Wednesday, January 3, 2018 -- Today we were up at 7:15 to have some breakfast (blueberries, blackberries, and milk), get ready, pack and load everything up (we aren't returning to our motel after today's skiing), and head up to Crystal Mountain for our second day of skiing there. We skied many of the same runs that we did yesterday, as well as some new ones. And in a mogul field, you can always find a new line to take! The Northview double chairlift was not open yesterday, so we decided to give one run off of it a try in the morning. One run was plenty -- the top part was pretty steep, which isn't a problem for us, but the snow was extremely soft, wet, and sticky. Making a turn was a chore, hoping and praying both skis made it around with you still attached. Once we got down that (with no wipe-outs for anyone, even my dad!), we were greeted with several more runs full of the iciest, hardest, and most unforgiving moguls I've skied on for quite awhile. Our descent took over 30 minutes (normal for us is 5-10 minutes depending on the vertical rise), and we were quite happy to head back to better snow at the top of the lift! Today's weather was incredible -- temperatures ranging from 30 to nearly 50 degrees, a far cry from the single digits we will experience back home in STL! Sunshine bathed us all day, which made for spring-like skiing -- complete with shedding layers of clothing at lunch and smearing through thick slush. No worries about being cold, caught in a snowstorm, or dealing with poor visibility!
Lunch was at the Summit House Restaurant, near the top of the gondola and offering impressive views of all the surrounding mountains (especially Mt. Rainier). I had a chicken-brie sandwich (a generous chicken breast, spinach, tomato, slivers of apple, Brie cheese crumbles, and a Dijon spread on a brioche bun), served with fries, as well as plenty of water and a little hot cocoa topped with whipped cream.
A new run for today was the terrain park, which actually had a few wide enough box jumps for those of us with skis to comfortably fly across. My brother Matthew, the most conservative and measured skier of all of us, did not participate, although he was very happy to grab some GoPro video of my dad and me playing! We made two circuits through it, the second time being our final run, which was definitely epic. I combined the best of both worlds of skiing -- starting with the loose, shred-y, cut-loose-and-have-fun jumping and cruising through the terrain park; followed by get-down-to-business and technical carving/setting an edge in that snow; and topped off with whipping my skis around to cruise backwards to the base, which with twin tips is quite easy and enjoyable. My dad and Matthew visited the shop to find new helmets, as well as goggles for Matthew, before we made our way back to our car to make the long drive to Portland. Unfortunately, it took 4½ hours (should have taken 3½ at the most) due to Seattle suburb rush hour, which apparently goes past 7:00 pm! We arrived at our Comfort Inn & Suites near the Portland airport just before 8:30, unloaded everything, grabbed some dinner at Subway (an oven-roasted chicken sub, white cheddar chips, lemon-flavored water from the hotel), my dad returned the rental car, we organized and consolidated everything for flying out tomorrow, got cleaned up, and finally got in bed at 12:30.
Terrain off of the Northview chairlift...looks beautiful, but it wasn't so fun!
Mt. Rainier accumulated some clouds toward the end of the day
~Anna
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