not the same as it used to be, but still fun~ish...

even if you don't read goap! regularly, you probably know i 'hate' what we now call a wintry mix. sitting here listening to the 'trinkle'--that's my new word for a trickle of ice chunks falling from the roof with a tinkle as they knock against the house. mostly, that sound is a kerchunk, but tinkle made for a more eloquent portmanteau--my feelings are only amplified!

amplified, magnified, multiplied...some sort of -ied that speaks of discontent with the our winters of late. much of that displeasure comes from my position of 'trail master' in this saturday's shaker museum snowshoe fest. we have had some excellent snows this season, but they have been followed by significant ice-rain events--one just last night! along with well above freezing temperatures, the wonderful, formerly deep snow pack has shrunk to a "not all that fun for snowshoeing" depth.


had you asked me last weekend, i was seeing things differently. of course i was also hearing the forecast for warm temps and liquid precipitation. obviously, you make tracks when the snow's good. but, i also have to make them when the snow, if it is there at all, is crusty and...not so good.

but, to overlook the good times would be unwise. on sunday, pam and i went down to sadie's and otavio's for a snowshoe in the woods before this week's big warm up. the 6-8 inches of fresh stuff they got in windsor was still mostly there, a little tracked out, but very enjoyable.



everyone but me had been on some of the trails in paradise park, so i tagged along at the back as they led us on a looping hike. first we descended into a fairly deep ravine, crossed over and hiked along a good sized stream. we climbed back out a ways downstream, looping back to descend again to the stream crossing. i stopped to take a picture of sadie and pam before we dropped back down into the drainage.

once we got back to the stream, we crossed back across and then crossed another stream in the opposite direction. that led up to a really cool ridge line where i tried to capture the perspective of behind and ahead of me going up.




the pictures don't do it justice, but i was enjoying an art-sy spell. i was enjoying other things as well--namely visions of another big storm dumping a bunch more snow on the steep sides of the ravine. there would be some pretty exciting skiing if that were the case. short, but exciting runs, that could be repeated in fresh snow up and down the length of the long~ish ridge. pam thought it a bit nuts, "that's as steep as tuckermans ravine--only with trees!" 

i could avoid the insane spots, but the whole of it looked pretty inviting. then. now, with the warming, and wintry mix, i am going to have to wait for another big snow event. 

until then, i will just have to "go outside and play!" in the diminished snow...

imagine if that two inches of rain had been snow...

midweek after over a foot of snow fell on the weekend back two weeks, we had almost 2" inches of rain--as in up in the 40s °F, not even close to a 'wintry mix', pouring down, all day, rain. that is not right! no matter the idiotic statements trump makes that it "'Wouldn’t be bad to have a little good old fashioned Global Warming right now!'"

thank the goddesses it was forecasted to snow a fair amount again monday and tuesday--and 8-10 inches came! as did kevin and mariel, on wednesday--with their skis! when i pulled into the drive, i saw the two, cutting tele-turns in the field. i quick changed into my ski gear and joined them. 

we made our way up to the top of town hill and tipped over the east side and skied down to the beaver dams. the steeper pitches were sweet with powdery snow. the time pam and i put in on the weekend clearing the latest blowdowns made for clear going. the ski back down the west side to the house, was just the right speed to make everybody happy.

thursday dawned clear and cold--none of that fresh snow would have disappeared. we geared up and headed over to the lower shaker wildlife management area. as we skinned up the lower field, a stiff-ish wind blew down at to meet us. did i mention it was cold? through the upper field, i was making a track--for the yellow hayfield trail--to come back and flag for the snowshoe fest. i stuck close to the woods which helped cut the wind some.

at the top of the fields we skied into the woods and took an old ski path up to a high point and a good place to take off the skins, lock the bindings down and push off. save for the three of four trees down, it was a fun decent to the main trail and a good place to pose for pictures.

a long-ish run brought us to what i call 'grand junction', were as we put skins back on, lisa came along on snowshoes with bennie on snow paws. we skinned a mile up to the potato field, de-skinned, and turned our way back down the path we just ascended. i took a picture of mariel watching kevin slide into the junction.

it always amazes me, how quickly you ski down something that took a good while to skin up.

friday dawned clear and cold again and after kevin and mariel pulled out headed back to maine, i geared up again and went over to lower shaker wma for a ski with dick on his new at set up. i was a bit early so i skinned up solo on second left--the little sherbie or blue trail--to lay more tracks for the snowshoe fest. a hazy sun met me near the top.

after cutting out some hanging poplar, i stripped off the skins and cruised back down, non-stop to the bottom.

i loaded things back into the truck and zipped across 4A to drummonds. dick and speight were all ready to go. we loaded their stuff, including bennie, and zipped back across 4A to the pump house. we unloaded and skinned up second left that i had done just before but kept on going past my turn around. 

we turned of the blue trail onto a little used path up to 'lost lake'. dick and speight had never been up there, despite their riding these woods fairly frequently. the trail goes over the old, stoned up shaker damn and comes down to what we call 'the glades'--first left for those of us in the know. dick and i took our skins off there and speight switched from snowshoes to snowboard--bennie snuffed around in the snow.



when we had passed by first left at the bottom of the glades, there were a couple of ski tracks, looking like freshies were gone. but here at the top, there were no tracks save for woods creatures'. that made us pretty excited as we pushed off into the trackless snow. i stopped once to check on the big smiles the two were sporting. 

they grew even bigger as i watched them come down the last pitch, speight blasting off a little drop between two big pines, to join us on the main trail. backcountry seemed to please the two immensely. so pleasing that back across the road, speight and i made plans for mt carr the next morning--dick regretfully announced, "i have to work."

more below zero temperatures over night kept the snow dry and fluffy. as we pulled into mt carr the fresh snow looked pretty good, even with a drifted in snowshoe track heading across the first field. since adam and i had gone up--check my last post--there had been the 2 inch rain event, but at least 10 inches had covered that. we were pumped.

pumped and pumping, sometimes through more than two feet of snow, other times through ragged frozen gullies, washed out by the water that must have been rushing during that rain. they promised some excitement crossing back over under speed when we came back down.


speight: "sweet gap!"

me: "oh yeah, lots of fun--more like funny...if you had a video camera!"





when i sank into a hidden washout up in the tight spruce i called "lunch o'clock!" i got a picture of speight finishing up his crust standing in the hole i had left. 


as we geared up for the descent, i caught sight of another skier skinning up the trail--it was skip! he had talked to pam and gotten the intel on where we were going to be. it was sweet to have him join us.


he stripped his skins quickly, donned his helmet, and put an extra jacket on faster than i had ever seen him get ready before. in very short order, we were whooping it up through the trees, at least i was. speight was bombing down the skin track, floating the edges for some variety. every once in a while he would stop to check in on us old guys.






i stopped at one point to get a picture of skip and his smile. i don't recall seeing speight from here on out to the bottom, but we were enjoying a slow 'senior' descent. 


on the last steep pitch i went into the woods for one last 'glade' adventure. i managed to avoid the big, immovable trees as my line angled back to the main trail. skip following the 'beat of his own drum' popped out of the woods right nearby.


we glided out the last quarter mile or so avoiding a last drainage gully and a blowdown we had left for someone else to cut out. speight was sitting on the snow bank at the truck, tired, but really happy with his second backcountry experience.


while i didn't hear skip announce "...the best skiing ever!"  i imagined he might have been thinking it was close. it certainly was a good day to "go outside and play!"