another day in heaven...

the clouds were building off to the southwest, but i beat them! 
the snow seemed even a bit better today--but maybe that was my imagination, stimulated by the beautiful sunny day. i said hi to the cat driver as i started up the holt's side. he was sort of smiling, but also waving his finger and insisting i "be very carful...extra sink have opened up." it is always interesting how the workers at the area hills react to us as we poach these spring runs. yesterday afternoon i talked to this younger guy on the crew--decked out in snow pants and snowboard boots--and he was super friendly, even encouraging. this guy seemed a bit annoyed, maybe because he was working and i was playing, or maybe just simple and honest concern. at the end of the run i met four folk winding up the fencing (seen in the picture) all of whom said something nice. one guy was pretty excited and shouted out "yeah, earnin' your turns!" in the long run i was delighted they let us ski post season. last year we got asked not to come back at ragged mtn. i chalk that one up to lawyers...



i stopped about two thirds of the way up worden's shuss, the super g run, and took some pictures which might give you an idea...the one with the fence is obviously looking down and the other up--duh!


























the last picture is at the top, looking over at the winslow side where we skied yesterday. that is smarts mtn. in the background and if you squint you can see the fire tower. until this year MOC (the outing club i still advise at mascoma high school) stayed at a cabin up on the top for our february deepfreeze overnight. you can possibly imagine the clouds building in. the view is mostly north, a tiny bit east from here. coming from the south and west a huge dark gray bank of rain was looming. it was going to rain in a couple of hours--time to head down.

sure enough, after i got down and out of there, i was coming out of the grocery store and a solid rain was falling. as i collected my bags to make a dash for the truck, i saw linda, skip's lover/wife. we both hoped that this shower would pass so skip could get a run in on his way home from work. such is life!

"best skiing ever..."

at least so far this year! i went over to the skiway wednesday afternoon on the advice of an excited skip. he called tuesday evening informing me of the excellent conditions he found and highly recommended i meet him there after he got out of school. i was a bit early as the turnpike was in fine shape itself having had numerous loads of gravel recently spread over the muddier sections he bottomed out in last friday. he came along and we picked up a third, bob, for the first climb on the winslow side. he mentioned that he was meeting a few others, jed, whom i know, among them.

we scooted up and de-skinned and zipped down--the snow was indeed soft, plentiful, and as wonderful as we had seen out east this year! and there coming up the steep toward the bottom was jed and kelly. bob, skip, and i finished our run and turned to head back up for a second. their other friend, denji joined just as we headed up. the picture, taken by jed, is of all of the group at the start of the next run. it would have been nice to see jed as the guy is amazing--nearing eighty and still skiing up to ski down!

things were so sweet skip and i took a third run across the street on the holt's side. i was hoping that the snow was as good there and it basically was, save for the fresh cat tracks where they were working pulling fence/netting. upper worden's has a great headwall and they spray lots of snow as that is the super g course for the dartmouth racers. (thompson, on the winslow side, holds the slalom course and is why there is plenty of snow there. turns out, the dartmouth ski team did really well this year and ended up 5th at nationals out in colo.) it was totally worth the effort up--i planned to go back the next day, weather permitting.






having left his camera in the truck, i took a few shots 'after the fact' as we headed home. the one to the left shows skip in fine form busting a pile of crud. he looks just as good with skis on his feet, but that will have to wait. sitting here typing i have already packed up my gear--camera included this time--and will head out in a bit to try again for a second round of skip's "best skiing ever!" it is not raining yet and i actually see enough blue sky to get excited...too bad skip has to teach.

just teasing...

as i pulled out of the drive this morning, i noticed the ground was pretty stiff. any water in the road was frozen and cracked and crinckled if i rode over it. pedaling on, i was thinking of several things but none of them included snow which would have turned me around and taken the truck to work. it was chilly but after the hill on rt 4, i was warm enough to take off my hood and unzip a couple of inches. i was glad that i had gone back into the house and grabbed my neck scarf as when i tipped down the wind blasted right in the face.  why, no matter what direction i seem to be pedaling is the wind mostly direct on my nose?

after a session with the ces third graders i got involved helping with some tech matters and failed to notice what the weather was doing outside. i wondered why the kids and adults were coming and going to recess all bundled up like it was winter. the answer: it was snowing out, snowing fairly hard and blowing--in my face again. as i type now the temp hovers around 30 fahrenheit, with snow still coming and going. a couple of inches on the truck. i took a picture of my return tire track on the drive which had been totally clear when i left. one happy thought, at least they had not spread salt!

unofficial spring...

has sprung--and a few among us, like me, are less than happy. not that i begrudge anybody the warm, heck i was out saturday raking the drive smooth, the frost being pretty much out of the ground. but, i have yet to put away my skis. they stand in the corner on the porch, laughing at me every time i come out without a jacket, hat, or gloves.


pam and i both started a long walk up and over town hill with our jackets on. they were tied around the waist soon enough, but at around 40 degrees and somewhat 'moist' out, it was the long up hill that made them too warm. surprisingly, there was still ice in the big puddle on the right of way and some large frozen ice spots just past that. the hemlocks shade that area hard so it was not at all crazy to see even with the big thaw we have had. 

up in this area the frost is releasing the ground more slowly. head size rocks, pushed up by frozen water below them, sink back an inch or more as you step on them. some have even fallen back on their own leaving a crater like hole where they had pressed the earth up. now and again you step on some leaves that look frozen but crack and sink with your weight. 




the trees are still sleeping and hopefully they will stay that way for some time. maple sap ran so early this year, but the couple tappers i have talked to report it is not a big year. hannah's dad, bill, made two gallons compared to last years twenty two. things can still freeze back up, but we went past meteorological winter last wednesday. 

it is an interesting time to be out in the woods--wicked and weird as buck 65 puts it!

i found this today jumping around on the internet: Iktsurapok an inuit word more useful to us citizens of the digital universe than umpteen expressions for varieties of snow. here's how the blogsite mental floss characterizes the expression: 

"you know that feeling of anticipation when you're waiting for someone to show up at your house and you keep going outside to see if they're there yet? this is the word for it."

it occurs to me that iktsuarpok might enrich modern english, where it could just as easily refer to the obsessive checking of email and facebook to see wheter anyone's contacted you in the past 30 seconds. even the tradition inuit did it, eh? social networking and our obsessive-compulsive dipping for dopamine rools.  colin piprell.