metal roofs...

do a good job of sliding snow when it warms up, but i shoveled the back porch to speed things up and direct the snow where i wouldn't have to deal with it again off the roof. here is a picture of what it looked like about 9:00a

you can see the big house roof slid the other day as well as the upper portions of the little house and back house. but, since the porch has less of a pitch the snow builds there and ice forms underneath which makes it even more sticky.

a bit of sticky is good, i don't mind falling into a pile of soft snow, but it is easier if i stay up top. when i got up there just after the above picture was taken, the snow was an impressive foot deep. it was covering that crusty layer i have written about from a couple weeks ago, which was helpful for footing as well. i went up on the left and started on the right, working my way back to the ladder. one place i try to avoid loading snow with is the bulkhead, which you can just see a corner of below the lone downstairs window on the north side of the big house. things were deep and light enough that i used the big snow plow. not sure what you call it, but it is a two handed affair and moves a lot of snow at once. i have heard people call it a float too, and it does float and swing fairly easy if you tip it back and get it on top of some fresh stuff. that made it easy to dump it where i wanted!

things went pretty well--i only slid once, not off the roof or my feet, but definitely sliding. the sun was hitting parts as i shoveled and starting to melt things. it was warm enough for me to work in a shirt, with no hat or gloves. i am hearing that it will be this warm tomorrow too, which will make for a pleasant hike up smarts with MOC for the deepfreeze overnight. while it is supposed to freeze overnight, it will not be as deep as it has been in the past. one morning we woke  to somebody's little zipper-pull thermometer at -22°F--inside. the cabin on smarts is unheated.

while i was snapping the 'after' picture, i took a couple shots of deer activity at the brussel sprout stalks, looking north-ish toward the compost bins, and the kale, going toward the southeast corner post. there were absolutely no tracks there yesterday afternoon, so all that work was done over night.



the deer digging through the snow for bits of vegetation, made me think of the news story this morning talking about reindeer in alaska. we all have to eat. which reminds me, i have to go into the coop and buy the food for the overnight...

deep and fluffy...

real snow! nothing like the normal east coast ice. most of wednesday and much of thursday this part of new hampshire was getting snowed on. i worked on wednesday and was hoping the whole day that 'all afterschool activities' would not be canceled. the MOC deepfreeze meeting had already been snowed out once and we are scheduled to go this sunday--a gathering was called to finalize food and have students present winter travel tips. i got a little nervous when they announced that student drivers could leave 10 minutes early, but in the end we met.

with the logistics and students pretty well set, i woke thursday to good six inches of fresh powder and decided to go up and check the cabin out. i could install the 'kitchen board' i had cut two years ago and get a good ski in while i was out. as i drove up the turnpike i stopped to say hi to one of my former students, matt, shoveling his drive. i knew he hiked so i asked if he wanted to go up to smarts. he said sure, but his snowshoes were in his buddies truck. i zipped back home and grabbed mine while he finished shoveling and then packed.




we got on the trail about 11:00a, a bit late as i had a 4:00p meeting, but he was young and i had brought him a sled to speed up the descent. we were going to take the ranger trail, the dotted black line that basically follows the drainage until it starts to climb more sharply. the lambert ridge, between the pink highlighting, is the AT trail. either way, the snow was plenty deep, but by switching lead, we were going right along. the only thing that slowed us was the occasional blowdowns we stopped to cut out. if it was bigger than eight inches, we left it and went around. i figured the sledders coming down monday could get over anything we could.





matt dropped his pack off at the old fire road garage to help with our speed. the snow was deep enough to make breaking trail a real chore, even switching off like we were. when we crossed the brook and went into the woods were the climb got steeper, and the snow deeper. we hit a half dozen more blowdowns before the junction with the AT--the red dotted line meets the black one--before the final quarter mile of switchbacks at the really steep parts. at one point my skins didn't hold on an icy rock hump and as i tumbled backwards into the snow i lost a ski and the saw came out of my pocket. when i righted myself and collected gear, i decided to stow the saw in the pack and hope for a clear trail the rest of the way.

