#30daysofbiking -- part 2...

and april continues to be the cruelest of months! 

the wind, rain, and cold kept me actively manipulating my schedule to pedal between the bad weather. that and somedays, i was just wicked busy. like our mascoma outing club tuckerman ravine trip...



d17: every april vacation, the MOC takes a group up to see the iconic tuckerman ravine on the flank of mt washington. it is a long~ish hike in, an extreme up and down in the bowl, and a challenging ski out at the end of the day. by the time we get back to canaan, my 'old' body is tired. but i had committed...so i rode around the block, finishing with one more hill--just not as big as a white mountain!






d20: thursday and friday, d18-19, will remain undocumented, but rest assured they were wet. enough rain fell--and continued to fall--to raise the flood waters in the rivers, like the indian river where it comes into enfield proper. the water was not running so fast in mascoma lake, but the fog was pretty thick and there was still ice, but the rain was deteriorating it quickly.






d21: the rain was not quite so heavy today, but the 'puddles' were significant! i stopped on talbot hill to grab a shot of a couple of mallards paddling about in the front yard of the original talbot house. it was one of my favorite pictures of the month.










d22: the ducks in the puddle were sweet, but most people would probably prefer a vivid sunset. it had been a mostly sunny day, but true to the months' trend, it clouded up and rained hard all night. i got home just as it started to sprinkle.










d23: my commute home featured the year's first large chorus of spring peepers. i had heard a few frogs previously, but today, they were out in numbers! coming down from the school onto rt 4 i heard them above the traffic noise. riding past the wet area, the noise was really loud. and all that noise was coming from a tiny frog, hardly bigger than the end of your thumb.












d25: warm enough for a long ride through orange into grafton over the shoulder of cardigan. back in the woods, there was still snow and ice tucked away where the sun doesn't shine. following the turnpike road down mill brook, i saw both andrew and adam working on a 'mudroom' off the back. i stopped and had a good visit. 


back on rt 4, looking to cut off onto the rail trail. it hadn't rained--much--in a day or two, and i was checking to see how dry it was. turned out 50-50. no huge puddles, at least that i couldn't avoid, but a bit boggy here and there. i stopped at the little library boxes i had stopped at last fall on a ride looking for new titles. and since i had forgotten the camera, i used old pics.


two more no camera days...very wet, enough to discourage stopping for pictures anyway,  and fairly miserable to ride in.

d28: the rain was light enough to make me think it was almost dry. i had the camera today and took a picture of the ice totally out now. a photo from just about the same spot i had been, in early april. the log my bike leaned against on the left, was barely sticking out above the water on the left. remember, i walked on that ice 3 days plus 3 weeks earlier. 

d29: cold, but sunny! i rode off to canaan elementary for some tech support before pedaling back to the high school. on the way to ces i passed a pair of underwear and then a little later, another. since i had my 
camera, i thought i would get a picture of that on the way back. going the opposite way later, i forgot about the first two pairs, but ran into two more pairs. i stopped and circled around for pictures.











d30: the last day of the pledge, sunny for the second day in a row! i passed a lump of fabric on the side of the road and thought, "no way, more underwear!" something didn't quite look right and when i 'shook' the lump out, it turned out it was a sock. the camera came out and i snapped a picture to celebrate my disappointment. 






not a bad 30 days--if the forecasted rain for the next week doesn't wash me out, i am going to keep riding right into may. it is always a bonus--even when cold and wet--to "go outside and play!"


ps--rode may 1st and 3rd, it was raining...may 2nd it was pouring all day--i drove to ces, to the hs, and back to ces. i was only wet getting to the truck and lugging computers in and out of the schools.

"april is the cruelest month ... stirring dull roots with spring rain" -- part 1...

so starts "the waste land" by t.s. eliot. and so started april, only not nearly warm enough to rain!

i saw a tweet back in march that linked me to 30 days of riding and a pledge to ride everyday in april. despite the likelihood of some fairly sketchy weather--as likely winter or mud season, as spring--in april here in the north country, i was all in and pledged immediately. #30daysofriding offered up a way to share the love, and i committed to document the days.








d1: sure enough the first day of april was cold. but i figured i wouldn't freeze on my commute. i didn't, but i definitely dressed for it.












d2: the next day was a tad warmer at least commuting home. when i left in the morning it was in the low teens but the sun got it up into the high thirties, maybe even 40~ish when i headed home. i took a long way and went up over talbot hill, down codfish hill. the gravel section was definitely muddy.












