fast and furious...

like the movie franchise, this year's 'descents at speed' sequels are getting up there in number! with this posting, i could easily be on 8, 9, and 10 now!


let's start with a late run on the james jewitt trail, over a week ago now. it was late in the afternoon when i finally got my act together, geared up, and heading out on the jjt--the green trail going counter clockwise--over at lswma.


when i say late afternoon, i mean after 4p, with the sun headed over the horizon. the four or five inches of fluff on top of a somewhat solid crust, seemed fast from the start, and as the temperature dropped, it only got more slippery. the dark was coming fast as well, so i turned at the potato field, locked down, and pushed off. i figured the cruising the less steep jewitt in semi-dark would be safer than flying the sustained, steeper moses in more-dark.


probably a good choice. i was having so much fun playing the edges: zipping up and dropping back off banks, hitting rock launches,  turning totally off trail and weaving trees. well, mostly weaving them. a couple of smaller branches i was unable to avoid; at speed and with the dimming light, i barely saw them as they whipped my cheeks. by the time i made it back to the truck i had a few scars, but i was smiling big!

the following day, i made it a point to get going a lot earlier. and given the great snow, i decided to try a cardigan run. hoping the crust was just as firm and maybe even topped by deeper snow, i figured it should be a really sweet run.

it certainly was a beautiful 'blue bird' day. i grabbed a picture of the upper ski trail before i skinned up. it was definitely slippery and the crust seemed a little sketchier than over at lasalette. while i had the camera out i snapped an image of what was going on under ski on the way up.











besides the collapsing crust, the snow was not any 'extra' deep here either, but i kept going higher hoping. at the top of the chute i grabbed another couple of pictures while i still had on a smile and wasn't wearing any new scars! this was going to be fast and i would be chasing control as much as fun.




dropping into the chute off the growing top cornice--well over my head this trip--was enough to get the juices flowing. good thing too as it didn't get any less exciting the rest of the run. on the top tight section, i took two hemlock/snow splats to the face. on the next piece i was feeling good and 'hucked' the ice flow, landed it, and was railing the run out thinking, "i got this."

that might have been a bit premature. immediately,  my skis slid out from under me and i went down--sliding toward a tree and a new scar. fortunately i lost speed quickly and was able to tuck my head in and 'take one for the gipper.' (that's paraphrasing--and i never did like reagan.) as i got up i thought of linda always reminding skip to "wear your helmet!"

the rest of the descent i kept on top of things--i.e. my skis and the snow--and away from any trees. it was indeed a sweet run.

the following week, after another 4-5 inches, i decided to give it another try. this time i left the house and was on my skis before noon. i even remembered to grab the camera and my wallet. it was much colder, but another brilliantly clear day and i had the idea to take an artsy picture of my shadow skinning up getting first tracks! that's when i discovered i had left the camera--and wallet--on the front seat.

no problem, i would be down in plenty of light to get a picture, at least of the lower section. as i continued up, i was plotting how to avoid any craziness this time and opted to stop early and ski from below the ice flow. that turned out to be a very wise choice as it was even faster than it was last time.

i made it down to the lower middle section, without mishap and in pretty good style. feeling pumped, i opened it up a bit, staying in the fall line down one of my favorite sections. unfortunately, i flew right by the shortcut to side hill a wicked gully rather than hitting it straight on. i skidded out trying to stop and slid toward another tree and more scars. this time i lay on my back, dragging my pack to cut speed. that worked well but i couldn't watch where i was going and both my knees thudded against said tree, bringing me to a halt.

my first thought was damn, the knee i tweaked earlier in feb. was all better. when i got back up, it moved without too much pain but i was now thinking, not only should i be wearing a helmet, i'm gonna have to get knee pads too!

playing it safe, i hockey stopped at the top of the next sustained drop and stayed upright for the remaining steep bits. by the time i got to the lower road, i was playing the edges again, looking for excitement!

i got to the truck and fetched the camera for a couple of final shots. i was still the only soul on the mountain.


















the knees might be sore tomorrow, but for now i was feeling happy to be outside playing!