i caught back up to matt who was stymied at another ice flow over a boulder. we tried a couple of approaches just to slip back down. finally i heard matt mutter, "i guess i'll have to go down to go up." that worked and i followed. over that spot we ran into a mess of a fallen tree, but managed to get under it. maybe one of the students would like to saw it out on sunday. as we gained the summit cone, the snow laden trees hung lower and lower, and as low as i could bend just gave the snow more of a target down my back. i suppose the shovel and kitchen board strapped on to my pack only helped knock more of it down on me as well. we were almost as snowy as the trees--but we could change at the cabin.





after getting around one last nasty blowdown right below the fire tower, we got to the cabin. when we got around to the porch side, it was freshly painted and had a new door on it. i took some pictures then gave matt the shovel and i took the board inside. before putting it on the little sink, i did change out of my soaked shirt. i also noticed that the holes in the wall and the floor had been patched. students who complained last time about the cold leaking in would be happy. the place looked ship shape compared to some of our visits.  we finished our tasks and packed up again. matt took off as i fiddled with my skis. somehow i put them on the wrong feet, but i didn't want to let matt get too far out on his own, so i left them.


that might have been a mistake. as i skied down to find him i kept thinking i should change skis around, but the snow was deep enough that i could make it work--almost. after ripping the my jacket sleeve on a low tree branch making it down the first steep part, i gave in and stripped my skins and changed feet. while i was at it, i buckled my boots tight and clicked down the bindings as well. "ah, that's better." skiing down was back to really fine. a little narrow in some places, but now i was ripping the powder rather than my jacket. what i couldn't believe, the tracks said matt was snowshoeing it the whole way, not sledding. i should catch him fairly soon, even with his big stride.

i got into a sweet set of s-curves where the conifers gave out and the hardwoods opened up. i spotted matt tromping along ahead. as i came up, i asked how it was going, he gave a tired smile and confessed he pretty tired, and was not sledding to keep his hands dry. i could understand that. we got to the garage a bit after that and as he repacked, i kept on. with no skins there was going to be some sidestepping or herringboning to make it uphill.

the fire road out was now clear of trees--except for that one huge trunk at the bottom--and i figured it would be a fairly quick out even with a few uphills. since matt didn't sled the steeper spots, i figured he wouldn't slide any of this section. given that, i sort of poked along, thinking that 'date' i was trying to meet, would wait for me a little past 4:00 if he had to. neither matt nor i kept a watch or phone so we were only guessing it would be close to that time when we got out.



i did get down about 10 minutes before matt made it to the truck about 3:50p. to celebrate, i passed him a cup of hot tea, we packed into the truck, and headed back to canaan. he assured me that despite a sore pelvis, it had been a great trip and he was wicked happy i had stopped and asked. it was mostly all work on the way up but i caught a good picture of matt wearing a smile along with a snow flake at the eye.


we had achieved everything i wanted to: the trail was mostly clear, the porch shoveled off, the kitchen board in place, and we had a great chat as well. as i dropped him off at his drive right after 4:00p, i decided i would stop at the house and see if jeff had waited for me. there was an email with a phone number so i called.



jeff was still at our meeting spot, nursing a beer, and willing to wait for me to get there. what could be better than such an accommodating friend willing to wait--even though this would be the first time i actually met him, at least in the flesh. after such a swell day in the snow, i was counting a lot of blessings!

two days with skip...

day one--wolfboro road and five or six inches: right from the get go, i was having fun. when i got to linda and skip's on sunday, i went in and had a cup of tea with a couple of linda's "best cookies ever" right out of the oven. munching and sipping helped us come to a consensus on the best trail for the conditions. we loaded the truck and headed for moose mountain, that was our decision and we were sticking to it. the trailhead, right at the bottom of at least a mile 'uphill' pretty close to "cemetery" on the right side of the map, had a fine two-truck parking area all plowed out. four or five fresh inches lay atop the solid base--that half inch of icy crust i have written about--and it was still snowing hard. i had my 'fast', no-scales, skis with skins for going up and good slide-ability for coming down.