d3: was windy and cool, but nice enough to ride out around the goose ponds. i caught a trio of bufflehead ducks in the river between big and little goose, but they swam off before i had the camera ready--you can barely see them.











d4: sunny again and i went by the goose ponds again via a new route, with more hills this time. stopped at both to get a picture of ice coverage. i managed to get out onto big goose ice at one point, testing its solidity with my dryness--i threw a big rock first, listening for the sound, like primitive radar.











d5: a friday, the day i visit my favorite bike shop--drummonds custom cycles--and sweep. on the way over i stopped to grab a picture of the tree in the boat on mascoma lake. i had skated by it a couple times over the winter and thought it made a pretty cool 'statue'. 










d6: first day cold, off to the library. saw the "giant's toothbrush", but no camera.

d7: warm~ish, off with skip first to take a few runs over to the skiway, and then riding around mascoma lake and about the town of enfield. stopped and chatted with my ol' teaching buddy john, out raking his yard. both adventures were sans veste!

d9: was more wintry mix, though mostly snow this time, but i opted to go back up in bob's workshop. i figured one more day wouldn't hurt...












d10: snow again, only when it stopped in the morning, it also warmed some and began to melt off the paved roads by afternoon--in time for me to ride before dark. making tracks out of the drive was fun and made for an interesting picture.







d11: almost got warm, and in the sun, felt pretty good. i rode to the library again and since it was cold, i took the camera, in case the "toothbrush" was in condition again. it was but this time it had bristles on both ends!

               











d12: got cold again over night, well down in the teens, and when i rode over to drummonds cc, the open edges of crystal lake were frozen over. it almost felt like winter again.










d13: i went over to drummonds to meet cory for a 'live weird' groupo ride. we got into some muddy gravel up west farms road and down wolfboro to big goose. no camera on the bike, but i stopped and got a picture of the fog on my way home from the shop. it was the proverbial 'thick as pea soup' at the bridge over the mascoma.

d15: cold~ish and very wet--as you can see over my shoulder in the well puddled drive. i got lucky and missed the really hard rain. 

ps--by the way, that is a smile! (i was feeling the whole halfway to may vibe!)









d16: rain and wind to beat the band all night. the photography gods stopped it by morning and on my way into work i stopped on the rt 4 bridge over the indian river at goose pond road. i believe one could call it well above flood stage even though it wasn't over the road yet.


all things considered, the first half of #30daysofriding, though plenty cold and wet, was a grand time to "go outside and play!" i didn't freeze or melt--yet...

'april showers bring'--tuckerman ravine!...

...and adventurers out of the woodwork for spring skiing and hijinks up on mt washington. of course a cold month can have plenty of snow, which can mean high avalanche danger. 

weather over april vacation--the third week in, for mascoma--can deliver some pretty iffy conditions, especially up in the mountains. this year, we hit the jackpot on MOC's annual trip up to tuckerman ravine! circumstances left only one day to use the school van and that was wednesday, the 17. it turned out to be the right one: sunny--read no rain--not all that windy, and + 50°F. you couldn't ask for more primo weather.



five students and a few parents met me in the school parking lot bright and early. a couple of the students and i had checked the avalanche conditions that morning--they were low--but at least one mother was well to the concerned side. the friday before, a lone skier had been buried and died when he triggered a sizable wind-slab in raymond's cataract, a large slide scar between tuckerman and huntington ravines. i assured her we would take all precautions and pay close attention to the warnings posted by the snow rangers. there is no shame in getting skunked out of skiing tux--the goal is to bring everybody home happy.


one thing about being in the mountains, in any conditions really but especially winter, you want to pay attention to all possible dangers. many of the kids i lead up there, have never been in an avalanche zone let alone avoided van-size hunks of ice careening down the super steep slope, or crevasses with waterfalls rushing at the bottom. it is exciting to be up there, but one needs to be aware and more than a little cautious!


we had a fine ride up with the kids getting more and more amped the closer we got to the white mountains. there had been a few substantial snow events over the past week, and a fresh 6 inches just two days earlier. it made everything look very white and super inviting--if you like snow. in the pinkham parking lot, we packed our gear according to whatever style we preferred: skis on packs vs. skis on feet with skins and headed over to the tux trail for the classic group photo in front of the weather-conditions board.

parents josh and wendy, students cardigan, celia, dirk, justin, and hawk

the ~3 mile hike/skin up varies on your energy level. after starting with the skinning crowd, i fell in with the three youthful nordic skiers in fine shape--hiking fairly quickly. we stopped here and there to strip off layers and drink water--with lots of cameras we even took a few pictures.

           cardigan and josh skinning, koby and hawk hiking...                                                                      ...dirk, justin, koby, and celia posing!

