I'm checking with my sources about all these little names (hint: most of them are named for people that got caught in avalanches back in the bad old days before hand charges).  But here's where you all come in.  What place names do you have?  For example, I just found a sign in the trees along the new gondola line pointing to Dan's Way.  I'd heard that called Double D's before, but the sign is new (at least to me).  I also overheard someone referring to Outer Ferk's.  Is that Snake Pit or Rightberg?  Anyways, give me your names, and the history behind them, and I will put something together that all can see and read.  Of course, some of you want to "protect" your place names.  You don't have to give away any secret stashes, here. 

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Thanks to all who have commented on Closures at Crystal.  We welcome this kind of dialogue, and your suggestions give us an idea of the vibe out there.  Let me just add a few things here:

Ropelines:  We use rope to mark hazards, close terrain, and delineate our boundary.  Think of them as stripes on the highway, keeping people in their lane and avoiding accidents and hazards.  The only rope it is "okay" to duck is the boundary line into Mt. Rainier Nat'l Park.  Going under that rope, however, puts you out of our boundary and requires skinning or hiking out, or a long slog on a closed highway.  We do not suggest going under the boundary rope unless you know where you are going.  There are lions and tigers and bears out there, so don't venture without a competent guide.  The exception is, of course, Kempers.  It is not okay to duck the boundary rope at the Kempers avalanche path Permanent Closure.  You should all know this by now. 

Every other ropeline is sacrosanct.  That includes the Frontside ropeline, Bear Pits ropeline, the ropeline at Tower 10 on Rex and especially the Northway ropeline--even when the terrain is open.  We want skiers and riders to enter thru the gates only.  That means you.  Every time.  Information about the terrain is posted at the gates:  Closed, Avalanche Closed, Avalanche Prone Area, Experts Only, Walking May be Required, Caution, Long Slides Possible.  Only by passing through the gate can you get these warnings.  I have actually caught skiers at the bottom of Northway, when we were still doing avalanche control, who claimed they didn't know it was closed because they ducked the rope in the same spot they always do, and they didn't see a closed sign.  They actually blamed me for our lack of signage.  This was my response:  Are you kidding me?  Do you mean to say that when I stood on Brand X with a shot burning on the slope and my fingers plugged in my ears and saw you guys in the run-out, that I was supposed to be understanding?  Let me just say this--I was not at all understanding.  These guys didn't even think they were doing anything wrong.  And the fact that it was a father-son duo made it even worse.  What kinds of values was this father teaching his son?  It's okay to question authority as long as you get face shots in the process, even if you are putting yourself and others in danger?  If these guys had gone to the Paradise gate, they would have seen a patroller waiting there to open it.  They would have stood for another five minutes, then had a great run down.  And they would have been able to keep their passes too. 

But I digress. 

The left angle ropeline does have an annoying jog in it.  We are aware of this.  The problem is that without that dogleg, it would allow skiers to traverse under an avalanche area.  We need to keep that runout clear so we can do avalanche control, and also to keep people out of that area during high avalanche hazard.  The solution would be to put it further skier's right, eliminating all that good tree skiing up high.  So we let skiers get the goods up high, but warn them away from the more-avalanche prone areas below.  I'm not sure how we can solve it any other way.  Our ropelines need to be visible and user-friendly.  They also need to be easy to maintain. 

Another option next year will be all the great tree skiing in Northway.  This summer a team of sawyers will be systematically limbing trees throughout the Northway area to offer more "left angle trees" types of experiences.  So look for a new favorite tree skiing experience near you. 

Thanks for all the comments.  Keep them coming.

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I just had to post this one.  Here's a guy that always skis skinny.  But I caught Ross on some fat boards (he even asked about my width underfoot).  Granted it was an awesome powder day on Monday, made even awesomer (if that's even a word) with fat skis, and somebody that's been around Crystal as long as Ross (Gregg's Gulch on the Frontside is named after him) should know this.  Glad to see he's finally joined the dark side. 

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