This winter hasn't produced many powder days. Yet every year, I'm happily surprised by the late spring storms that roll through and drop copious amounts of snow. The perfect spring storm arrived last week and I took full advantage.

It had been snowing hard up at Crystal with high winds, keeping the upper mountain lifts closed. My friend Ryan emailed me inquiring about going skiing the next day. There was 26" inches of new snow, some lifts hadn't been open and another foot of snow was in the forecast. We agreed that the following day could be the best powder skiing of the season and decided to get up early to be on the first few chairs.

We departed at 6:30am and drove to Crystal Mountain with purpose. Upon hiking up from the second parking lot, we discovered that other people had the same idea. Can't say I've ever seen such a long lift line at the end of March. The line went all the way back to the concrete. Check it out for yourself.

After riding two lifts to the top, we unleashed on the mountain, taking the second gate down the frontside, ripping knee deep powder turns all the way back down to the lift. I had a nice perma-grin to go with my morning quad burn. These were the best powder conditions I experienced all year.

Right before lunch, Ryan and I ran into another friend, Kyle. Kyle owns the local ski shop, Alpine Hut . He was up skiing with some friends: McKenzie, Drew, and Medley. For those of you who know me, I can get impatient skiing and I don't like too big of a group, especially on powder days. But I've been working on this, trying to become a more "social" skier in my old age. So Ryan and I joined their group for the rest of the day, making laps and slapping high fives.

Here's a pick of Kyle, McKenzie and Medley.

There were a lot of young rippers up at the hill due to spring break. Here's some happy kids in line in front of me.

A ritual after a good day of skiing at Crystal is getting a few pitchers at The Snorting Elk. The Elk was packed with the smiling faces of people sharing adventure stories. I love the Elk, it has great charm or character like a good community bar. Ryan, Kyle, McKenzie and I grabbed a table and ordered a few pitchers and some nachos. We ordered pitchers as if we were loading the ark, two by two, by two... It was hard not too, with the party atmosphere. The shot ski was getting lots of use.

Once we were feeling pretty loose, Ryan suggested we stay the night and ski more deep powder the next day. Hmm, Crystal was planning to open the Northway lift for the first time in three days, which would yield more great untracked powder. We were in. Ryan called and found a place for the four of us to sleep.

We checkied into our place and Ryan was set on soaking our tired legs in the hot pool. Since this overnight was not planned, none of us brought a change of clothes, not to mention swim suits. Not a big deal, we grabbed some towels and jumped in wearing our underwear. After achieving solid prune status, we jumped out of the pool, got dressed and went back to the room. We needed our underwear to dry by the next morning, so we cooked them in the oven.

It was getting late and we still hadn't eaten dinner. Ryan called around and everything was closed. Luckily the lady at the front desk had a couple frozen pizzas. We scarfed them down. We couldn't taste the underwear we'd just cooked. At least I couldn't tell.

We went to sleep but the only person who got much rest was Ryan. The rest of us laid in bed and listened to Ryan snore. I think I only slept a couple hours the whole night. We awoke to blue skies and more new snow. It was going to be another epic day.

We got started a little late, so skipped breakfast minus coffee and a breakfast bar. Got in the lift line at 8:30 and started skiing more knee deep powder. The difference today was that it was colder, pulling some of the moisture out of the snow. The snow was deeper and lighter than the previous day, with surface hoar sparkling in the sun. Absolutely beautiful.

By 9:30, they had the Northway chair open and crowds attacked like an army. Everywhere you went, it was a race to get first tracks. The four of us lapped the Northway lift, getting untracked turns until one o'clock. By then our legs lacked sufficient energy to keep going. We had gotten the best turns in of the season. It was time to grab some lunch and hit the road.

I can't think of a better way to close out the month of March. Deep powder turns at Crystal with friends. I love it up there.