I need to be in Seattle all week for business, so decided to sneak in a day early and spend Sunday on the slopes. I hit Crystal Mountain on the advice of someone I work with, and was not disappointed. What a phenomenal place...as much hard terrain as you want, plenty of steeps nice bumps and great variation during runs. And to cap it off, every lift up you get smacked in the face with a spectacular view of Mt. Rainier.
I demoed a pair of Rossignols, since Southwest kindly sent my suitcase (crushed) with my gear, but not my skis. They were a ton of fun and just loved to carve turns, especially in steeper stuff which gave me more confidence to ski aggressively. At least until my legs gave in, which didn't take long. I'd started with Salomons, but they were just deadly...I've never been on skis so opposed to turning. They must have liked the base lodge, because they just wanted to go straight downhill.
The season's probably over for me, but I was psyched to get in a spring-like day at a fabulous mountain i'd probably never have skied otherwise. It was 40 and sunny. I peeled down to just my base layer, open jacket and no hat and still was too hot.
Now to a week of work, but with my batteries fully charged.
