It was fun driving up 410 and watching the elevation change every mile we drove. We went from absolutely no snow to almost 2 feet of snow in just a few short miles. It was gradual so you didn't really notice it.
I've never been to Crystal Mountain before so I really didn't know what to expect. I didn't know how big it would be compared to White Pass and Snoqualmie Pass since this one is hidden off of a main road. The road only went to Crystal Mountain because the rest of it was closed due to the snow amount and if you continued you would be going into Mount Rainier National Park. I guess it was easier to keep people out by not plowing that area and keeping the gate closed until summer.
We drove up to the parking lots and to my surprise there were lots of people here! I didn't know how popular this place actually was! It was really hard to find a place to park.
We got out and walked to the ski house to find out how much it would cost to spend the rest of the day here snowboarding including rentals. We found out it wasn't worth the money this time so we walked back to the car and looked for a place to use our sleds. We parked in a small parking lot and started putting our snow pants, jackets, hats, gloves and boots on. I wanted to be warm.
We noticed a bunch of people sledding in a no trespassing no sledding area. They all claimed that they come here every year and do this and they've never been spoken to nor have gotten in trouble by the Crystal Mountain staff. I said sure, let's do this! We grabbed our sleds and walked across the street to the hill that everyone was using. I noticed that it had several small "jumps" at the bottom that we would have to watch out for.
Ben went first with the GoPro. His trip down did not go smoothly. He ended up off his sled at the bottom sprawled out. The footage on the camera looked worse. Next it was my turn. I debated whether or not to go down on my butt or on my stomach. I wished I would have gone down on my stomach because I would have had more control of where I was going. I chose poorly. I went down on my butt. On the way down my disc decided to turn around backwards, and I was going pretty fast, I hit those bumps and flew up in the air and crashed at the bottom pretty hard on my shoulder. I really hurt afterwards. The next few times I went down on my stomach and I had more control.
We slid down probably five or six times before it was time to head towards home. We were getting hungry and we didn't bring any snacks with us. We got a couple videos of us sledding down the big hill and a few of us down a smaller hill. We headed back to the car shortly after. We took our coats, snow pants, gloves, boots and goggles and set them in the back of the car with the sleds. I knew my body was going to hurt tomorrow especially after that first crash I had. I think I even hurt the bones in my chest. I will definitely need to go see a chiropractor as soon as I could.
We drove down the hill to 410. I asked Ben to park near the gate so I could get some pictures of the Mount Rainier sign and some of the snow. It was really pretty and I am glad I took pictures of it. I walked back to the car and told Ben I wanted to find the geocache that was down here.
I figured since we came all the way out here I needed the geocache at the end of the road where the Crystal Mountain road meets up with 410. Ben said his mom, sister and him found the one by the sign at the end of the road. I knew there was one there and it couldn't be that hard to find. I would need a small hint from Ben on which post to check under because that was a lot of snow to dig out. There had to be at least two feet of snow built up.
He said he couldn't remember which one exactly but he told me which one he found it under. It very much so could have been placed back wrong by another cacher as well. I put my boots back on and waddled out there. Every step I took the snow went almost up to my thighs. I made it to the sign and started digging. He said I would come across piles of rocks next to the poles. I found the rocks and started prying them off of each other. They were covered in snow and ice. I pulled a rock off of the next layer and bam there was the cache container! I was so stoked! I found a cache in two feet of snow!!
I signed the cache, took my pictures and then put it back how I found it. I spent some time burying it back in the snow so if someone else decided to come up here to find it, it wouldn't be that easy too find. I waddled back to car, took my boots off and jumped in. We headed back down the highway into Enumclaw, through Buckley and back to his mom's house in Bonney Lake. We changed our clothes, packed up our stuff, shoved it in the car and headed back to our house in Lacey.
Once we got home, we threw in a load of laundry, made dinner and watched How I Met Your Mother for a while until bedtime. Boy was I sore the next morning when I got up to go to work.
Next Adventure: Skating with Friends
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