and at least a few of days, winter is again involved--for which i am grateful.
in my last yo-yoing post, i left off with a forecast of "warm and rain" as justin and i were skiing about the swma at a good clip, just to stay warm. from the glorious sun but downright chilly low teens of that adventure it did indeed warm, into the damned balmy 50s! and it rained close to an inch over the weekend. a change of 40° is something you notice along with the ice that forms from a 'big melt'.
on friday, as the thaw started, pam and i trucked up and over town hill, she on snowshoes and me-s on skis! to say it was sticky was an understatement. i distracted myself with trying out her phone's pan mode, shooting for a caterpillar effect. i got mixed results, but this one was close. i especially like the 'missing' body up at the front of the line.
we were headed down to the beaver dam where i took the 'thumby' in the 'happy new day' post--i avoided my phalanges in this one. the snow coverage was still looking significant, but it was not to last.
nor was it fast skiing. going uphill was right this side of maddening. while sometimes i could kick slide my skis to dump the huge clump of snow sticking to the bottom, it was not a sure thing, and it was way more work than i was looking to do. the only positive was my favorite short pitch was slow enough that pam was able to get a video.
saturday was a washout. i got in a good amount of reading--ironically getting to the part on new orleans' crazy flooding with katrina in sarah broom's outstanding memoir the yellow house.
sunday, i convinced skip we should run up cardigan without skis, as opposed to his idea to skin up and ski down the 'shuttered' whaleback. with all the rain and melt water, the ice was sure to be building on the shady parts of the trail. like at the bottom of that steep section on south ridge.
for those who follow goap! religiously--and have a good memory--'just another sunny day' posted last march captured a very similar moment. while it was "windy" that day too, it was probably not blowing like it was when we summited sunday. the two other hikers snugged into the lee side of the tower structure--former students and at least diane, featured now and again in goap!--greeted skip and i excitedly. the wind was making quite a racket blowing over things and when we dug out the anemometer, john predicted in the 50s.
we took the gauge around the corner and saw it top out, with gusts above the 50mph reading. had i been with it, i would have taken a picture of skip 'leaning into' the blasts at some pretty low angles. i did remember to snap a memory of the three before we took off downhill.
at turn around rock we put the micro-spikes back on and made a quick decent stopping only to disrobe some when we got out of the wind. oh and one other time on an upper portion of the ski trail where the ice always builds. it was a good chance for me to practice my recent obsession with taking photo series--with the less than ideal camera again.
amazingly, about 100 yards below this section, skip stopped and pointed out how the deep the snow was--easily up to our wastes.
monday and tuesday remained mild enough, and with partial sun, the snow coverage fell way back. at some point on wednesday though it went cold enough again to start snowing. that lasted through the night and was 5-6-7~ish inches thursday morning. the 'cold enough' to snow all night meant school was on a delayed opening schedule to let the plows clean up somewhat. it had to be tough to move, as it was some of the best packing snow i have ever made into a snowball. when i went by the high school they were mostly done as students were starting to arrive.
i was headed over to the shaker hills thinking that area would have enough coverage to not scrape off the bottoms of my skis. and it did, barely, and at that clumpiest of temperatures. it was a slog going up, but i didn't have to use skins.
unaware of what might be on our as yet un-skied 'glade' section, i locked things down and pointed the tips into the fall line winding through the trees. it was an adventure. not quite fast but even so, nearly furious with all the debris, as yet uncovered. i took off into the woods a couple times to avoid some major blowdowns that i would have to bring skip along to help clear out.
at the bottom, i opted to park the boards for the coming cold and wind. i figured that the snow would completely dry out and friday, might be almost heavenly. without snow, the coverage would still be thin, but in a yo-yoing season, beggars can't be choosers! that and i figured i would stop in at drummond's and help them set up for their yearly party.
i had brought along a telemark kit for cory too, in hopes that this weekend we would get the promised snow. the skis were my old karhu guides and would need inserts to keep the bindings on, but i figured we could get that done before sunday--our planned outing.
on friday, we woke to below~ish 0°F and some stiff winds. after breakfast and helping pam sweep & scrape her car getting her off for the day, i loaded the skis back into the truck and went over to the shaker hills again. the snow was magically fluffy powder again and very enjoyable to ski through, albeit 'thin'. a long~ish run from the potato field down was smooth and quick so a trip back up to try the 'little sherbie' was in order. i was rewarded, or at least i thought so. it was fun rushing by my yesterday's going-up tracks.
all in all, even with the radical up and down of temps and snow coverage, it has been a fine time to 'go outside and play!' i try and wear a smile no matter the weather.
ps--time to stop here, and gear up for a quick run up town hill with pam. later!
