Crystal Mountain's chairway to heaven

CRYSTAL MOUNTAIN — "This one is like a really great rock song," Sean Bold tells me. "One that starts out nice and slow like it's going to be a quiet, mellow, pretty little ballad."

Bold, who's snow school director at Crystal Mountain ski area, is describing what's laid out before us this unsettled Monday morning after a chilly weekend of heavy, though light and fluffy, snow: a wide-open meadow brimming with knee-deep talcum powder. Most of it is untracked, streaked with just a handful of lines laid down by some lucky folks who beat us to it. Were I the type to make such an utterance, I'd call it righteous pow. (Bro.)

It's Crystal's Morning Glory bowl and, given its tame, pristine, Winter wonderland demeanor, the name seems more than apt.

"But down there," Bold continues, pointing a carbon-tipped ski pole to a spot at the far end of the meadow where an apron of trees appears to topple off the end of the Earth, "that's where the song switches and the rest of the band kicks in — the drums and the loud guitars — and it totally rocks out and gets gnarly."

Ah yes, gnarly. As an intermediate snowboarder who these days gets out only a couple times a year, I won't worry about the gnarly part right now. I'll focus on the mellow part of the song. Say, the subdued, ethereal first five minutes of "Stairway to Heaven."

("There's a lady who's sure all that glitters is gold,

And she's buying a stairway to heaven... ")

And a new day will dawn

Bold and I spent the morning skiing and 'boarding at Crystal's new Northway area, the formerly much-lusted-after Northback area that's been made accessible (and given a new name) thanks to the December installation of the Northway Chair. The $3.5 million chairlift opens up another 1,000 acres to skiers and 'boarders, bringing Crystal's total acreage to 2,300, the most in the state.

The move has mostly been hailed: "It's like Crystal grabbed the Alpental backcountry and added a lift," says Trent Mitchell, 33, a Seattle snowboarder. "It spreads riders out all over Crystal, which cuts down on lift lines on the whole mountain."

Before the Northway Chair was built, riding the Northback area required a bit of work. Especially getting back up once you'd finished your run.

"You had to wait for a bus to drive you back to the base area, take two chairs back to the top and start again," says James Keithly, 39, a Seattle skier and Crystal regular for 25 years. "A school bus has a certain charm and tradition, but it was certainly the long way around."

The Northway Chair, a fixed-grip, Double Doppelmayr (not a high-speed lift but not particularly slow, either), takes skiers 1,816 feet up the side of the mountain in about nine minutes. It's capable of carrying some 1,200 people per hour.

But not all Crystal regulars are superhappy with it.

"I think Crystal did blow it on the Northway chair," says Ken Zeman, a Seattle skier whose Kkz Ski Blog details his downhill pursuits. "It satisfies neither the backcountry skier nor the intermediate."

Says Christopher Bakken, an Auburn skier: "Previous powder runs are now bump runs, and the bumps get huge at the runout right before the base of chair."

And the forest will echo with laughter

A couple things can't be denied. First, that the Northway runs are challenging: All are black-diamond and double-black diamond. Second, the area is vast: 1,000 acres, or roughly the size of the entire Mount Baker Ski Area. That 1,800 feet of vertical is about 300 feet more than Baker, too.

A thousand acres is a lot of terrain to cover with one lift, so it's not surprising that there's still a bit of traversing (read: hiking, if you're a snowboarder) to get to some of the prime spots. To get to the Morning Glory bowl after riding the Northway Chair, for instance, Bold and I dropped down through some trees, then onto a snow-covered road along which we kinda scooched ("Keep your speed! Keep your speed!" Bold coached) until we reached a ridge. From here, it was an undo-your-snowboard-bindings-and-hike for a few hundred yards to the top of the Morning Glory bowl. None of which was the least bit difficult and, on a day when the clouds broke for peek-a-boo views of the lower flanks of Mount Rainier, was quite enjoyable.

Once at Morning Glory, we followed the sign for Brand X, first making our way down to a gladed isle in the middle of the meadow. Bold, an expert skier, was a blur as he kicked up huge wakes of fluffy powder, and seemed to disappear inside a roiling cloud of puffy white smoke that rolled down the hillside. Me, I felt like I was riding a magic carpet. Floating down, down, weightless like some ethereal being.

("Your head is humming and it won't go, in case you don't know.

The piper's calling you to join him... ")

Your stairway lies on the whispering wind

Eventually, the run narrowed and we came to the gnarly part of the song Bold told me about. The part of "Stairway to Heaven" where Jimmy Page straps on the double-necked guitar and cranks it to 11.

Cutting through the trees, things narrowed. Things got steep. But luckily, the snow was oh so deep, too, giving me a bit of traction on my board. Huge waves of powder cascaded down in front of me as I carved back and forth following Bold. And as I wound on down the mountain, my shadow growing taller than my soul, my goal, as Robert Plant sings, was to be steady. To "... be a rock, and not to roll."

Luckily, Bold was ahead of me, picking out my lines; otherwise I'd have likely found myself ragdolling down some crazy-steep cliffs that I hadn't seen until I was right on top of them. I'd have been fodder for the blooper outtakes of a Warren Miller movie.

For an intermediate like myself, that's probably the key to successfully riding the Northway area — go with someone who's ridden it before and knows where they're going.

Brand X popped us out onto the Northway run, kind of a freeway back to the base of the Northway Chair. Like Bakken said, it got real bumpy, especially as you get closer to the base of the chair. Not an expert snowboarder on the bumps, I doubt I made many friends as I clogged up the narrow, moguled-out last 50 yards or so to the chair; I was as suave and smooth as a drunk horse on roller skates.

Riding the lift back up the mountain, I had time to reflect on the hellaciously fun, butt-kicking ride I'd just taken. Reflect, too, on the stunning surroundings. A slight breeze was rising up from the valley, kicking off frosty white smoke bombs in the trees. The sun had broken through and cast shadows of the upper peaks against the powdery haze.

The Northway Chair lifted me higher and higher into a translucent, otherworldly gauze of snowy shadows and light. I swore I was riding a stairway to heaven.

Mike McQuaide is a Bellingham freelance writer and author of "Day Hike! Central Cascades" and "Day Hike! North Cascades" (Sasquatch Books). He can be reached at mikemcquaide@comcast.net. Blog: mcqview.blogspot.com.