Scenario: Last night it snowed 17 inches at Crystal Mountain. Today is by definition a powder day.  Naturally, this has drawn rabid throngs of fellow skiers, wanting all the powder for themselves. What do you do?

(Photo Credit: Brian McMullen)

First off, arrival time is the main factor in getting good, sometimes-untracked runs in. Get there early, around 9:00 when the resort opens.

Also, don’t make a beeline for Chair 6 and then just sit in line waiting for it to open. On powder days, it tends to open around 10-11 in the morning after the ski patrol does avalanche control, which should leave you plenty of time to ski some other runs before going to wait in that line.

For a first run, you want something long and untracked that’ll be skied out quick. Some good examples that come to mind are Exterminator or Memorial Forest (the final gate right of Upper Ferk’s before Middle Ferk’s). After a couple of runs in this area, head to Chair 6. If Northway is open, it’s also a good option.

If Southback has somehow opened early, don’t hike up there yet unless the conditions are absolutely stellar. It’s not worth your time to hike up a mountain to find pristine powder when the rest of the resort is still blanketed in great snow. Try Northway instead–it’s a less restrictive option.  Chair 6 will last for two or three runs if you know where to go, even when there’s a huge line, so take your first runs down the Campbell Basin side so you can easily access it again.  Keep in mind–if the line’s too long…go somewhere else.  It’s not worth it to wait 40 minutes for a 10-minute run.

The best place to eat lunch will almost always be the Campbell Basin Lodge–get there either before or after the lunch rush.  Long lines and crowded tables start to appear at about 11:45 and don’t let up until 1:15 or so.  If you go there early to get a bite to eat, it’s a good place to wait for Chair 6 or Southback to open up.

Once Chair 6 is tracked out, the rest of the mountain will also be pretty tracked out, meaning you have to get more strategic about where to ski. Basically any run that we label with the consideration “powder” in our guide posts would be a good thing to try at this point in the day.  Also take into consideration where the snow will blow if it’s windy–a lot of powder blows into the northwest-facing West Face and Horseshoe Cliffs and can provide some great runs.

Eventually, Southback and Northway will open. I still wouldn’t recommend Southback until the very end of the day. However, Northway can be good for several runs if you arrive right when it opens up.

For your last run, try something not many people will have been down yet: O-Meadows, Left Angle Trees, and Silver Basin are all strong candidates because they are difficult to access and have a long traverse out.

Perhaps most importantly, be efficient!  Northway, the gondola, and Rainier Express tend to provide the best run-length-to-wait-time ratio. The gondola especially offers a lot of long combinations of runs (Memorial Forest, Exterminator, Bull Run, Left Angle Trees), and can be surprisingly fun to do laps on when lower-mountain conditions are good.

Finally, never try to be overly creative in your search for powder. A run down Powder Bowl will always be better than some weird, barely covered chute that you take because you get two turns of untracked powder at the top. Powder days are about having fun and just skiing, not being ridiculously inventive just to find a few soft turns–that’s what bad days are for.

{Note: Eventually, blog posts will assume that you have a working knowledge of all of the commonly skied runs at Crystal Mountain. But because we still haven’t released many of the guide posts that would set the foundation for that knowledge, I’ve provided more of an explanation than normal for the more obscure runs.}