Silver Basin, chunder dodging with Dom Buker

Spring is here and one thing for sure, variability. Its been everything from frigid cold to tshirt weather. We had it all from days of blower pow on crust, pow under crust, “loud pow”,pow around chunder, bottomless pow with 20′ viability and everyone’s favorite hot pow! Many days end completely different from how they started so it paid to be ready for everything. Swapping skis for snowboards or vice versa, carrying rub-on wax just in case and having a deployable waterproof poncho (trash bag) handy. At least its not as bad as what hit some other ski areas recently.

With longer days and more sunshine its been a blast regardless of what the snow is like. Finally the legs can ski all day no matter what. Crystal made some changes and rightfully so, the terrain park is finally out of Mr Magoo run and Northway won’t run mid week. Both of which are all good with me. Cori and I found some fun groomers and recycled powder during a low visibility day.

We can see!! Cori at least stands out bright

Some all time fun corn snow has been a refreshing change. Dom and I went out to just jib around and ended up finding that untouched off piste was still really good in a lot of spot! Its heavy fun smooth! Typical of this time of year runs will change over the course of a day. Waiting for Middle Ferk’s to soften up is worth it! By 11am its good to go fast on!

Reid Pitman, Crystal Mountain — Cordaroy slashing under Rainier Express. Cori Bucherl Photo

The backcountry has been good but really gotta watch what the NWAC avalanche forecast is looking like.

Some fun stuff is coming up! The annual Bikini and Boardshort downhill race on Saturday is a blast! This friday is the Snorting Elk Amateur ski and snowboard film contest, which I regretfully don’t have an entry for…

With snow in the forecast and an extended closing date there is no excuse to not come up.