smoother than a baby's bottom...

there was a very short skating season on canaan street last friday and saturday--thank goodness the pendletons called me.

of course the ice could come back, it has before, but when you get a really big wet snow, like we just had on tuesday, it is rare for all that to melt off and refreeze under normal winter conditions. ah, but what recent winter do you remember as being 'normal'?

'normal' is definitely relative. when pam and i lived in bemidji minnesota, give or take a couple days, you could usually drive on the lakes. freezing that early doesn't seem so assured these days, probably not even in bemidji. with that in mind, on friday after the feast, sawyer and hannah stopped by canaan street to check out the ice. it must not have been to their liking as they didn't come rushing home with a call to grab your skates.

on saturday though, skip called about 10-ish and announced, "the ice is good. we're heading up shortly." just minutes before, i had gotten a call from our sakonnet friend billy, with his own announcement. "we are on our way home on I89 and will stop by in about an hour." like normal is relative, timing is crucial. long story short, i didn't lace up the skates until 4-ish as the sun was going down.





save for the grey-white freeze lines the wind pushes into place as the surface freezes--you can see them in both images above--the ice was crazy smooth. in some places it was even black ice, practically clear and about 3 inches thick. in the picture on the right, linda and skip are looking at a funny strip of black ice. we were puzzled by these when we spotted them here and there.


linda finally guessed that maybe it was an animal 'track' made just as things were going solid. when i found a couple of other spots, that seemed like the answer. the animal--a duck, a muskrat, something--was still in question.


skating over just these little lines made you hold your breath and think light thoughts as you went over them. going out on big areas of black ice can be downright  freaky. in years past skip used to send me out to "test" things. this year he was skating right out with me. personally, i love the magic of skating black ice! thank you cory for reminding me of this video.


we kept circling the lake until things got dark enough everything was starting to look like black ice. skip and i took a final quick rush across the lake and back. as we glided to a quiet stop,  we listened for the sound of linda's blades. she appeared out of the shadows and when she was close enough you could see her huge smile. as we changed into our boots she repeated something she had already mentioned as we were gliding along earlier, "if this is the only day we get to skate, it will be wonderful."







true that--it is always a joy to go outside and play!--ephemeral or otherwise. and if you are out with people you love...life is sweet.

a modified turkey trot...

a hike with sawyer, hannah, and pam up over town hill rather than on the AT back and forth to holt's ledge. 

since 2001, MOC has been gathering to hike from goose pond road to the top dartmouth skiway and back. it's only a couple of miles but it gains a good bit of elevation on the way over--and of course loses it on the way back.

the original idea was to go outside and play!, maybe burn off some of those extra calories from the feast, all the while hangout with friends you don't always get to see. we have had some pretty big crowds over the years, and then over the past five or six years, half of them had been just pam and i, maybe some pendletons.

this year, soy and han were psyched about hiking, hoping to see noah, eben, maybe andrew, colleen, and others. friday morning when i got up it was -8°F and a call from skip to let me know they would not be trotting, at least not in the morning. last night pam had mentioned that she was thinking of something less involved--like maybe town hill. when everybody finally made it out of bed and down stairs, we reprogrammed.


the kids went over to visit the pendletons, pam started her yearly holiday letter, i suited up to try skiing our trails up and over town hill.

the "bitter...record cold" greeted me as i started sliding up hill. having lived a few winters in northern minnesota and spent plenty of winter in the mountains, i can get pretty jazzed listening to the extreme verbiage hyping weather. i wrote a letter to NHPR pointing out particular hyperbole and questioning what sort of language might they use when it inevitably gets colder, windier, and snowier. the great thing about these two nights of below zero and days of brisk wind, it totally dried out the wet snow. that made skiing fairly fast!

fast enough to turn and yo-yo the 's curves' a couple of times, run up, then all the way down to bear pond road, climb back up and finish in one long slide home. i came in the door just as the kiddos and pam were suiting up to hike over the hill.

i stripped off my ski bibs and followed them following my ski tracks. hannah had her camera and took this series of pictures, the first one of sawyer on the other side of the gap i put in the stone wall between the broadbeests and jorgensens.

pam was zipping ahead on her snow shoes and we didn't catch her until just below the s curves where she stopped for a second. han was ready and snapped a partial family photo. i am particularly fond of the strip of sunlight along sawyer's leg and the side of my face.

pam scooted off again and in no time we were cresting the height of land. the third image captures the lineup.








it also has a great composition: the snow, people, and hill on the horizon fill the bottom third; the trees and their angled shadows accentuate the upright hikers; a spot of red with blue, again with a stripe of sunlight. it totally works for my eye.

what doesn't work is 'the truck', sitting in the middle of the trail for as long as we have lived here.











i have dreams of pulling it out of the woods someday. it will be a chore though as both axles are broken along with all the other things that would make dragging it away easier.

after the snow this week on tuesday, i am thinking we will have to wait a few seasons--i am throwing in mud, with winter and most of spring--to do anything like haul it out of the woods. that's fine with me, the more snow the merrier. and if it gets a little drier- fluffier than the last one i will be ecstatic!

