here in the northeast, saturday was forecasted to be snowy. over the past month, i had gotten in a couple days of trail work on cardigan but wanted to do some final chainsawing on the ski trail before the seasonal freeze up--which hopefully comes, soon. as i parked at the winter trailhead, it was starting to spit snow.
by the time i got up to the first mess of blow downs, it was snowing good. i dropped my pack by a tree and donned chaps, helmet, and ear muffs. i cut a bunch, moved a bunch, hiked a bit, cut some more, moved some more, hiked a bit--more. it went on like that until i got halfway along the second section where i called it good.
the snow was coming down harder and i was plenty wet, so "good" was good. as i walked back through one particular 'mess' i was impressed with the clear line that was now snowing up.
if this keeps up, stays for the season, and continues to gets deeper and deeper over the next few months, you many not even notice those downed, big ol' trees. that will make me very happy.
speaking of trail work, last thursday, olivia--back from oregon and off the recommended travel quarantine--joined me on the 2nd half of raking drains on cardigan's west ridge trail. the 1.75" of rain i had in my gauge at home on monday, looked to be at least that much on the mountain. the clear sign of a torrent ran strait down the trail where water had been running. as we got higher and higher, the drains were freezing harder and harder.
at a certain point, we parked the rake and shovel leaning on a tree and just hiked. it was an rare blue sky day and we wanted to see it from the top. surprise, surprise we had a elizabeth siting. elizabeth was a former student, friend of sadie's, and is now coaching cross country and track with tom, her father. she is an active woman recovering from wearing the 'boot' all fall to heal a broken bone in her foot. i snapped a picture of her running by. and another of olivia taking a panorama up at the tower. it was cold enough that we didn't stay long.
 |
the thursday before that was thanksgiving, which means on friday MOC does its annual 'after turkey trot' from goose pond road to holt's ledge along the AT. i didn't advertise anything this year due to covid, but i thought skip & linda or maybe even andrew might show up.
nada. it was pam and i. though we did see some fresh gnawing activity, even the beavers were tucked into their den in the lodge at the damn. there were plenty of wet, slippery leaves to slide around on. footing going up at least, wasn't too bad and the path was rather beautiful in the grey mist.
at the top, overlooking holt's ledge, it was pretty well socked in. you could see enough not to step off the edge, but no further.
after hot tea and a snack and we started back knowing those leaves going down would be trickier. i heard at least one "f*^k" from behind when pam went down as we descended. all i could hope for was that the next time i was on this trail, it would be in knee deep snow, with skis doing all the sliding.
speaking of sliding and hitting the deck, the weekend before we had made the hour~ish drive over to one of our favorite hikes, welch-dickey loop in the waterville valley. it can be really crowded, so with covid and social distancing in mind, we went early on a cloudy, cooler friday morning. that was a good choice, but there were several icy spots--one with my butt print on it.
we had gone up there years ago with the buffum family and got the idea to recreate a couple of the pictures that i remember taking of iona. pam let me pose under the stone, as my butt was already wet.
we took a few artsy shots without any shenanigans as well...the one of the cairne reminded us of a goldsworthy sculpture--thank you palmer.
No comments:
Post a Comment