how to make good ice...

flood an already frozen--but rough--pond or lake with inches of rain and then drop the temperature--

pam and i went out skating for a couple of hours saturday and again sunday, enjoying the resurfacing from the "inches of rain" wednesday and thursday and solid cold friday night.


saturday ice was pretty hard with a few rough spots where snow had built up. the temperature in the teens, twenties maybe, and not too much wind. you could skate just about anywhere and not slow down too much. the first two pictures were taken saturday. the one above shows smart's mtn in the background. we saw three groups ice fishing folk and stopped to talk to a few we knew. nobody had caught any thing of note--yet...


sunday was much warmer. in fact it was so warm--close to fifty--that by the time we left around 1:00, standing water was starting to cover most of the lake. one had to be careful as if you got off the darker, solid areas your skate blades would sink into the softer ice. the fish holes were still about a foot thick out on the main ice.


the edges were a different story. we tried first to get onto goose pond, both south at the dam and north at the boat ramp. the ice was thin to none from the shore to five-ten feet out, some places even wider. i suppose with a plank or waders one could get to the thicker stuff and i assume that is how the ice fishing folk got out there. we saw one spot by the beach that looked all broken up out to the solid ice--that was probably where the people parked at the dam went across. all the rain we have had over the past couple of weeks has raised the water level of lakes, ponds, and rivers. there is a good amount of flood water in the usual low areas too.



still a fine day to be outside and playing around. we saw josh l. fishing again today and his wife and daughter were skating about too. as we skated into the wind one time, i thought about the kite. conditions like this would not be all that bad for a little power kite action. a little wet if you fell, but at least you would go screaming across the surface. water slows things down.

 i made a few videos of pam and loaded one up for your enjoyment. the noise at the beginning is from a four wheeler racing across the ice. it was one of my former students going to pick up a fellow fishing buddy back at the town beach. after that stops you can 'hear' how soft and quiet it was skating.

ice is certainly the salient cover these days. i don't think i mentioned that thursday last week, my neighbor bob and i went up cardigan in the am. the icy sections that i had encountered the week before (with billy b and fam) were even icier this time. the water fall section was super thick ice with six inches of water rushing down different sections. fortunately we didn't have a dog with us--vader elected to stay home.

we are expecting warm with some rain for tomorrow and then "ice pellets" on wednesday. the ten day forcast has nothing all that cold coming in anytime soon...maybe hannah was right, i should set up the ice boat. winter can be strange in new england.

more rain...

i must admit, this weather pattern of some snow, changing to what some weather people are calling a "wintery mix" (kathryn shulz in the new yorker has a great take on this expression--an "airborne depravity", a "meteorlogical pox", exactly my sentiments!), and then going completely over to rain is starting to test my zen approach to the lack of snow.

ok, yesterday i got pam to go out after work and skate around canaan street and the ice was really good, considering. i flew around the bays and across the middle one last time to meet back with pam who opted to stop as it got darker and darker. it was a good workout i felt in my knees until bedtime.

and saturday i went out with billy buffum--a long time friend from pinkham notch, amc days--testing a backcountry set up on the soft, wet three inches atop the thin icy base layer. we made a big loop, scaling up easily and sliding down at mixed speeds. it was right at billy's comfort level which made him happy.



the friday before, i took billy, his wife tracey, and daughter iona up for a winter tour of cardigan. we mixed up the trails to keep off as much ice as possible. that got ridiculous fast and in the end, we all put the crampons on, took them off for the rock on top, put them back on at treeline, and took them off again toward the bottom. i even ferried the dog over a couple of major flows! thank goodness it was sunny and in the 20's for most of the hike. i remember iona being up there a couple of times over her 14 years, once flying the 3meter kite, but this was definitely a first with spikes on feet experience for her. tracey even claimed that at one point on the waterfall section she was as scared as she had ever been.

granted then, i have been outside and playing--but this warm is literally 'wearing'. schools were closed all over new hampshire today, including mascoma. i went out to scrape pam's car windows and was coated with freezing rain in a matter of minutes. but, like i told sawyer the other day, i am holding out--as opposed to holding in the breath--for two big dumps sometime before we give over to spring. after all it is still only february.

still, for this morning at least i am staying in, listening to music* or reading a book, drinking tea, eating chocolate...avoiding the "pulchritude" outside (read that shulz article). *london grammer's sights is playing in the background as i type--they are getting a lot of air time these days..."whatever the weather"!

not really a deepfreeze...