     

shortly before you reach the hermit lake shelters and 'howard johnson's', you get a great look up to the ravine. first timers do some serious omg-ing here when you point out "that's what you'll be skiing!"

at hermit lake, the fast youngsters continued on into the bowl after a short break and i waited for the rest of the group on the lunch deck. from the deck you look directly at the lower snow fields and most of hillman's highway. the rim of the bowl is visible as well. 

it's a quick ski over to hillman's or a steep-ish 20-30 minutes up the little headwall into the bowl. as you can see, coverage was particularly good this year.






after the others came up and we had a bit of lunch, i took off after the advance crew. we had planned to meet at lunch rock, but justin and celia were already boot packing up to take a half-run--justin on nordic skis and celia alpine.

dirk and i watched celia carve turns down to us and we all wondered at justin as he went higher and higher--this was going to be good. celia captured his first run! he starts up behind a little clump of bushes in the middle/takes off/and oops...

        


the folks watching were all cheering when he got back up and continued...for a while at least. the cheering kept up, but justin didn't. nordic skis are sketchy at best on the steep stuff, but justin kept at it and by the end of the afternoon he had mastered circumnavigating the main part of the lower bowl in four big traverses, complete with a couple of step turns, a beautiful telly, and no falls!

 

celia and i took a hike up and run down right gully. it felt good to be on the steep again and would have been even better had i locked down my binding under my right boot. i was wondering why half my turns felt so loose. on our way down we passed hawk heading up and doing a little tanning. we got back to our packs in time to watch cardigan and josh come down the bottom of lobster claw. 

  
                  cardigan smiling while setting up her next telly turn...                                                                              bang--nailed it!

shortly after that hawk came flying out of right gully and zoomed by like he didn't even see us. (he didn't.) josh and i wondered aloud, "was that hawk? it looked like him." whoever it was, he stopped briefly at the top of the little headwall and then took off back down to hermit lake. we hoped he would wait there. 

all that activity and some more justin runs got celia excited to do another--this time she aimed for the lip. timing was getting tight so she took right off and didn't dawdle on the way up. josh went up the whole of lobster claw and dirk, justin, cardigan, and i breathed deep at lunch rocks.

soon enough, the two skiers came down in fine style and we all met in the lower bowl for a picture--sans hawk who hopefully was chilling with missy down on ho-jo's deck.

shadows make it hard to see but we all were wearing wicked big smiles, pumped to have laid down a bunch of those tracks behind us! 

we wound our way down the little headwall, cutting over to the lower snowfields to avoid the cutler brook which was starting to undermine solid coverage. at hermit lake we found hawk and missy and got everyone started down the sherburne ski trail. i was playing mop up and watched as the energizer bunny--justin--started to struggle as his energy to drive those skinny skis ran down. having had less than optimal sleep the previous two nights, he had been with the 'life smarts' team in florida (they got home at 2:00a that morning--with the van), all those runs in the bowl had worn him out. the moguls were particularly vexing... even so we caught up to dirk who caught a 'mysterious blue jacket' letting off the brakes for some bump action on his go pro.

when the two 'skinny skiers' and i got to the bottom and the van, hawk's and celia's gear lay beside it with no sign of them. cardigan reported they had run back up the tuck trail to the first bridge--something about celia was keen on a swim. sure enough as dirk, justin, and i were loading cargo, a dripping celia and laughing hawk appeared. sometimes it's the unplanned activities you remember most!

cardigan, josh, and missy were staying up in the north country for another night, possibly another day in the bowl. that meant there was an extra seat in the van for folks to spread out and catch a nap on the way home. i asked hawk to ride up front to talk to me and help keep me stay conscious behind the wheel. 



as we headed south, every one seemed satisfied and talking about plans for future trips of all sorts--from going off to college, to coming back to the ravine. i judged it had been a perfect day.

justin was in total agreement and reminded us of the MOC motto, "go outside and play!" 

more sun than you can 'shake a stick at'...

although why you would want to, is a fair question!

ok, friday's wet, snowy day was not sunny. and the 4 inches of mush was looking pretty sketchy at best. but i had to try something to get off the first couch, out of the second book, and away from a third pot of tea. so i loaded the usual gear and went to check out the shaker wma. i figured even if it was crappy, i could stop in for the friday sweep at drummonds. 

it was, crappy-ish, though it took two runs and a wintry mix blessing my head and shoulders to convince me. i bailed on a third try and went over to drummonds to pick up a broom. i went to bed that evening feeling satisfied that i had accomplished something.