i had told skip of the late fall hike pam and i took up to the south peak and over to the AT shelter--something else i wrote about--and about how they had 'graded' the trail. it was probably with a tractor and bucket, but it did make things a lot less rocky, which the snow would only make it smoother. as we headed up to the height of land, where the AT crosses the road--at the red dotted line going from pink highlight to pink highlight--i convinced myself that it would be worth taking my skins off and linking some turns on the hanover center side. it was long and steep enough to get me excited. skip had his scaled skis and would only need to click his bindings down, so he was all in when i suggested it.

going down was indeed well worth it, at least for me. we stopped where the steep ran out, right where the two dotted lines center left on the map crossed. skip was feeling his skis were pretty slow and he had to schuss down more than linking turns. but after i passed him with a whoop, he traced my track and was satisfied with the speed. and when we got to the bottom and i had to put my skins back on, he just clicked out of downhill mode--what's to complain about that!?




we got back up to the AT junction and turned toward south peak, again at the red dotted line on the map. the almost filled in herringbone tracks of a skier from friday or saturday that we had been following up the hanover side, turned with us so we kept on following. the snow on the trail seemed deeper here than on the road and looked like it would be a fine time coming down. at the summit i snapped a picture before tucking into the woods to take off the skins once more and have a snack. the tea in the thermos was still plenty hot, and another of linda's 'best' cookies was another high point. we tightened boots and bindings up, pointed our skis down, and shoved off.





from those high points, i was smiling all the way until i stopped at a good spot to catch skip in the action of turning. again with his scales under foot, he was moving slower and tracing my tracks except for where it got steep enough to keep some speed. he wasn't complaining anymore, as it was a sweet run. when i stopped again back on the road, i noticed it was getting much colder and the wind had really picked up. when skip pulled up he agreed and put on his goggles.


the road back down to the truck was moderately pitched, with only a few steeper spots, so it was pretty much gliding along looking for something to spice it up: skiing up banked edges and jumping off or popping off rocks. i had stomped out one launch on the trip up, and when i finally reached it, i was not going all that fast, but i took a leap anyway--and toppled forward on the landing. skip, gliding along even slower behind me, lept as well, but he landed it.

as we got back to the truck, having fallen or not, we were both satisfied. enough to plan out another day of it, just in case there was a snow day monday.

day two--cardigan and more than a foot: and snow day it was! i made it over to skip's after helping pam get off to work. we had gotten maybe ten inches total in the storm, but the snow seemed to be stopping. i was sort of hurrying skip as i figured we were not going to be up there first. that was ok with skip as he did not want to break trail. as we came up the last hill to the winter parking lot, he asked his usual "how many vehicles are going to be in the lot?" i guessed three and he went two--there was one. but, i saw tracks of two others that had already left. on the trail up, there were plenty of tracks coming down which must have belonged to those that had already come and gone.

as we booted up, a lone skier came down to the other car. he had started at 6:00a and crossed paths with the others--two pairs--they had started even earlier. having to go to work will make dedicated east coast skiers do crazy things for powder. all five had skied both the east side alexandria ski trail, and the west ridge trail, with a few bits of the ski/fire trail thrown in. that was our plan too. we tracked up any of the sections that were untracked, as the foot of powder would really slow us if left fresh in the less steep areas. for fun, we cut over to south ridge at clifford's bridge.



when we got to the bare ridge, the wind was pretty wild. what we could only hear in the woods, was in our face and we had to put our hats and gloves back on and zip up. we couldn't find the trail right away when we got to the 'stone wall' on cardigan's south peak. finally, a little white blaze pointed us into the woods and we went for it. we passed the amc high cabin and went on to the top of alexandria where we buckled up boots and clicked bindings for the downhill. i watched as skip pushed off and noticed the snow was really deep and there was plenty of it even though it had been skied already.


