yes!--i did ski five days in a row, but then it was back to the yo-yoing of winter weather.
thursday, january the 16th: it had been wet snowing all morning. at noon, i figured, better go out and enjoy it while it lasts. i loaded up and went toward the shaker hills. it was indeed wet, sticky enough--almost too much so--that i could scale--no skins needed--up the steeper 'little sherbie'. i was planning to turn around and going down my up, but the stickyness gave me the whacky idea that the 'glades' would be just about right.
by the time i got to the cutoff i was plenty warm, only a little wet, and smiling about that decision. it was still snowing some, so i wasn't even thinking about the minimal cover, from last week's big melt down. how bad could it be?turns out, fairly bad, though that's a relative term. see the previous post for pictures and details.
friday, the 17th: back to the shaker hills. the snow, still mighty thin, was indeed all dried out and fast. i made two loops, the 'little sherbie' and the main trail coming down from the 'potato field'. that second one, being a main trail and less steep, had seen some traffic. a wide set of ski tracks turning every few feet, made me smile. who ever it was, i nicknamed mr/ms wiggle, for the obvious moves their butt would have been making had i been there to see it.
saturday, the 18th: having exhausted the trails of coverage over at the swma, i stayed close to home and skied up town hill. the run down the east side was indeed fast and took all my attention to avoid rocks and trees. coming down the west side to the house was wicked sweet, with plenty of variation available. when i got down to the house it was starting to snow as well. we were forecasted to get 5-7~ish inches of snow rather than an inch of rain!
sunday, the 19th: it was still spitting snow when i got out of bed, but i could see patches blue now and again as the clouds scudded by. i had arranged with cory to go up to his new house and adventure out his back door. i packed up and was in the truck heading to pomfret by 7:00a. when i got to cory's, the blue patches were getting bigger and the fresh powder on the hills looked very inviting.
cory must have been out shoveling early too as his driveway was also inviting. after a quick tour of all the new work he had gotten done inside, we booted up skied away outside. i had lent him my old tele gear and this trip was supposed to be a learning day. we started things off on a slight pitch and he was linking some turns. then when i came back from a top to bottom run, he was limping. he had tweaked his knee bad enough to hurt and switch us into touring mode.
cruising through the fields and into the woods seemed doable until we got to a steep sugar road with a downed pine sticking into the trail. cory decided to cut that out while i kept on to the top of that section and skied back down.
that worked out well enough, though even with the 5-7~ish inches of new snow, coverage was still thin. we opted to just head back and hit the hill behind his place.
that turned out to be a good idea as cory's knee was not getting any better. i got in a good set of turns until slowing down at the bottom i turned into some small brush and caught my edge. that easily tripped me up. as i was going over, i remember thinking about my knees--fortunately, i got back upright and unhurt. we were both smiling as we stomped off our boots and went inside.
monday, the 20th: it was martin luther king jr. day so skip had no school. i got over to his house and we went off to mt carr, thinking most likely nobody had skied that yet. surprise surprise, when we pulled up to the end of the road, a very big grapple skidder was dragging logs about a 10 acre landing. another sawyer was working a 'pincher' on the end of a long arm, moving huge logs into a cutoff saw. it was quite an operation, smack dab in the middle of the field we normal ski through.
we got our boots on and walked past the logging action to the ski trail where it enters the woods. no surprise, with all that activity, the snow was untracked. we clicked into the skis and slid away from all the noise.
maybe 2/3s of the way to where we usually turn, we stopped to cut out a major blowdown--we had both our saws working. the drainages, usually buried with snow, were getting more and more rocky~ish and would be a problem coming down with speed. i was pushing skip to consider losing the 'fun factor' if we didn't turn early. after about a 100 yards and three 'bumpy' drainages, he conceded. i think he was hungry. before he even took skins off, he was chowing down his sandwich.
i took off and made it through the rockiest of the washes without too much contact. skip was not quite as lucky. but eventually he made it down to me. i was filming as he skied by.
when he finally stopped, he took one of me going past him. just to be clear, that was the videographer shaking, not the earth!
it's a longstanding joke that skip's camera skills are sketchy at best. when i first saw this one, i thought he might actually need medical assistance. he was saying something about being hungry. i took out some stills to build a series. someday i am going to gather some of skip's "best videos ever!"
the rest of the slide out, was fairly smooth and uneventful. the turns got more and more mellow, until basically you'd ride one ski in the track, one off in the fluff, reverse, and repeat--sort of pretending to be turning. that brought us back to the log landing and the truck--with smiles!
and after i shared my pizza with him, skip agreed that it had been a pretty fine day to 'go outside and play!' i am happy to report that he was not shaking at all on the drive home.
