a grand day out!

MOC and april vacation, go together like...fun and more fun. this was the 17th year that the outing club has taken students up into tuckerman ravine. and while i can remember a couple nasty weather days, i recall many more on the good side. the iconic 'blue bird' sky yesterday, added to the latter. before setting off, we took the traditional pose at the bottom trail sign, warning all hikers that conditions above could be extremely dangerous and to turn back if any 'bad weather' came in. it did not look like we would have any of that today.




all that being said, the first thing i discovered this year, and should have expected--but didn't!--was the tuck trail was totally iced, from just past crystal cascades to hermit lake. fortunately, half the ten students had brought some sort of micro-spike set ups and after donning them, were good to go. i sent the others up the sherburne ski trail thinking it would be more hiker friendly. we all made it up to ho-jo's at the same time, each group with its own tales of ice slicked paths! sticking with the be-spiked group on the tuck trail, i watched several sliding extravaganzas--one particular crash, involved two sliding bodies spinning out of control as they careened down the "icy sluice" when the lead person slipped on a bulge. the sherburne crew had similar stories about a particular "icy gauntlet" that required a hand over hand ascent using the fir trees along the edge. a particularly dramatic report of a dropped pole, saved by the last in line would have been entertaining had we not needed to go down after our time in the bowl.



regrouped, we all enjoyed a bit of lunch looking up at the ravine from the comfort of the caretakers' ice free porch. a couple of other hikers were stopped as well and when i took up a conversation with one pair, we discovered that we had worked at pinkham together back in 1975! ed parsons, now living in tamworth, was up hiking for the day with his friend nancy. we had a good laugh at how small the world was and spoke of some of the others from 'back in the day' that we still kept up with. he was impressed that pam and i had made it all work over the forty one years. after taking a picture with him and another of our group, we packed and headed up into the bowl behind the two of them.

there was a bit of ice on the trail up but nothing that couldn't be gotten over or around. in about a half an hour we popped into ravine and i heard the chorus of, "oh my...this is incredible!" it is quite a site and with a full group of first-timers, i got a good kick out of their delight--despite the slipping and sliding to get here. there were only five others up with our dozen so we literally 'had the place to ourselves'. i saw ed tagging along behind the lone skier over in left gully as i led the boldest of our group up central, beyond "lunch rocks". we were only going part way to get a good launch into a slide. the snow was perfect for sliding and would have been excellent skiing, but i had left mine back at mascoma, not really wanting to carry them if i was the lone skier or snowboarder. since the sherburne was pretty much ice and melted out more than half its length, i was not too bummed that i had made that choice. everybody, took at least one zip down--most three or four--and all had huge smiles on their faces when they finally stopped at the bottom of the bowl.



dirk found a deep hole to climb into while a couple of the more frequent sliders changed into 'drys' from their 'wets' before we headed out of the ravine. we had the 2.5-3 miles to get down and none of us was relishing the icy descent. at the hermit lake shelters we made the decision to go right, down the sherbune. turns out that given the warming temp. and the plentiful sun, that was a good choice. the ski trail is quite a bit more open than the hiking trail and the ice was much softer--mostly passable without too much slippage. mostly, but one student did his best impression of superman when he tripped over something and instantly picked up a good amount of speed on a 20 foot slick spot. 'no blood no foul' allowed us a hearty laugh, but i for one, was took a good deal of care where i stepped. i found the side trail that i remembered from snowy years past took a few off that way. it had practically no ice and was covered by 2-3 inches of wet snow--that and the blow downs were all cut free. we walked comfortably along listening to whooping and hollering from those slipping along above us.




back at the dodge lodge, a group of non-believers went in to "take a look" at a crew picture with me, taken back in '75 when i "had really long hair!" (before we had started i showed three or four students and they had obviously spread the word and now were going to prove it to the others.) i got the van unlocked and after a bathroom check we piled in and took off. the ride home was smooth and this year we didn't get stopped for the van being not being inspected--even though it was three days past. i was supposed to drop it off at a local station for that after we unloaded everybody--bonus!

it truly was a grand day out!!

april fools!

a handful of MOC fools take a polar dip! 

every year on april fools' day, the outing club gathers as many hardy souls as we can and head over to canaan street lake. in years past we have jumped through a hole in ice that was three feet thick. it is not as much fun to 'run in' but unfortunately, in the last six years, we have had to do just that three times.