as we went down, i swear there were drifts two feet deep or more. at one point my skis submerged deep and i couldn't turn it out, stalling just as i went into the woods. i had to back myself out from under the load and crust. skip went by thinking i was just peeing. i zipped by a bit later as he was catching his breath, feeling a good rhythm, blasting through the unskied puff balls in between the tracks already laid. all of a sudden i dropped into a dip that threw me mostly over, one ski still in full contact with the snow the other pulling some ballet move behind me. that went on for maybe twenty yards until i gave up trying to get it back and somersaulted into a lump of fluff. skip came down laughing about how he thought i was going to pull it out, but the crash looked really good.

i don't remember stopping the rest of the way until i hit the clark trail junction, pulled up, and waited for skip. we put the skins back on and started up, very happy. as skip announced on his arrival, it would qualify for some of the "best skiing ever!" the sun was shining and made it quite pleasant in the woods, even with the wind roaring ever loader up in the canopy. any snow left up high was blowing loose and swirling like crazy. as we went along, i couldn't help but want to ski back down again, only this time i was going to come right down the clark trail. it was so beautiful and the snow seemed perfect for it.

unfortunately, it was well past lunch o'clock and we stopped to fuel up at the high cabin. i drank my full thermos of tea as skip ate his sandwich. i had to search his bag for the "best cookies ever" when he attempted to pass off linda had not put any in. by the time we finished that he confessed that he was too tired to go down the east side again, climb back up, and then finish on the west side. it was only his second time out this season, so i put the clark trail on my to do later list and we took off to look into skiing the chute.

as we approached the top of the chute--formerly a secret little stash that very few people outside of us knew--i saw tracks, both snowshoe and ski, headed in. oh well, we were here, lets just go for it. we took the skins off for the last time, buckled up, clicked in, and dropped over the cornice. it was not the best, but there was enough snow to make it fun. we kept on finding more snow as we went and soon enough got onto the upper section of the ski/fire trail. i know this is a repeat, but it was sweet.

and it just got sweeter as we went. i was pretty surprised how much snow was available even tracked as it was. there were a couple of sections that nobody had tracked that were extra special. and the parts that were tracked, had plenty on the edges. we met back up at the summer parking lot where i told skip i would get down faster so i would set up for pictures at the gate. i was ready when i heard him call out and was able to snap three shots. the camera has a pretty slow recovery and i was too zoomed in for the last shot, but here they are...




it was a second grand day...not only were we out, the snow was up!




skiing both the east and west sides was tiring--even though we didn't rip down the clark trail. hitting the chair afterwards was sleep inducing for skippy. or maybe he was just trying to avoid shoveling the roofs. when linda got in from her ski around the woods beyond cardigan school, he woke up and we all had tea and another "b.c.e."...then went out and shoveled the roofs.

an adventure tour...

and back by dark! i will not hide the fact that it was very hard to motivate myself this am. after trying skip a couple of times--with no luck--to see if those un-skied lower sections of cardigan would tempt him, i decided it was too fast to solo it. where else? la salette kept coming up and i kept rejecting it feeling like i was 'overdoing' it. maybe the old road up up to the 'garage' on smarts or the old road off the AT this side of holts ledge? i finally just started getting geared up, that would force a decision.









at the last minute i changed out of the sorels and put on the garmonts--the decision was made, ski right out of the yard, go up over town hill, go northeast a bit to horseshoe pond, follow the outlet stream south, and head toward bear pond. on the map, our house would be just off to the left of "approximate..." town hill has a logging road up and over it that hooks up with hall road that got extended a few years ago. i kissed my love and left very close to the stroke of 1:00p. it was a fine feeling to be clicking on ski bindings rather than a seat belt; i always feel more relaxed not having to drive. as i pointed myself up over town hill, it was fairly obvious, the woods still would be fast.







