Sunday Week 13

Boxing doesn't exist over here, but I thought it would be a quiet day anyway. I decided to do skiing at Crystal Mountain, which is in the Mt. Rainier National Park. A lot of people had a very similar idea as there had been 4 inches of snow overnight and it snowed all day. I left the house slightly after 0600 which got me to the resort in time to go through the rental system and still make first lift.

Initially the top of the mountain was shut for avalanche risk, but then they decided to open it about 30mins later. This was a mistake; it was a blizzard at the top, you could see 5m ahead of yourself. This made the narrow traverses interesting, particularly with snowboarders appearing from nowhere. Funnily enough, they shut the top again quite quickly.

So I spent most of the day on the tamer runs reminding myself how to carve. Then I found a lowland black run that took you on a very narrow through the woods with over a foot of powder. It was awesome. Even better was as it snowed, the pistes went from "crispy" to pure powder. This seems to be what the locals prefer; they go miles off-course to find the best powder.

Weirdly, I met one of the FAA test pilots on a chair-lift, a 5 year old kid who was ranting about how he had celebrated Jesus Christ's birthday the day before, and a group of boarders who had had so much to drink over lunch they weren't in the best of form. Though one proclaimed they were better drunk, but couldn't stay upright stoned. This made me wonder whether this was a local thing, or whether it happened in the Alps but I was blocked by the language barrier.

Put a few photos up in Seattle album.