the sun came up this morning, shining on a thin blanket of new snow that had fallen over night. having spent a good portion of yesterday inside, the fresh white motivated me to get outside and play.
but first i had to listen to one of my favorite shows, on the media. as soon as that finished, i called skip and convinced him to hike up cardigan. that was easy. the hard part was it coming on lunch o'clock. i suggested he eat quickly and i would stop in to pick him up.
he was well fed and happy when i got over there and got himself dressed and packed without too much drama. we were out the door and going down the road--well, up the first stretch--just after noon.
i am not sure why he was surprised to see "four cars...?!" in the winter parking area, it was a beautiful day. we donned our micro-spikes, stowed our jackets, and started hiking.
we met a friend andy, up at the picnic tables in the summer parking area with two of his buddies. they were snacking after their hike. still thinking about the cars down below, skip calculated that there would be one more person above, at least on the west ridge.
maybe that encouraged us to take south ridge when the two trails split. it's always fun looping, going up the steeper, icy south and coming down west. the weather of late, would make the ice flows the trail crosses thick and exciting.
we stopped to capture our mugs on either side of the bottom section--it looked really 'cool'. rounding the corner and switching back beyond skip in the above picture, we got to the upper flow, which maybe was even 'cooler'!
a tiny icy cave under the large rock on the right made me wonder how long that would stay frozen into the spring. one never knows, but i will put my money on ice into late may, possibly even june if the weather stays on the cold side. i will have to hike it some to check on that.
not long after the flows we came out of the woods onto the ridge and could see up to the tower. the high rock was mostly bare, but some solid lines of snow got skip testing the surface every hundred yards or so--"this wouldn't be bad skiing!"
i wasn't convinced. the salient adjective above was "solid"--any skis sliding today, would be sliding really fast. just to be sure, we turned off to check out the top of the chute. i was telling skip how the cornice was building up like crazy. the drop was part of the "furious" i posted back the last time i went off it! we took some pictures as it was even bigger today.
sliding down on his butt helped skip judge the speed he would be going down on skis. when he was back on top talking about dropping in this way or that, i got the feeling he was dreaming. if not, it would have made a great video!
we got up to the summit and met the predicted one other person, jeremy. turns out we knew him in a bunch of different ways. skip had even been to his wedding--it's a small world. it was plenty windy and we didn't stay too long.
nor did we dawdle on our descent. the only time i really slowed was passing two skiers going up. i stared a bit waiting for skip to say something. he kept quiet, but maybe he was thinking what i was: "their run down is going to be crazy!"
on the summer road toward the bottom, he did mention "i'm surprised those skiers didn't catch us yet." i chalked it up to prudence which probably slowed them now and again. as we walked by the shelter, i found a swix hat frozen onto the concrete under a picnic table. that just about made my day--i've always wanted a swix hat.
the weather, the company, the mountain, the hat... it was a grand day to be outside playing!
but first i had to listen to one of my favorite shows, on the media. as soon as that finished, i called skip and convinced him to hike up cardigan. that was easy. the hard part was it coming on lunch o'clock. i suggested he eat quickly and i would stop in to pick him up.
he was well fed and happy when i got over there and got himself dressed and packed without too much drama. we were out the door and going down the road--well, up the first stretch--just after noon.
i am not sure why he was surprised to see "four cars...?!" in the winter parking area, it was a beautiful day. we donned our micro-spikes, stowed our jackets, and started hiking.
we met a friend andy, up at the picnic tables in the summer parking area with two of his buddies. they were snacking after their hike. still thinking about the cars down below, skip calculated that there would be one more person above, at least on the west ridge.
maybe that encouraged us to take south ridge when the two trails split. it's always fun looping, going up the steeper, icy south and coming down west. the weather of late, would make the ice flows the trail crosses thick and exciting.
we stopped to capture our mugs on either side of the bottom section--it looked really 'cool'. rounding the corner and switching back beyond skip in the above picture, we got to the upper flow, which maybe was even 'cooler'!
a tiny icy cave under the large rock on the right made me wonder how long that would stay frozen into the spring. one never knows, but i will put my money on ice into late may, possibly even june if the weather stays on the cold side. i will have to hike it some to check on that.
not long after the flows we came out of the woods onto the ridge and could see up to the tower. the high rock was mostly bare, but some solid lines of snow got skip testing the surface every hundred yards or so--"this wouldn't be bad skiing!"
i wasn't convinced. the salient adjective above was "solid"--any skis sliding today, would be sliding really fast. just to be sure, we turned off to check out the top of the chute. i was telling skip how the cornice was building up like crazy. the drop was part of the "furious" i posted back the last time i went off it! we took some pictures as it was even bigger today.
sliding down on his butt helped skip judge the speed he would be going down on skis. when he was back on top talking about dropping in this way or that, i got the feeling he was dreaming. if not, it would have made a great video!
we got up to the summit and met the predicted one other person, jeremy. turns out we knew him in a bunch of different ways. skip had even been to his wedding--it's a small world. it was plenty windy and we didn't stay too long.
nor did we dawdle on our descent. the only time i really slowed was passing two skiers going up. i stared a bit waiting for skip to say something. he kept quiet, but maybe he was thinking what i was: "their run down is going to be crazy!"
on the summer road toward the bottom, he did mention "i'm surprised those skiers didn't catch us yet." i chalked it up to prudence which probably slowed them now and again. as we walked by the shelter, i found a swix hat frozen onto the concrete under a picnic table. that just about made my day--i've always wanted a swix hat.
the weather, the company, the mountain, the hat... it was a grand day to be outside playing!