ps--sawyer came up for a visit and the next day he and i went for a ski in the morning. we limited ourselves to pam's snowshoe trail and the field. not nearly so furious, we had a lot of fun, especially turning in the field. it was like butter out in the open. under the trees, the crust was waiting to grab you--more like butter, then glue, then butter, then glue...! the answer clearly was to stay in the field--it was beautiful out there!

not an expedition--more a fest...

expeditions often involve long hours of hard work, getting somewhere--and back--that seems significant, maybe even extreme. they usually include multiple people, but a solo journey can certainly qualify. the word epic sometimes fits the effort.

a few weeks ago, over four days, i spent a good number of hours at the lower shaker wildlife management area, working trails for the annual shaker museum snowshoe fest. i had already put in a bunch of solo days clearing blowdowns. on one long afternoon, with a chain saw, going well into dark, i cut out a dozen big trees and managed to get pam all worried. 

it took two days of marking, thursday with a team of joanie, susan and i, and friday with harrison. saturday, harrison, joanie, and i re-grouped and stationed ourselves at strategic spots to help guide snowshoers on the three different trails.



sawyer also joined us on saturday and led a couple of younger gentlemen with intellectual disabilities. travis, a former student i had in a couple of classes, was as enthusiastic as ever. 

enthusiasm was a good thing as it was really windy--as in really, really windy--and plenty cold. we fitted snowshoes inside the cellar of the stone mill, and didn't take our jackets off.

a while after they left, i took off in the opposite direction and ended up meeting them on the down hill part of their trail with a sled.

the surface was frozen and really fast--as in, again, really, really fast--so for their first run on the 'big hill', we started from a ways down. soy took a panorama of us getting ready. trevor was first to try it and whooped pretty much the whole way. we got a second sled and they went down racing each other, with twice the volume. 

an hour or so later i went back to coax them in to warm up and eat some lunch. i didn't see them again until at the very end of the day as i was packing up snowshoes. their two pairs were leaning against the mill. they were back up on the hill sledding! i wish i would have gotten a picture of that fun.

the next morning, i met harrison really early--ok, not all that early, but before harrison usually gets out and about. we split up and swept the flagging from all the trails, managing to gather them all in less than two hours, without crisscrossing, as if we planned it.

it was a fine four days to be outside and playing!

ps thanks again to: joanie, susan, harrison, and sawyer on trails; carol and daughter on sleds; mvrhs honor society students, peggy, happy, and clark on snowshoes; ll bean-ers on crafts...

not the same as it used to be, but still fun~ish...

even if you don't read goap! regularly, you probably know i 'hate' what we now call a wintry mix. sitting here listening to the 'trinkle'--that's my new word for a trickle of ice chunks falling from the roof with a tinkle as they knock against the house. mostly, that sound is a kerchunk, but tinkle made for a more eloquent portmanteau--my feelings are only amplified!

amplified, magnified, multiplied...some sort of -ied that speaks of discontent with the our winters of late. much of that displeasure comes from my position of 'trail master' in this saturday's shaker museum snowshoe fest. we have had some excellent snows this season, but they have been followed by significant ice-rain events--one just last night! along with well above freezing temperatures, the wonderful, formerly deep snow pack has shrunk to a "not all that fun for snowshoeing" depth.


had you asked me last weekend, i was seeing things differently. of course i was also hearing the forecast for warm temps and liquid precipitation. obviously, you make tracks when the snow's good. but, i also have to make them when the snow, if it is there at all, is crusty and...not so good.

but, to overlook the good times would be unwise. on sunday, pam and i went down to sadie's and otavio's for a snowshoe in the woods before this week's big warm up. the 6-8 inches of fresh stuff they got in windsor was still mostly there, a little tracked out, but very enjoyable.



everyone but me had been on some of the trails in paradise park, so i tagged along at the back as they led us on a looping hike. first we descended into a fairly deep ravine, crossed over and hiked along a good sized stream. we climbed back out a ways downstream, looping back to descend again to the stream crossing. i stopped to take a picture of sadie and pam before we dropped back down into the drainage.

once we got back to the stream, we crossed back across and then crossed another stream in the opposite direction. that led up to a really cool ridge line where i tried to capture the perspective of behind and ahead of me going up.




