Skied at Crystal Mountain near Mt. Rainier. On the drive up I saw what I thought was a moose! But apparently there are no Moose near Mt. Rainir. Perhaps it was an elk or a mule deer, but I could have sworn it was a moose. It snowed most of the morning and then cleared a bit after noon. Crystal is nice and has many large fast lifts. However I spent most of my time on the smallest slowest lift they had: because it went to the best snow. Interestingly the lifts which serviced more intermediate and beginner lifts were very packed (although the lines went fast: especially when you go in the singles line, eh?)
A report on my new skis is probably in order. I have a pair of 2005 Rossignol Bandit B2s. Today I got to test them out in some heavy Pacific snow. And boy are they are good ski for cutting through this heavy snow. I’m also enjoying the easy and speed of the turns on my B2s. Interestingly I haven’t had any of the problems some others have described with catching tails. But I think this may be because I’m moving to a much shorter ski than my last pair which were 205s. The B2s seem pretty stable at high speed. The only place where I worry they may be a bit weak is on ice. But I only had a chance to test at the end of the day at the bottom of the mountain, which had much worse snow than the top of the mountain.
While many of you will be traveling to QIP in Paris, and I am disapointed that I will not be able to attend, ski days like this, however, can help to lessen the pain.
We are expecting a bit of snow in the next day or so. Hopefully I can soon report on snowboarding season 2006, day 2.