but definitely an overnight! MOC continues to add participants--nine students went up the mountain this year, three more than last. of course it may have helped that we switched venues to the cabin with heat. still, we had to haul our wood. to help with that, dave wilson and i went half way up cardigan on saturday (saturday and sunday were both definitely deeply freezing at twenty below and i was glad we were hiking on monday and tuesday). we cut and split two big chunks from a maple blowdown i had taken out of the ski trail two years ago. the managable pieces were all the more so being a mile closer, and uphill, to the cabin.

elizabeth, ben, max, tori, olivia, andrew, maia, and her mom all gathered monday at noon, the sun just starting to loose the sky to heavy clouds rolling in from the west, bringing a storm with it. i divided the common food and extra water among everybody and they humped their packs, said bye to parents, and took off, sleds trailing behind. those of us who didn't start with them, donned spikes at the junction of the south and west ridges. our foreign student, a city boy from russia, looked quite happy wearing lethal weapons on his feet.

our next stop was the wood pile by the side of the trail--only i had to call them back as they walked right by, even after a heads up warning. we put 4-5 pieces into empty feed bags and loaded up the sleds and continued. to avoid the 'waterfall' section, we detoured up the skitrail. it was just as steep but without the ice. we took another breather at the 'amc east' cairn and sign where i introduced the snow-ball toilet paper trick to them--telling, not showing. when i told them of spending a winter without tp, they all looked doubtful, until one brave soul said she "would have to try that."

from there, after just a bit more up, we started down to the high cabin, holding our sleds back rather than dragging them. a couple of brave souls sat atop their pile and cowboy-ed it down until they crashed. less than a half-mile later we got to the cabin and opened it up, dumped our bags and the wood, and headed for the summit. up on top, belly sliding conditions were excellent!

on the way to the top i had showed the sledders a hidden stash my ski buddies and i call "the shute" and they had hitched their rides to a tree at the top of it. we headed there to pick those up and i pointed them down the snowy line, snaking through the stunted trees. julia and i went around and met the gang at the bottom of the shute--all with big smiles on their faces! we had a bunch more whoops and hollers as we rode down to the cabin.

the fire was lit, dinner cooked up, and card games started around the table. before long, graeme and conner stomped in from the dark. it was quite comfy inside as everybody tucked into their sleeping bags. when i went out one last time, it was snowing hard and a couple of inches had already built up. the next time i visited the outdoors about 2, the snow was changing to ice pellets. laying in bed in the dim of 6 o'clock i could hear the ice had shifted to rain. sure enough when i got outside, it was wet with a good crust on last night's snow.

a hearty breakfast was waiting for the 5 that went for the summit again and the others who stayed to sleep a bit more. the climbers never actually made it as the wind was really starting to whip and the rain was half frozen as it pelted them. or maybe it was the fact that they couldn't see too far in the cloud the summit was in. cleaned up and packed, we started down in the steady rain, sledding where we could and sloshing through some deep slush in the low spots.

by the time we got to the winter parking lot and waiting parents--only twenty minutes 'late'--we were pretty much soaked wherever we were not waterproofed. again though, we shared some big smiles!

 it was a fine outing for the club...

over an inch of rain fell the rest of the day--which inspired a bit of fun on wednesday. nobody stopped with any offers.

confusing the thermometer...

finally some cold--but don't put away the raincoat. we have had a spate of reasonable winter weather--and by that i mean below freezing so that when it precipitates, it snows. the freezes and thaws this winter have been crazy. but, the few inches of white stuff we have gotten over the past week has given me hope. a wild snow squall yesterday morning lured me out seeking altitude, that and i needed to check out cardigan's high cabin for next week's deepfreeze overnight. what a day...


it actually seemed like winter down at the parking lot. one other hiker, at least the one with the other vehicle next to mine, was up on the mountain and her/his tracks were already filling in with the fluffiest of snow. as i headed up toward the summer lot, there were stretches where the tracks were completely gone. i started to dream of skiing through this amazing powder--even at four inches it would be like heaven.

as i started on the trail leaving the summer parking area, the still obvious rocks reminded me that under such softness there is often something hard. my hand went down to the bruise on the back of my leg, still painful nearly a month after my last ski. sketchy cover or not, i still wished i could be skiing. there are some sections on the ski trail we keep clear that are relatively rock free--they would have been sweet!