in the picture above, a fifth dipper is yet to run in. olivia is just behind us, still out of the picture. not that this actually mattered, but she had just moved here from tennesse and it was her first cold water experience. the student taking pictures got a great series of her deciding enough was enough and she turned and 'ran' out. if i remember right she was saying something like, "it's so cold...i getting out...i can't feel my legs or feet...this is so insane..." all through chattering teeth!

we all came out finally, with smiles on our faces! it was a good time--definitely cold--but everybody warmed up under their own power.

the fast squad ambulance was heated and standing by, just in case. the rescue squad likes to come out and suit up for practice. so far we have only needed them once to warm up a slightly hypothermic student with less than zero percent body fat. it is always great to have them join us, year after year, ice or no ice.

besides people swimming in april, how do you know winter is finally over? the temperature drops down to the single numbers and it snows six inches... it is crazy when last week we were up in the 60's and even above freezing over night. on wednesday i rode out 4A and teamed up with pete for a tour around mascoma lake. i was wearing a light long sleeve shirt and my tights and had an extra top in my pannier. during the ride, i was pretty warm pumping up hill, comfortable cruising along the flat, and only a little cool flying down hill. even though the sun was setting when i turned back at proctor's as pete pedaled off, the extra layer stayed in the bag all the way home.

on saturday, i could feel the temperature dropping through the day. i even put on a hat at one point puttering out in the garden, digging parsnips. my hands got a more than a little cold washing them. nothing like sunday though--i rode up jones hill to see a friend thinking, the steep mile climb would warm me up. my hands were frozen stiff by the time i got to the top even as i my 'de-hatted' head was sweating. i contemplated borrowing gloves for the ride home. when i pulled into our drive, i checked the temp. and realized why things were so fridgid--it was only 20°F out.

i put on a warmer shirt, jacket, and hat and headed over to lasallette to cut the remaining flagging tape from our snowshoe festival in january. as i crossed the causeway over mascoma lake it was starting to snow and the wind was blowing substantial white caps out on the lake. leaving the parking lot, the snow was getting thicker and blowing everywhere. as i got to the recently cleared 'potato field' at the height of land, the ground  was solid white and the wind was now buffeted me from side to side. crossing back into the woods things got a little more comfortable.  ten minutes downhill and the sun actually burst through the clouds. maybe that was why it was so windy, a front was blowing through.

i got over to the top of the upper big field and was clipping a couple of markers when i heard a huge crash off to my right. a huge old tree blew over about a hundred yards off the trail. i wished i had the camera as it would have been impressive (maybe i will come back and get a shot). as i got back to the truck with my pockets full of flagging tape, it was definitely getting colder with the sun tucking behind the ridge even though the wind was dropping.

monday brought a whole different weather system. a soft snow fell all day, starting about six in the morning and not ending until after i went to bed. it was cold enough to stay dry and fluffy, covering the frozen ground, and building up anywhere from 3 to 5 inches. waking early tuesday to the clear and cold, i decided to hike up cardigan after my third grade stint.

the winter gate was still up and there were no tracks in the lower parking lot. hiking up the road i could just make out a single set of boot tracks going up and coming back down. they were made during the snow as they were almost totally filled in. i remember last week i stopped and took a picture going up the road so i did that again. the sky was practically cloudless and a deep, crisp blue. the snow was equally crisp and showed countless tracks where various animals scurried about dealing with this 're-wintering' their landscape.

i kept track of the different tracks and counted eight species: two types of small rodents--a mouse and perhaps a shrew, squirrel--probably a red, rabbit, ruffed grouse--actually flushed one, deer, fox, and coyote. tracking was good as the animals were most likely out looking hard for food to fuel them through the cold. the birds were doing the same, with several wintering species--juncos, chicadees, and at least two downy woodpeckers flitting and pecking about.


up top i could see a long way, north, east, south, and west. i took pictures looking from each side of the tower, along those compass lines.

east

north

north, one could see the snow covered tops of the common white mtn. peaks: moosilauke, liberty, and washington. east, the big lakes were all free of ice similar to the sky free of clouds--save for that one little spot. south, another lone cloud above and three ski areas stuck out--white contrasting with blue and 'black' respectively. to the west, several more ski areas way off on the horizon, along with a bank of  incoming clouds.

