I laughed. I like how people take one thing you say and just make the situation black and white.
Ingrid opinion isn't the end all of opinions, but if you wanna suck her dick, by all means do.
Regardless of Ingrid's skiing and mine, the reason I dislike the lift
is that it took terrain that was easy to access with a little work and
put gapers all over it. Even if you went as far into North Back as
possible, out to Brand-X, it was a short hike/skate. Hardly any work
at all. But just the fact that people had to take their skis off was
enough to keep the masses out. And on days when everyone on the
mountain was waiting in line on 6 and hiking into south back you could
get tons of vert and often times deeper snow in North back. And if you
knew where you were going, the quality of the runs, while maybe not as
good as a waist deep run from the top of the King, was still very damn
good.
Putting the lift in there took all this easily accessible hike terrain
and opened it up to people who were not willing to hike even 5 minutes
for it before. A lot of the good sections of terrain are now shorter
seeing as much of the lower sections now just end up in shitty bump
fields leading to the lifts. It also makes access to some of the best
lines of the mountain much more accessible to people who would have
never found them.
In regards to spreading out the people on the mountain better, yeah,
that is somewhat legitimate, but was it really needed at crystal? I
didn't think so. And while they spread the crowds out a bit on the
whole mountain, it takes the one spots that is quickly accessible for
great terrain and protected snow (which excludes going far out in south
back, even if you are in stellar shape) and made it accesible to people
who if the lift had not been put in would have never skied there. I
never experienced that bad of crowds. Even on the worst days the line
at the bottom, on Rex, Green Valley, or chair six was never more than
20 minutes, and often times like 5 minutes or less. Coming from
colorado where 30-40 minutes lift lines happen weekly and having been
in a 2 hour + long lift line before, 5-10 mintues is nothing. The
mountain did fine with the lift system it had. And while the hordes
were all skiing chair 6 and south back, north back remained untouched
because people had to hike up a hill and skate 5-10 minutes out at the
bottom.
So maybe I do suck, but you don't seem to be really saying shit here.
At least I have an opinion of my own instead of just going with what
someone else who I have never met says.
And for the record, most people I knew in the Seattle-Tacoma area were
not stoked on the lift. And that includes lots of TGR guys, UPS
kids, and most of the Puyallup sturtevants guys. Some people liked it,
but most of the people who did were the ones always bitching about the
"strenuous" skate out on Ho Chi Man or waiting for the shuttle. The
majority liked the situation more before the lift was installed.
You gotta remember, too, Ingrid skis for Crystal Mountain. Of course
she is going to support their decision. I am sure they took some heat
from people up there and knowing the crystal management, who more than
one person here can vouch for as utter douchebags, I wouldn't put it
past them to ask her to go out and try to shred some positive light on
the situation.