eub | day skiing; mug shot of young Monterey Jack in black wax

That was fun! I am exhausted. Talked

mh75 and J into going.

From the top, you can see Rainier, very close by. My favorite run was a narrow road in the sky, half a world of mountains on either side -- be careful to watch the trail some. Down through a big patch of untouched powder, gleeful whee, dodging Western-hemlock leaders poking up.

Last run of the day, when I was the only one left of us: well, the signage at Crystal is not so great. Certain trails skirting the back side of the ridge are not on the maps, for example, and "Northway Ridge" is on the map but I never found a sign, just went where I thought it should be. I also figured that the map's yellow-triangle-keyed "gates" to backcountry would be obvious physical features, like gaps in a staked line, with signs, unmissible. I missed a gate, passed through without seeing it, must have; I do think there was no gate. I think I went down Morning Glory Bowl, in choppy powder, with a tumble or two, and then down steep branching singletrack. Then a traverse across a powder slope with protruding rock ridges, and this is where I was most thinking I was an idiot. Not clear where to go. Other guy below, skidding down the snowfield, stepping through brush at the bottom -- I didn't like the look of that. Probably put him on Lower Northway, I'd guess now; I was aiming not to drop down to the road, to get back to the lodge on time, but really it probably would have been faster to go Northway and wait for a shuttle to come by. Anyway. I traversed sloggingly further, and got into a singletrack trail, probably this one marked but unnamed on the map, mostly flattish, leading back my way. Tension between getting up all possible speed and maybe hitting a dropoff at high speed (and nasty ones they had, diagonal down ahead and downslope, treetops protruding), and petering out and having to trek on the flat. Lots of that. I was exhausted. Finally came out onto civilized snow, had to skate a little bit uphill around, then coasted in to the lodge. Met M+J only twelve minutes late, but steam was coming off me, coming off my chest and arms when I took my coats off.