when i woke saturday morning i was not expecting to see it still snowing. four more inches of white on the ground and the thermometer down around twenty boded well for a proper ski, sans broom. when it started clearing around 10:00a, i figured skip would be calling any moment. 

the phone finally rang around 1:00p--which made perfect sense, it was post lunch-o'clock! i went and fetched him and his gear and we headed up to cardigan. we played the 'guess how many cars in the lot' game and were both shocked to see it full up--many of them snow covered from being there overnight. i parked roadside, happy to see there was a lot more snow up here than down below.



as you can see by the trees, the snow was a little sticky, so we started up with no skins attached. the lines of white you can see in my picture are all on the south side of the trees. the wind overnight was obviously coming out of that unusual direction, but i had heard it might be a 'nor-easter' coming up the coast and dumping some snow in the mountains. lucky for us it did. 

our luck continued as we got higher, it got deeper! i snapped a picture of skip practically skiing over the east amc sign, normally three feet or more above the ground. equally amazing, at least to me, is how long he adjusts his poles. he swears he goes faster.

besides deeper, the snow was drier and getting slippery-er. i convinced skip it would be both faster and easier if we skinned-up before the steep sections on the ski trail. he is always game for going up fast and easy.



in no time we were up at the top of the chute, only slightly bummed that a snowshoer had gotten there before us. the track spoiled the pristine line so i didn't bother to take a picture. the cornice was even bigger than it had been when we had hiked up last weekend. the drop in was sweet and i felt pretty good hooking around the mostly buried pine at the corner a hundred feet after. that was when i saw the huge 'mogul' in the middle of the narrow path! there was no avoiding some airtime...i stayed upright and got in a few good turns after. 

skip must have done something similar as i heard a big whoop not too long after. by the time he came around the corner he was wearing a huge smile! we took off, stoked that conditions were about as good as they get up here. 

at one point i grabbed his camera and skied down to get a movie of him coming through the woods on one of his favorite lines. unfortunately, his little cannon, works a bit differently than mine. i got a good movie of my skis and the three whistles we signal each other with. here is a picture of the fresh line--goes straight up beyond the tracks--at least. you can thank me you can't hear the whistles.

turns out, it was pretty slow so he just kind of cruised along with minimal turn action. at the next steep section, i got another video of skis and whistles. here, again, is his untracked line with my tracks coming in from the side.

oh well, i can't tease him about his camera skills anymore. especially after he took a great still of my run further down, skiing the skinny side of the creek.


we skied out the rest of the way over the moon at how good conditions were. so good, that i suggested we go run the glades over to shaker wma. still smiling, skip said sure.


immediately, we bailed on the glades but decided since we were over here, to just ski to the upper junction. there was barely two inches of really crusty snow over a tracked up icy base. before descending i snapped a picture of us as happy campers. i was not sure how long that would last.




i took off and after a handful of turns was thankful we didn't go any higher! you had to stand taller and pretty much cruise the fall line. it was fast, but not totally furious. 

once skip got the hang of it, he agreed that it wasn't too terrible, just felt like a let down compared to our earlier run. to humor him, i said i would go back up cardigan and sled with him and linda in the morning.


and that is what we did! i picked the lovers up and we found an open spot up at the winter lot. the overnighters were still there. it was a beautiful day, even warming up enough we had to remove layers by the time we got up to summer lot. we kept them off all the way to turnaround rock. 



we tied up our sleds and put all our layers back on just past that. it was plenty breezy up top, but you could see a long ways--all the way to mt washington.




the sleds were waiting for us. i got there a bit early and took right off to go set up for another video session. i almost kept going the sledding was so good in the deep stuff! but i was also pretty keen on getting a video--without skis and whistles.

i won't put in the one of skip as his run was pretty lame. but linda's was smooth, especially after she took off her micro-spikes.

turns out linda had the fast sled. the 'hole' in skip's was enlarging as we went. and i couldn't stay out of the powder, which was so much fun, but a ton slower. 

we passed quite a few folks coming up as we went. i kept going 'off trail' and managed to avoid most. toward the summer lot, i finally convinced skip to follow me into the fluff. he zoomed by me at one point and plowed into the ditch at the bottom. i managed to slow down and stop. i also had to stop laughing as his legs started cramping as he lay there sprawled out.

on the road out, i tried laying down face first. it worked ok, but by the final section, i was back, mostly sitting up, feet forward, making turns. now that was fine way to go outside and play!