Crystal Mountain Snow Report & Review 12/30/2009

Crystal Mountain had 100% of their terrain open yesterday when Chris and I made our 1-day trek from Detroit.

The conditions are great right now! Runs accessible by the North Face lift and the Ridge lift seemed to be less crowded, and the lines for these lifts were the shortest. Buck chairlift was also lightly trafficked. The Clipper high-speed, and Loki lift had the longest lines all day. Weather was about 29 degrees and overcast, the trails were well-groomed and even though there wasn’t any snow overnight, for the most part the icy patches were few and far between.

The crew at Crystal Mountain has beefed up their terrain park features since the last time I rode Crystal two weekends ago. They added a good kicker to the park, but strangely it was closed off all day. There was an odd-placed booter at the bottom of the park with a very sketchy landing (i.e., flat). And they had added a small tabletop jump, a 10-foot flat box rail and a 10-foot flat rail to the small park next to Main Street run.

Because of the run’s overall gentle slope (it’s really a green run with some features on it) the table-top should’ve been a little bit bigger. I hit it with too much speed on my first attempt, overshot the landing ramp by a good 4 feet. I was unprepared to absorb the shock of the landing with my legs, and so I absorbed a good 50% of the landing with my ass. Subsequent attempts on the same jump were more successful, but since it was my first time playing on the park this season, I stuck to method airs and FS180s. No pictures or videos, because nobody wants to watch me do more frontside half-corks.

Additionally, they had some nice looking hits coming out from the glades which I didn’t hit, because these runs (Abendroth Trail, etc) are primarily accessible only via the Crystal Clipper high-speed lift. Since this lift is situated at the heart of the resort, and since it is a holiday week, the lift lines there were painfully long and we avoided it most of the day.

Crystal Mountain should take a tip from the Otsego Club in nearby Gaylord, MI, and spread their park features out more. The main park area is accessible by Main Street, Clipper, and Buck chairlifts. Main Street runs intermittently and is sometimes busy with NASTAR traffic. The Clipper is always the busiest lift and Buck is furthest away, so if you’re not inclined to hike the park, it’s not very convenient to do laps.

I think Crystal would benefit by adding some park features to one of the runs accessible by the Ridge or North Face chairlifts.