at the first junction, the other hiker came down the south ridge trail, crunching along in a pair of regular crampons, with two pairs of micro-spikes jingling about, hung on the back of his pack. i was just putting my own pair on and taking off one of my layers. i was curious as to why he had so many anti-slipping devices. when i got to the ice bulges at the falls, a few slips of my micro-spikes answered that question. crampons would be just the ticket here and at the heavily iced flows at that steep section where he had come down.

as i approached the upper bridge i saw the south ridge cutoff and decided to take it. climbing out of the trees a half mile later, i was rewarded with breaks of bright sunlight. by the time i got to the upper stone outcropping--i think this one is called south peak--the sky was fairly blue and i snapped the picture above. the drifting path wound back down into the trees and joined the trail dropping down to the high cabin.

i shoveled and swept the steps and went in to check out the facilities--this would be much different than the cabin up on smart's mtn. where we had always stayed before. there were not only bunks and a commodious central table, but a small wood stove with a full wood box promised a new level of comfort. as one MOC deepfreezer had said last year, the hole in the wall and floor--probably where a stove had been taken out--was big enough to fall through. it had been nearly twenty below last year, both outside and in! i locked things back up and headed back to the west side.

i skipped the summit and trammped downhill to the truck, still amazed at all the snow up high. it was tempting to go home and get those skis and come back up. but it was thursday, ap-chem lab day, and so far i had been very good about showing up. ms doody and i had mixed the chemicals yesterday afternoon and i was looking forward to telling the four or five students in her class who would be going on the deepfreeze all about the beautiful snow and posh digs.

later...

ps those who know me, especially from the school, are familiar with the MOC--mascoma outing club--and our activities, like the deepfreeze mentioned above. i want to give a shout out to a student we missed, she graduated more than a few years before we started, but she typifies the shy, athletic youngsters more interested in the a-typical sports, not often offered in a high school setting. emilie drinkwater found the mtns early as a skier--her parents mistakenly signed her up for racing lessons rather than the normal get down the hill ones. in college and after she really took to the winter, despite not liking the cold, and started climbing ice (check out "chicks with picks")as well as rock. she now is a climbing guide and avid backcountry skier.

winter...?

the mid-atlantic states just got dumped on--two to almost three feet of snow in places...most winter loving friends i hang with would give a lot for even half of that. i am trying to zen my way through the season doing what i can to enjoy what we have. a few weekends ago, i got in a half day of skating, circling canaan street lake. the ice was thick enough and we all hoped that the forecasted heavy rain on that sunday would resurface things with the predicted freeze after. things worked out well that way, but then we got two-three inches of snow and it windpacked like crazy--so much for more skating.

but at least it was cold. and last monday, the 18th, with about five or six inches in our drive, i went off to the shaker trails and skied for the first time this year. cover was ok--a bit thin in places--but fun enough. we, skip and i, made it up to what al strickland calls "lost pond". i remember riding bike with the MOC saturday group and coming to the large stoned dam that holds in this pond. (see the map in the link above--the little dead end thumb to the south) al gets around lasalette surrounds as much as i do and we often talk of finding out of the way spots that attract our interest.





from the pond down, there is some sweet glade to weave through. i have spent quite a few hours clearing tons of blowdowns and we enjoyed the mostly clear 'tree section'. way down at the bottom, there was a bit of ice exposed under a huge pine so i detoured. instead, i found a rock with my bottom--a week later, the bruise is still pretty huge, somewhat sore, and very ugly. i am imaging somebody writing me just this moment, "omg, you are going to die!" at some point yes, but i am hoping this isn't my time...mostly because i have high hopes that it will snow sometime this season--but i will not hold my breath.



last saturday was the full moon which meant MOC (mascoma outing club) hiked cardigan to see it rise at the same time the sun is setting. i went up--no students or teachers this time--and got a great color show with the sun going down in the west, "red at night, sailors' delight!" the moon however was hidden behind a huge bank of clouds sent up the east coast by that huge storm i mentioned. i had no intention to wait well into the dark but on my way off the mountain i calculated that if things kept clearing, the same show would be happening tomorrow morning--only in reverse. i get up pretty early so i made plans to be there. sure enough the clouds were gone, save for just a thin band on each horizon. sunrise was just a moment before moonset...
















it was energizing to see in reverse what MOC, at least me, usually sees once a month. the sun now in the east and the moon in the west.

putting myself outside and experiencing the everyday beauty fills me with joy. i have many issues with inertia, getting up and going, but find motivation in looking at the little things outdoors. it was a grand morning--and this time i remembered the camera.