south

west

the wind, coming out of the west, was blowing hard on three of the four sides, but it wasn't all that unpleasant. i packed things away, tightened my hood, pulled my face scarf up, and pointed my feet down.




once into the trees and out of the wind, the sun was warming. at the bottom, some of the snow was even melted on the lowest part of the road. i had seen a new set of boot prints join the west ridge trail coming in from south ridge. somebody and their dog were headed down in front of me. when i got to the winter lot, they kept going down the road towards orange. i was impressed with their motivated stroll.

three things that i have been thinking about while out and about in the last week:
a: pre-planning your path will restrict you, stay open and the 'real way' will present itself to us in all its variability... deliberately encourage change--don't become complacent with yourself as is, let experience guide you to make yourself new tiny bits at a time. (from michael puett's and christine gross-loh's talk on the diane rehm show)
2: a long term relationship is not set in stone but full of change--commit to working at it. (a long held belief pam and i share and applies to a: above)
III: "...i would have spent the rest of my life wondering what would have happened if..." seems to be a common motivator, but more and more i find it simplistic, maybe even false. you could bring this up over an infinite number of 'missed opportunities' a creative mind could invent. i have long assumed we do what we do because, at least at the time, it is what we wanted--for comfort, for joy, for thrill, for growth... (from the book, now a movie, janapar by tom allen, subtitled 'love, on a bike')

icy morning...

wet afternoon! i slipped off the steps going out to scrape the ice off vehicles...ouch. somehow i managed to not do too much damage and got the truck and car scraped but went back in to warn pam and get ashes to spread on the granite. while i was in i thought i better check to see if there was a delayed opening at the schools--the ice was pretty thick. nothing listed. when i got to the high school i found people shaking their heads a bit but doing school things.

ms doody and i got the ap chem lab ready and i grabbed some supplies to use with the third graders. on the way from the high school to the grade school i passed through a couple of silvery tunnels. tree limbs were covered with a heavy coat of ice. in one of the third grades we did an exciting demo on air pressure, crushing aluminum cans by heating and rapidly cooling the air inside them. amid the bubble of excitement watching such instant, dramatic change, there were all sorts of observations offered as to why and i left everybody thinking. on the way back home, the ice was starting to melt and fall like hail. i thought, wow, what a good time to go up and catch the action on cardigan.






i packed a quick bag and headed out. no cars were in the winter parking lot, but as i started up the gated road, i noticed boot tracks in the half inch of very wet snow--two sets going up and two coming down. i wished i had been up here earlier--maybe even as the wintery mix (this is the second time i have linked this site--it is that good!) was falling. rounding the first corner and heading up the second steep section the ice in the trees grew thicker, cool, things had not started falling yet. i was pumped with the possibility of what i would see up higher and even imagined the sun coming out and sparkling things up! what i was to find was much less dramatic, and definitely more mysterious. like the third graders this morning i was left wondering what was going on...and why?






basically, what i was seeing was a ton of the ice load--all on the ground now--but only in certain sections. where i saw the majority of ice was on the steeper sections of trail. on the flatter areas, there was nearly no fallen ice. crazily, this transition could be within yards of each other. the following four pictures are within a hundred yard section, alternating between flatter and steeper, and again flatter and steeper. weird stuff.



was there some kind of air current factor? did elevation play any part? did the increasing pools of melt indicate that there was ice but now it was gone? i had plenty of time to think about it as i hiked--the problem was as i got higher and higher, the changes kept adding new questions. it seemed like it was getting warmer and the evidence of ice was definitely disappearing. i was enjoying trying to figure out what was going on and before i knew it i was up on the slabs.

once at tree line, the only ice left was tucked deep into the thick, dark sections of the dense scrubby spruce off the trail. as those 'forested' bits gave way to nearly all rock, the wind swirled the cloud covering the mtn., lifting and dropping it, like shaking out a blanket atop a bed.  up at the top, the sun seemed to be right behind that cloud, at times so bright i wondered why i left my darkglasses at home. i stopped at the trail marker right below the summit, braced myself against a steady wind--my guess was 20mph with gusts to 30--and took a series of pictures, counting to twenty between each one. the clouds whipped around me and the tower came into and out of view.