whatever happens weather wise, it's always a pleasure to go outside and play!



ps--one of my 'other lovers' was out on the snow, up skiing the green woodlands. he took a photo looking at moosilauke in honor of my hike a couple weeks earlier. he also got a shot of his frosty, après ski smile!

thanks jay!!

an early serving...

two storms within a week's time--with no rain or melting between--and before thanksgiving at that!



pam and i had cruised a lasalette loop a couple of weekends back. it had been wicked blustery and cold-ish enough for pam to hood and hand warmer it. it was also sunny, which considering most of october and november, was a good time to get out and enjoy the woods--without getting soaked. but, armed with only the silkie bigboy™ hand saw, we had left a handful of bigger hardwoods to cut out later.

the following friday, as the first storm was tapering off, skip and i went back over with a chainsaw. going up the james jewitt trail--blue/green then green on the map--we cut out all the big stuff and a few new smaller tangles. at the height of land, we got pretty excited at the snow depth. that excitement flagged some at a plugged up stone culvert just past the 'potato field'. we cut a point on a pole which i used to 'drill' down into the leaves and muck. it seemed a bit useless until all of a sudden a very satisfying 'sucking' sound followed a whirlpool doing a pole dance down around the stick and into the culvert. skip gave out a call, as the muddy flow came through the other side.

coming down what we call the 'little sherbie', the moses johnson trail, we finished clearing the large hardwoods along with quite a few new fallen pieces. we got back to the truck feeling very satisfied that with another good snow, at least the green loop would be skiable!

on tuesday, we got our wish. it snowed and accumulated all day. both of us had to work, but wednesday it would be even deeper and we would have off.  skip had a doctor's appointment in the am, so i told him to meet me over at drummond custom cycles after 'lunch o'clock'. food is crucial for skip. i had made muffins for the guys in the shop, and took them with me as i headed over to get a first run in. i dropped off the goodies and went across the road to try out the coverage.

nearing the top of moses johnson
photo by Jennifer Barden of bikekitz

the james jewitt side of the green trail is the long way up, but less steep than moses johnson--'little sherbie'. skip loves that one so i saved it. i went up the jj planning to take a side trail up to 'lost pond' and then come down through what we call the glades, my favorite. it was so peaceful, if i hadn't been skiing, i could easily fall asleep. to my surprise, two women came from the opposite direction. always keen to show others all the possible shaker paths, i woke up fully.

jen and jen were hiking the loop backwards but were open to checking out 'lost pond' and the glades. jen d was all about exploring new trails that could be mtn biked later. it reminded me of last year around the same time and about the same conditions, meeting jacob with kiddos nikao, and lolo--nikao with his little bike. they were likewise keen to explore. of course i was pleased to lead.

as self-appointed, semi-official 'lost pond' tour guide, i skied on excited. it worked out the jens were pumped at seeing the pond with its laid up stone damn. and speaking of pumped, they laughed when they noticed the relic pump that somehow ended up at the base of a tree growing on the damn. next time i go by, i will try to remember and take a picture.

looking back up the glades
photo by Jennifer Barden of bikekitz

the pond is the height of land and from there, we were headed downhill. i buckled my boots, and put my jacket and hat on, ready for it to get a little faster. again, the glades was my favorite run and i was hoping the coverage would be enough. it was, mostly, and though i stopped a few times for the jens to come down, the flow felt really good.


after getting past the rocky section, i kept with the flow all the way to the bottom. when i got to the tiny fields, a set of ski tracks came in. i skied back up to the jens and gave them the word so they would follow the right tracks--in this case the left ones.


i got back smiling to the truck, stowed the skis, and de-booted. when the jens arrived i they were delighted to jump at my suggestion that making snow angels would be a hit on their website bikekitz--"Empowering Women to Get Out and RIDE!" after all, playing in the snow is the winter version of riding. i borrowed the camera and tried to catch them in the act.




after they brushed off, we piled into the truck and went back to drummond's for muffins. they had walked over from there at the beginning of their hike and jen had snapped this picture looking up into hills we had just came out of.

some of the hills above one of the shaker fields 
photo by Jennifer Barden of bikekitz

it looked just like that now, only different--backwards in the rearview mirror. and that was ok--a fine ending to a wonderful day outside and playing!

ps of course it wasn't the end  of the day, not yet...i called skip from the shop and he came over for a couple more runs. first, we yo-yo'd the blue/green section of the james jewitt. we took a last run, finishing on his favorite, the moses johnson, or little sherbie. as we were going up for the last time, we got caught in a crazy squall. skip's blue shirt, even his black pants, were dimming, even disappearing in the near whiteout. it reminded me of the phenomenal downpour on town hill soy and i were out in a couple weeks previous. only this time instead of getting immediately soaked, we got 'plastered' under giant white flakes. the wind was so strong, it felt like being sprayed with a snow-making gun. we looked like we had been too!