ps--saturday, the 25th: .7 inches of rain! midweek: back below zero °F!!
thursday, january the 16th: it had been wet snowing all morning. at noon, i figured, better go out and enjoy it while it lasts. i loaded up and went toward the shaker hills. it was indeed wet, sticky enough--almost too much so--that i could scale--no skins needed--up the steeper 'little sherbie'. i was planning to turn around and going down my up, but the stickyness gave me the whacky idea that the 'glades' would be just about right.
by the time i got to the cutoff i was plenty warm, only a little wet, and smiling about that decision. it was still snowing some, so i wasn't even thinking about the minimal cover, from last week's big melt down. how bad could it be?turns out, fairly bad, though that's a relative term. see the previous post for pictures and details.
friday, the 17th: back to the shaker hills. the snow, still mighty thin, was indeed all dried out and fast. i made two loops, the 'little sherbie' and the main trail coming down from the 'potato field'. that second one, being a main trail and less steep, had seen some traffic. a wide set of ski tracks turning every few feet, made me smile. who ever it was, i nicknamed mr/ms wiggle, for the obvious moves their butt would have been making had i been there to see it.
saturday, the 18th: having exhausted the trails of coverage over at the swma, i stayed close to home and skied up town hill. the run down the east side was indeed fast and took all my attention to avoid rocks and trees. coming down the west side to the house was wicked sweet, with plenty of variation available. when i got down to the house it was starting to snow as well. we were forecasted to get 5-7~ish inches of snow rather than an inch of rain!
sunday, the 19th: it was still spitting snow when i got out of bed, but i could see patches blue now and again as the clouds scudded by. i had arranged with cory to go up to his new house and adventure out his back door. i packed up and was in the truck heading to pomfret by 7:00a. when i got to cory's, the blue patches were getting bigger and the fresh powder on the hills looked very inviting.
cory must have been out shoveling early too as his driveway was also inviting. after a quick tour of all the new work he had gotten done inside, we booted up skied away outside. i had lent him my old tele gear and this trip was supposed to be a learning day. we started things off on a slight pitch and he was linking some turns. then when i came back from a top to bottom run, he was limping. he had tweaked his knee bad enough to hurt and switch us into touring mode.
cruising through the fields and into the woods seemed doable until we got to a steep sugar road with a downed pine sticking into the trail. cory decided to cut that out while i kept on to the top of that section and skied back down.
that worked out well enough, though even with the 5-7~ish inches of new snow, coverage was still thin. we opted to just head back and hit the hill behind his place.
that turned out to be a good idea as cory's knee was not getting any better. i got in a good set of turns until slowing down at the bottom i turned into some small brush and caught my edge. that easily tripped me up. as i was going over, i remember thinking about my knees--fortunately, i got back upright and unhurt. we were both smiling as we stomped off our boots and went inside.
monday, the 20th: it was martin luther king jr. day so skip had no school. i got over to his house and we went off to mt carr, thinking most likely nobody had skied that yet. surprise surprise, when we pulled up to the end of the road, a very big grapple skidder was dragging logs about a 10 acre landing. another sawyer was working a 'pincher' on the end of a long arm, moving huge logs into a cutoff saw. it was quite an operation, smack dab in the middle of the field we normal ski through.
we got our boots on and walked past the logging action to the ski trail where it enters the woods. no surprise, with all that activity, the snow was untracked. we clicked into the skis and slid away from all the noise.
maybe 2/3s of the way to where we usually turn, we stopped to cut out a major blowdown--we had both our saws working. the drainages, usually buried with snow, were getting more and more rocky~ish and would be a problem coming down with speed. i was pushing skip to consider losing the 'fun factor' if we didn't turn early. after about a 100 yards and three 'bumpy' drainages, he conceded. i think he was hungry. before he even took skins off, he was chowing down his sandwich.
i took off and made it through the rockiest of the washes without too much contact. skip was not quite as lucky. but eventually he made it down to me. i was filming as he skied by.
when he finally stopped, he took one of me going past him. just to be clear, that was the videographer shaking, not the earth!
it's a longstanding joke that skip's camera skills are sketchy at best. when i first saw this one, i thought he might actually need medical assistance. he was saying something about being hungry. i took out some stills to build a series. someday i am going to gather some of skip's "best videos ever!"
the rest of the slide out, was fairly smooth and uneventful. the turns got more and more mellow, until basically you'd ride one ski in the track, one off in the fluff, reverse, and repeat--sort of pretending to be turning. that brought us back to the log landing and the truck--with smiles!
and after i shared my pizza with him, skip agreed that it had been a pretty fine day to 'go outside and play!' i am happy to report that he was not shaking at all on the drive home.
ps--saturday, the 25th: .7 inches of rain! midweek: back below zero °F!!
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