in my last yo-yoing post, i left off with a forecast of "warm and rain" as justin and i were skiing about the swma at a good clip, just to stay warm. from the glorious sun but downright chilly low teens of that adventure it did indeed warm, into the damned balmy 50s! and it rained close to an inch over the weekend. a change of 40° is something you notice along with the ice that forms from a 'big melt'.
on friday, as the thaw started, pam and i trucked up and over town hill, she on snowshoes and me-s on skis! to say it was sticky was an understatement. i distracted myself with trying out her phone's pan mode, shooting for a caterpillar effect. i got mixed results, but this one was close. i especially like the 'missing' body up at the front of the line.
we were headed down to the beaver dam where i took the 'thumby' in the 'happy new day' post--i avoided my phalanges in this one. the snow coverage was still looking significant, but it was not to last.
nor was it fast skiing. going uphill was right this side of maddening. while sometimes i could kick slide my skis to dump the huge clump of snow sticking to the bottom, it was not a sure thing, and it was way more work than i was looking to do. the only positive was my favorite short pitch was slow enough that pam was able to get a video.
saturday was a washout. i got in a good amount of reading--ironically getting to the part on new orleans' crazy flooding with katrina in sarah broom's outstanding memoir the yellow house.
sunday, i convinced skip we should run up cardigan without skis, as opposed to his idea to skin up and ski down the 'shuttered' whaleback. with all the rain and melt water, the ice was sure to be building on the shady parts of the trail. like at the bottom of that steep section on south ridge.
for those who follow goap! religiously--and have a good memory--'just another sunny day' posted last march captured a very similar moment. while it was "windy" that day too, it was probably not blowing like it was when we summited sunday. the two other hikers snugged into the lee side of the tower structure--former students and at least diane, featured now and again in goap!--greeted skip and i excitedly. the wind was making quite a racket blowing over things and when we dug out the anemometer, john predicted in the 50s.
we took the gauge around the corner and saw it top out, with gusts above the 50mph reading. had i been with it, i would have taken a picture of skip 'leaning into' the blasts at some pretty low angles. i did remember to snap a memory of the three before we took off downhill.
at turn around rock we put the micro-spikes back on and made a quick decent stopping only to disrobe some when we got out of the wind. oh and one other time on an upper portion of the ski trail where the ice always builds. it was a good chance for me to practice my recent obsession with taking photo series--with the less than ideal camera again.
amazingly, about 100 yards below this section, skip stopped and pointed out how the deep the snow was--easily up to our wastes.
monday and tuesday remained mild enough, and with partial sun, the snow coverage fell way back. at some point on wednesday though it went cold enough again to start snowing. that lasted through the night and was 5-6-7~ish inches thursday morning. the 'cold enough' to snow all night meant school was on a delayed opening schedule to let the plows clean up somewhat. it had to be tough to move, as it was some of the best packing snow i have ever made into a snowball. when i went by the high school they were mostly done as students were starting to arrive.
i was headed over to the shaker hills thinking that area would have enough coverage to not scrape off the bottoms of my skis. and it did, barely, and at that clumpiest of temperatures. it was a slog going up, but i didn't have to use skins.unaware of what might be on our as yet un-skied 'glade' section, i locked things down and pointed the tips into the fall line winding through the trees. it was an adventure. not quite fast but even so, nearly furious with all the debris, as yet uncovered. i took off into the woods a couple times to avoid some major blowdowns that i would have to bring skip along to help clear out.
at the bottom, i opted to park the boards for the coming cold and wind. i figured that the snow would completely dry out and friday, might be almost heavenly. without snow, the coverage would still be thin, but in a yo-yoing season, beggars can't be choosers! that and i figured i would stop in at drummond's and help them set up for their yearly party.
i had brought along a telemark kit for cory too, in hopes that this weekend we would get the promised snow. the skis were my old karhu guides and would need inserts to keep the bindings on, but i figured we could get that done before sunday--our planned outing.
on friday, we woke to below~ish 0°F and some stiff winds. after breakfast and helping pam sweep & scrape her car getting her off for the day, i loaded the skis back into the truck and went over to the shaker hills again. the snow was magically fluffy powder again and very enjoyable to ski through, albeit 'thin'. a long~ish run from the potato field down was smooth and quick so a trip back up to try the 'little sherbie' was in order. i was rewarded, or at least i thought so. it was fun rushing by my yesterday's going-up tracks.
all in all, even with the radical up and down of temps and snow coverage, it has been a fine time to 'go outside and play!' i try and wear a smile no matter the weather.
ps--time to stop here, and gear up for a quick run up town hill with pam. later!
