Crystal Mountain — Attraction in Enumclaw

Service was really terrible. Employees seemed to have an attitude over face masks and whatnot. There were no singles allowed on the gondola, despite the fact there were no signs saying that was the case. Thankfully, once I got through the long line, they told me that although it was okay this time, in the future they would have to send me over to the Chinook chairlift. You really should have signs at the beginning of the line saying this. And were you guys really not able to give me a lift ticket at the shuttle terminal because I had an unused ticket? Seems like laziness to me.

Be advised that although there are greens and blues at this resort, most of them are comparable to blacks and double blacks at some other resorts (including Stevens). In addition, most of this resort is black and double black. This isn't a bad thing, but if you are a beginner or do not ski/snowboard a lot, I would not recommend this place. If you are looking to night ski, go somewhere else. The night skiing here is an absolute joke. Only three lifts are running, but only two of them actually go to runs. The third one is for the bunny hill. You absolutely do have to take this lift unless you want to hike to the other two. Because these lifts are slow, and because people apparently are not familiar with loading onto these lifts, expect a long ride. About 20-25 minutes to get up to the top for a 2-3 minute ride down.

The food is expensive here, and unlike other resorts out there, the quality is really poor. The nachos that I had were like carnival nachos. I'd expect something better than that for $18. Also keep in mind that because of COVID rules, only outdoor seating is permitted. So expect your fingers to freeze whilst eating. While I am not faulting them for this decision (point the finger at the governor for this one), was it too much to ask for to have heaters and some more covered seating? I know this was a temporary thing, but it surely does not show any signs of stopping anytime soon. One of the restaurants has a firepit outside, but they were very strict about people getting up there. So don't rely on it.

The absolute worst thing that happened was the shuttles. For anyone new to this resort, you cannot park at the parking lot adjacent to the resort unless you have an ICON pass. The shuttles run to and from the parking lots to the resort... except they think that it was a super good idea to stop shuttle service during the night skiing, when there was still a fair amount of people present. I had to walk to my car in my ski boots for about a half-mile away. I didn't have my shoes because I didn't expect that to happen, like at other resorts. The farthest of these lots, F lot, is 1.2 miles away according to Google Maps. And when I drove by there, I felt really bad for the people who were still parked there. Who in the hell would think suspending shuttle service during hours was a good idea?! And there was NOBODY available to answer the phone when I was calling to inquire about it.

I drove four hours from Portland to come check this resort out, after not getting a chance to see it back in March when I got my ticket. If I did check this out in March when I planned it, I would have been looking at a 3-hour drive from the Yakima area. I do not think I will...

ZERO STARS. DO NOT GO, IT IS NOT WHAT IT USED TO BE.

They sent email asking for feedback. Here is what I told them: Although the snow/powder was the absolute best I've ever seen, this was by far the absolute worst experience I have ever had skiing/snowboarding and I have been doing it for 20+ years. To be frank, you let way way way too many people on that mountain and it ruined it for everyone. When there are that many people, you cant even pick up speed or go down the mountain with any certainty you arent going to turn and collide with someone in you blind spot. Plus you have to stand in lift lines for 30 min at a time. Not to mention it is a safety hazard (because of covid and because people are bound to collide). For the record, I was there for 3 hours, only got one run in because of how long the lines were and on that one run I saw 2 pairs of people collide at high speeds because the mountain was too crowded. In all my life I have never seen anyone collide on the mountain so 2 times in 1 run is striking to me. I will no longer go to crystal and I will deter others from doing it. It makes me sad that you have control of one of the greatest natural resources in this area - the mountains in the winter are part of what makes living here so cool and it is a significant way people can recreate and interact with their environment in winter - BUT you are ruining it for everyone to sell more tickets. It is like stealing to charge people $130-150+ per day for the experience I just had. I'd recommend you never oversell the mountain like that again. I think it would be better for you to sell partial day tickets and have half as many people on the mountain at a time - i.e. some tickets 9-12, some tickets 12-3, some 3-close. But you have to cap the number of tickets you sell so lines are reasonable and people can recreate safely and enjoy themselves. I never again want to receive a text from Crystal Mountain at 1pm telling all the people sitting in a huge back up to get the the mountain (at 1pm!!!) that they wont be able to even find a parking spot until at least 2pm (an hour or two before night skiing starts). I'm sure some of these people paid for a full day and you basically told them they were going to spend more time waiting for a parking spot in their car than skiing and you told them that all they were going to get to do night skiing (where you only have 3 (lame) runs open)....

Yesterday was a wonderful day, i went skiing with friends to Crystal Mountain, and unexpectedly I had a wonderful time. Unlike Summit at Snowqualmie, Crystal has an amazing green long trail for intermediate skiers to challenge themselves on, and it was a great opportunity for me to practice carving. I brought a friend for his second time snowboarding ever, and i took him first to Discovery to allow him to remember what he had learned last time snowboarding. After 3 runs we decided to take the Chinook express gondola up and do a couple runs from the Broadway and Tinkerbell trails back into the Chinook express. After 2 or 3 runs we decided to give Forest Queen express a try to increase the difficulty a bit, the reason we hesitated at first was because this lift had a huge line every time, since it takes you up for the longest green trail at the resort. Since we didn't want to do the line so often we took a break and started going up and down the Quicksilver lift, which had no lines and the decent was still challenging and fun. I ran this one until the very end, where i got into my last run at 3:59pm right before the entire resort closes for the day. Overall it was a wonderful experience, despite the food being a bit pricey at $13 for a burger that was extremely poor with only a burger, bun and cheese on it, however it was kept very warm along with the tray and the fries were extremely crispy, no lettuce, tomato or pickles. I believe they have done a wonderful job at designing the lifts and trails given that despite the parking being fully booked, i didn't experience any long lines, even the Queen forest ran very quickly.

Only bad things I would love to see improve is that the last 10 miles to the resort we were stuck in traffic for an hour, Im not sure how often this happens since the last time i went, i didn't have to deal with this, but this was probably because we got there pretty...