about four inches of fluff covered that bombproof icy crust and promised some speedy descents. slippery was just under the surface but i was able to keep it there with the scales underfoot grabbing going up, rather than sliding back. as well as covering the crust, the fluff up in the trees was total winter wonderland-ish and i practically forgot i was skiing. gliding along, watching a bird flit over there, or a wind shake a snow load loose from the tippy-top of a tall pine over there, i topped over the height of land. the sudden speed with gravity now assisting, brought me back and i started turning in plenty of time to avoid the old truck at 'rest' mid-trail.

after the dead truck the pitch got steadily greater and was slippery enough to launch off a few rocks. the steepest section held a few more rock jumps, but only one infiltrated my concentration on trying to stay upright and on the trail. i managed that goal down to hall road and onto the old bear pond road where i started following a herd of footprints. the tracks were probably from the upper valley land trust hike "exploring the bear pond natural area". when they turned and headed across the marshy area at the low point in the road, i got interested figuring they were headed toward bear pond--exactly where i was hoping to go.

across the marsh and over the beaver dam on the south end of horseshoe pond, i was still excited but had some questions about the path these folks were taking. their trail was squirreling around in the woods and tending left, so when i had a clear line toward the pond i slid right. after an aborted attempt to forge my own path through the thick, snow laden, 10-12 foot balsam, i switched back and picked up the uvlt trail again--hoping once more their end point would be the pond by some route one of the leaders knew better than i. for a brief, fairly clear distance, that hope stood. after i had to take off the skis to make it up a steep section, thick with brush, then more circuitous bush whacking at the top, that wish fell face first into the snow. they were clearly not headed toward the pond.

leaving their twisted trail, was one thing, blazing my own more pleasant one was a whole 'nother. i managed to descend the hill i had to boot up headed more toward the pond now. it was not all free and clear but it was doable keeping to a fairly high traverse, as opposed to pointing things straight down. after reaching the bottom though, i had to stop and switch sweater for jacket with a hood, prepping for going back into the thick balsam. for extra ammunition, i downed some water and had a couple bites of chocolate before diving in.

after about a half hour of whacking, ducking, and constantly searching for bits of less dense sky lines, i worked my way onto some higher ground and was actually able to stride a few ski lengths before dodging some obstacle. i passed several trees with flagging tape and wondered if my friendly ornithologist lenny had been up here mist netting and tagging warblers. (look at posts 5/20/16 and 5/28/16 for some info on len and his canada warbler activities.) continuing ever pondward, i ran across a fairly fresh deer trail that seemed to be following some sort of direct line. i took that as a hint and was rewarded with said line turning into a clear trail headed right where i wanted to go.

it is hard for me to judge skiing distance when i am deep in the woods, but after about a half mile of really pleasant skiing i hooked back up with the uvlt tracks, right at the bottom of that hill i had to boot up. from the map, i took the trail i was just on, to be the sweet water trail. i retraced our original tracks back to a woods road between horseshoe and bear pond and turned south again. about a half mile later, i went over what i took to be a brook feeding bear pond, probably about a 30 minute heavy bushwhack away. i opted to keep skiing out to hall road as it was getting late and i would just make it home by dark if i avoided any more detours.

that being decided, after climbing the last bit of steep that connected with hall road, i couldn't help but ski down and link a dozen turns together. it was worth the climb back up. when i got back to the steep part coming off of town hill--the one that took some concentration zipping down earlier--i didn't take that option and just continued on up past the truck and over to our side of the hill. as i came over the height of land, i let gravity pull me aiming for all the rock launches i remembered. through the s-curves it got fast enough to keep my attention. it steadied out until one final pitch just before our stark hill road.

it was not yet pitch dark as i skied up the drive, but pam had the light on and her snowshoes were back on the porch, so i figured she was inside. sure enough, she was, and she had a hot pot of tea to boot! life was good--especially considering it was forecasted to snow somewhere in the neighborhood of a foot sunday into monday. if that were the case, i bet i could get skip up a mountain, sooner than later.