in the 'after' season season...

i suppose you could call us die-hards, but considering we skin up to ski down all winter, why not get in a few more runs come spring. 

for years now i have been trying to find a day when the stars aligned and jay could come ski with me--somewhere, anywhere. last weekend sharing photos of our respective polar dips, he added a "let's meet up at the skiway on thursday." i jumped right on that, as after season runs there can be more fun than in season ones, at least for me. bonus, jay would be there!

of course as the weather shaped up it was supposed to be extra windy and cold that day. and given our 5:00p start, things would probably be pretty stiff. but, i was not going to let this pass.

jay pulled up right on time and we got his skins on quick, even though they hadn't seen a ski bottom in quite a few years. my guess was since they were too long and wide, they had never seen the bottom of his skis. they would work under today's conditions and only going up a mile or so.

we set off at a brisk pace straight up the lift line. it should be noted that jay is not only an accomplished nordic skier, and stays in pretty good shape, he is kind of a driven, type a sort of guy. you can read a blurb about his drive in the post about the last SEAD hike on moosilauke we did, semi-together. the only problem with that, besides my being 'old' and under the weather, is he loves to catch up on these get togethers. while he can fly uphill and chat with the best of them, i have to heavy breathe in between filling him in on my exploits.


the good thing is he notices all this and slacks off the pace when needed, even stopping now and again to 'take in the view', local as it is. we get up to the top and take our skins off while eating a delicious cookie that his darling wife julie made for us. and after snapping simultaneous selfies, we started our slide down.

it was indeed stiff, and "loud" as jay called it. but we managed to descend without incident of the negative sort, maintaining our smiles. and stopping for some more photo opps.













we were skiing the fresh cat track as even though it was a tad chunky, it was the only soft spot on the hill. when i got past jay on this headwall, i stopped and took a movie of him. while his skate-skiing double pole technique is bonafide--i don't know where i get mine.

the "loud" part of the skiing is evident, especially at the end (as is my booming voice). when we made it down to the vehicles, we promised we would do it again--next time sooner than later. maybe even after we trimmed his skins.

it just so happened that friday night it snowed about four inches. saturday morning, skip called me around 10 and we headed back over to the skiway. he had also stopped there thursday, but earlier than jay and i. he decided it was way to icy. today was a different story. when we started up, the snow was still powdery. the first run down was fluffy-fast and as long as you didn't set an edge too hard, you barely noticed the ice underneath.

we skinned up for a second go. this time, the sun had warmed up the fresh snow and started to make it a bit sticky. but, all in all, we had a great couple of runs. our only wish was that jay could have been there. that and i would have had my camera out...

go outside and play...!

ps turns out jay was there saturday--grabbing first tracks really early and with his camera!

april fools--every year...

since 2001, MOC has been holding the 'polar dip' on that day of trickery and jokes.


every year, on the last day of march, a small group of us meet at the town beach up on canaan street lake to cut a hole in the ice. with an auger, saws, and iron bars, we chunk up the ice, strap it up, and haul it out.


well, almost every year. in the last 10 years, 5 of them have been 'run ins'--4 of those with the lake totally ice free. while that is not as fun as jumping through a hole in the ice, it is a heck of a lot easier to prep than cutting through 2 feet--give or take a foot--of ice. this year was a bit odd with one side of a 10'x10' hole about 18" thick and the other over 24".


two feet thick is probably about average, though we have seen thicker than three feet. another odd part of this year was april 1st came on a sunday, easter sunday. that made for a leisurely dip, but lowered the numbers a bit. a full crew of canaan's emergency team were the first to show up.

the guys in the orange dry suits and the woman on the left are all former students, but i don't think they had ever polar dipped while they were in school.

current students, a guest, and one alumni, started showing up around 12:00, not all that anxious to go in, but at least willing. MOC co-president/secretaries, olivia and justin, had been there to cut the hole saturday. olivia and ethan, the alumni, had both dipped before, ethan two or three times. kerrigan and dirk were first time dippers, like justin and his ski buddy john, from kearsarge rhs.

it was a great line up. looking at the 'before' picture, nobody is hunched and shivering--yet. it is indeed a sunny day, almost 40°F. what you can't see is the blustery wind, steady between 15-20mph. maybe it was the wind chill that made that first dipper in a cold challenge. i think ethan broke that ice, so to speak. soon after we caught a good series of olivia going in.



i had featured olivia's 'run in' two years back, the year she moved to new hampshire from tennessee. it was an extreme cold experience that i promised would be better as a 'jump in'. even though she climbed out the ladder shortly after that last picture, she had a bigger smile than when she ran ashore in 2016.

just so you don't think i kept my boots on, here is a series of my cannonball.



my goal is to splash the dry-suited crew enough to encourage them to jump in after me. this year i had to up on the ladder for a second a splash dive.

that got some of the early dippers excited enough to take their own second jump before we lined up for an 'after' picture.

we were able to warm up enough that four of us stayed around to slide around the ice pulled by my kite. justin and john put on their skis and each had a couple of sweet runs.











it was a grand day to be outside and playing!