i suppose it doesn't look like much changes in the pictures, but i was fascinated by what i could see and what i couldn't. hannah, sawyer, colin roebuck, and i have talked about 'series photos'--over both space and time--for a while now. when i started today's hike i revisited the notion of pictures going up the mountain and then coming back down spread out over a year. these four, out of eight total, or about three minutes worth of trying to hold things steady, connected me back to that idea. as my hands got colder and colder, i finally tucked the camera away and went up and stood out of the wind on the lee side of the actually solid tower.

when i headed down i could feel it getting colder. that was a bit odd as most of the snow and ice i had seen going up, had melted. i started to think that the ice that was more present at lower elevations was due to the inversion that brought the freezing rain in the first place. cold sinks and pools which helped me make some sense of the conditions i was seeing today. like my last post noted, it is always interesting, weather-wise, to live in new england.

"if you don't like the weather in new england now...

just wait a few minutes." so spoke mark twain, or samuel clemens if you prefer, and as true now as it was back then. i have been riding to the grade school this week and last. while i am pretty bundled up to get there by 9:00, i have been coming home at 3:00-ish with no hat or gloves. a couple of trips last week, even my jacket was too warm and once the legs got working hard, it was practically shorts weather.



jacket, hat, and gloves were welcome up on the top of cardigan for the moonrise-sunset hike yesterday. the temperature was low twenties and the wind was fairly stiff between 10 and 20mph. i noticed that every one of the windmills over toward plymouth were spinning. that seems rare. moc goes up every month give or take one day around the full moon. most of the winter i am the only one who shows, but tonight five students, one mother, two boisterous and energetic black labs, and sawyer--an alum--made the trek.






my ski buddy skip and his best friend (and wife) linda were coming down as we went up. we passed just above lunch rock. they had watched the moon rise and were heading down before the sun actually set, considering the huge cloud bank to the west, that would not take too long. we continued on and took some pictures, measured the wind speed, and hung out a bit before following.

it struck soy and i that cardigan mountain is about as wonderful a mtn to have in your back yard as could be. the top few hundred feet are above tree line--a fire scorched the top back in 1855--allowing for a 360 view to write home about. at least that is the case when it is not in the clouds and snowing or raining. while it can look and feel like the sub-alpine zone up in the whites, it has very few of the typical species in a krummholz. true or not, you get a big bang for you buck when you summit. having spent a good amount of time on summits both in the whites and on cardigan, conditions can be remarkably similar. while i have never measured winds higher than 50-60mph up top cardigan, speeds that high on a 'little mtn.' can play big.

speaking of playing big, or maybe i should say wet, the two labs had a heck of a hike, hitting every puddle--iced or melted--and stream within a hundred yards of the trail. sliding and splashing around like otters, they entertained each other as well as us--both up and down.

another day in heaven...

the clouds were building off to the southwest, but i beat them! 
the snow seemed even a bit better today--but maybe that was my imagination, stimulated by the beautiful sunny day. i said hi to the cat driver as i started up the holt's side. he was sort of smiling, but also waving his finger and insisting i "be very carful...extra sink have opened up." it is always interesting how the workers at the area hills react to us as we poach these spring runs. yesterday afternoon i talked to this younger guy on the crew--decked out in snow pants and snowboard boots--and he was super friendly, even encouraging. this guy seemed a bit annoyed, maybe because he was working and i was playing, or maybe just simple and honest concern. at the end of the run i met four folk winding up the fencing (seen in the picture) all of whom said something nice. one guy was pretty excited and shouted out "yeah, earnin' your turns!" in the long run i was delighted they let us ski post season. last year we got asked not to come back at ragged mtn. i chalk that one up to lawyers...



i stopped about two thirds of the way up worden's shuss, the super g run, and took some pictures which might give you an idea...the one with the fence is obviously looking down and the other up--duh!


























the last picture is at the top, looking over at the winslow side where we skied yesterday. that is smarts mtn. in the background and if you squint you can see the fire tower. until this year MOC (the outing club i still advise at mascoma high school) stayed at a cabin up on the top for our february deepfreeze overnight. you can possibly imagine the clouds building in. the view is mostly north, a tiny bit east from here. coming from the south and west a huge dark gray bank of rain was looming. it was going to rain in a couple of hours--time to head down.

sure enough, after i got down and out of there, i was coming out of the grocery store and a solid rain was falling. as i collected my bags to make a dash for the truck, i saw linda, skip's lover/wife. we both hoped that this shower would pass so skip could get a run in on his way home from work. such is life!