single numbers °F, essentially cloudless, and zero wind--nada--all that 3156 feet above sea level, the last 100 of those, above the trees on top of mount cardigan!
cory came over for a sledders' breakfast--not to be confused with a breakfast of 'sliders' though now that i link those recipes, that sounds like a good thing too--and to gear up for his first cardigan adventure. both those things went well and by 9:30a we were parked, packed, and 'plantigrade'-ing our way to the summit!
wednesday's heavy, wet snow was now fluffy and light, with plenty still sticking up in the trees. it was a winter wonderland for sure. cory, a philidelphia native and fairly recent north country resident, was rockin' out the whole way up.
the snow was pretty fantastic, and i too was getting stoked for shredding, only not so much on a sled guitar, more with my butt in the tub.
in any case, the higher we got, the more pumped we were. as mentioned at the start, the weather could not have been more perfect.
we met 3 mascoma outing club alums enjoying the ideal conditions, already on their way down. matt, on at gear, had skinned up really early, skied the alexandria trail to the east, skinned back up, and was now descending the west side--ah youth! adam and mike were floating the pow in snowboard mode after skinning up earlier on their splitboards.
adam sent me a picture one of them took looking over fire screw in the foreground, toward the whites way off to the back. again, the sticky snow is prominent, and in this picture almost surreal.
when we pulled up to the summit, the sun was beginning to melt a little of that sticky snow, shedding some from a corner of one of the solar panels--cory with the wisdom of a true mtn man, took this pose out of the drop zone.
when we got in our sleds and started slipping down, he may have been questioning that wisdom. cruising along atop the crusty top, we picked up a fair amount of speed quickly. i miscalculated some and let it rip figuring the huge drift at the bottom of a runout would soften my stop.
the soft mound of snow did the trick as far as my body was concerned, but the already cracked sled, didn't like the transition and basically cracked in half. no problem i finished it off by hand and packed up the pieces. we still had cory's 'black beauty'--a thicker plastic, that included some fiberglassing i had given it over a few weak spots.
sharing the lone intact sled, we kept up a good pace, alternating between sliding and photographing.
tub sleds are actually tricky to master as they 'steer'--i use that term somewhat loosely--counterintuitively. lean to the right and they go left, lean left and they go right. soon enough, cory was getting the hang of it.
since one of us was always walking, i avoided the most of the ski trail--why post hole and spoil that when you could luge down the snowshoe path already packed out. that didn't stop me from doing a little powder hounding, and bushwhacking, off trail right above the s-curves. for the last section leading down to the summer lot, i watched cory take off and ran to keep up. he had it down now, railing every corner, whooping the drops, and generally sliding like a pro!
we 'dog sledded' it down the road, cory scrunching up in the front end and me standing benind, pushing where needed and trying to hold on when it got steeper. the picture shows mike, 'keeping right', headed up to the parking area a couple of hours earlier.
at the end, like little goofy kids, with big silly grins, we stated the obvious: it was a fine day to 'go outside and play!'
ps--here is some 'rare' video footage to go with the day...
cory came over for a sledders' breakfast--not to be confused with a breakfast of 'sliders' though now that i link those recipes, that sounds like a good thing too--and to gear up for his first cardigan adventure. both those things went well and by 9:30a we were parked, packed, and 'plantigrade'-ing our way to the summit!wednesday's heavy, wet snow was now fluffy and light, with plenty still sticking up in the trees. it was a winter wonderland for sure. cory, a philidelphia native and fairly recent north country resident, was rockin' out the whole way up.
the snow was pretty fantastic, and i too was getting stoked for shredding, only not so much on a sled guitar, more with my butt in the tub.
in any case, the higher we got, the more pumped we were. as mentioned at the start, the weather could not have been more perfect.
we met 3 mascoma outing club alums enjoying the ideal conditions, already on their way down. matt, on at gear, had skinned up really early, skied the alexandria trail to the east, skinned back up, and was now descending the west side--ah youth! adam and mike were floating the pow in snowboard mode after skinning up earlier on their splitboards.
adam sent me a picture one of them took looking over fire screw in the foreground, toward the whites way off to the back. again, the sticky snow is prominent, and in this picture almost surreal.
when we pulled up to the summit, the sun was beginning to melt a little of that sticky snow, shedding some from a corner of one of the solar panels--cory with the wisdom of a true mtn man, took this pose out of the drop zone.
when we got in our sleds and started slipping down, he may have been questioning that wisdom. cruising along atop the crusty top, we picked up a fair amount of speed quickly. i miscalculated some and let it rip figuring the huge drift at the bottom of a runout would soften my stop.
the soft mound of snow did the trick as far as my body was concerned, but the already cracked sled, didn't like the transition and basically cracked in half. no problem i finished it off by hand and packed up the pieces. we still had cory's 'black beauty'--a thicker plastic, that included some fiberglassing i had given it over a few weak spots.
sharing the lone intact sled, we kept up a good pace, alternating between sliding and photographing.
tub sleds are actually tricky to master as they 'steer'--i use that term somewhat loosely--counterintuitively. lean to the right and they go left, lean left and they go right. soon enough, cory was getting the hang of it.
since one of us was always walking, i avoided the most of the ski trail--why post hole and spoil that when you could luge down the snowshoe path already packed out. that didn't stop me from doing a little powder hounding, and bushwhacking, off trail right above the s-curves. for the last section leading down to the summer lot, i watched cory take off and ran to keep up. he had it down now, railing every corner, whooping the drops, and generally sliding like a pro!
we 'dog sledded' it down the road, cory scrunching up in the front end and me standing benind, pushing where needed and trying to hold on when it got steeper. the picture shows mike, 'keeping right', headed up to the parking area a couple of hours earlier.
at the end, like little goofy kids, with big silly grins, we stated the obvious: it was a fine day to 'go outside and play!'
ps--here is some 'rare' video footage to go with the day...