the pictures don't do it justice, but i was enjoying an art-sy spell. i was enjoying other things as well--namely visions of another big storm dumping a bunch more snow on the steep sides of the ravine. there would be some pretty exciting skiing if that were the case. short, but exciting runs, that could be repeated in fresh snow up and down the length of the long~ish ridge. pam thought it a bit nuts, "that's as steep as tuckermans ravine--only with trees!" 

i could avoid the insane spots, but the whole of it looked pretty inviting. then. now, with the warming, and wintry mix, i am going to have to wait for another big snow event. 

until then, i will just have to "go outside and play!" in the diminished snow...

imagine if that two inches of rain had been snow...

midweek after over a foot of snow fell on the weekend back two weeks, we had almost 2" inches of rain--as in up in the 40s °F, not even close to a 'wintry mix', pouring down, all day, rain. that is not right! no matter the idiotic statements trump makes that it "'Wouldn’t be bad to have a little good old fashioned Global Warming right now!'"

thank the goddesses it was forecasted to snow a fair amount again monday and tuesday--and 8-10 inches came! as did kevin and mariel, on wednesday--with their skis! when i pulled into the drive, i saw the two, cutting tele-turns in the field. i quick changed into my ski gear and joined them. 

we made our way up to the top of town hill and tipped over the east side and skied down to the beaver dams. the steeper pitches were sweet with powdery snow. the time pam and i put in on the weekend clearing the latest blowdowns made for clear going. the ski back down the west side to the house, was just the right speed to make everybody happy.

thursday dawned clear and cold--none of that fresh snow would have disappeared. we geared up and headed over to the lower shaker wildlife management area. as we skinned up the lower field, a stiff-ish wind blew down at to meet us. did i mention it was cold? through the upper field, i was making a track--for the yellow hayfield trail--to come back and flag for the snowshoe fest. i stuck close to the woods which helped cut the wind some.

at the top of the fields we skied into the woods and took an old ski path up to a high point and a good place to take off the skins, lock the bindings down and push off. save for the three of four trees down, it was a fun decent to the main trail and a good place to pose for pictures.

a long-ish run brought us to what i call 'grand junction', were as we put skins back on, lisa came along on snowshoes with bennie on snow paws. we skinned a mile up to the potato field, de-skinned, and turned our way back down the path we just ascended. i took a picture of mariel watching kevin slide into the junction.

it always amazes me, how quickly you ski down something that took a good while to skin up.

friday dawned clear and cold again and after kevin and mariel pulled out headed back to maine, i geared up again and went over to lower shaker wma for a ski with dick on his new at set up. i was a bit early so i skinned up solo on second left--the little sherbie or blue trail--to lay more tracks for the snowshoe fest. a hazy sun met me near the top.

after cutting out some hanging poplar, i stripped off the skins and cruised back down, non-stop to the bottom.

i loaded things back into the truck and zipped across 4A to drummonds. dick and speight were all ready to go. we loaded their stuff, including bennie, and zipped back across 4A to the pump house. we unloaded and skinned up second left that i had done just before but kept on going past my turn around. 

we turned of the blue trail onto a little used path up to 'lost lake'. dick and speight had never been up there, despite their riding these woods fairly frequently. the trail goes over the old, stoned up shaker damn and comes down to what we call 'the glades'--first left for those of us in the know. dick and i took our skins off there and speight switched from snowshoes to snowboard--bennie snuffed around in the snow.



when we had passed by first left at the bottom of the glades, there were a couple of ski tracks, looking like freshies were gone. but here at the top, there were no tracks save for woods creatures'. that made us pretty excited as we pushed off into the trackless snow. i stopped once to check on the big smiles the two were sporting. 

they grew even bigger as i watched them come down the last pitch, speight blasting off a little drop between two big pines, to join us on the main trail. backcountry seemed to please the two immensely. so pleasing that back across the road, speight and i made plans for mt carr the next morning--dick regretfully announced, "i have to work."

more below zero temperatures over night kept the snow dry and fluffy. as we pulled into mt carr the fresh snow looked pretty good, even with a drifted in snowshoe track heading across the first field. since adam and i had gone up--check my last post--there had been the 2 inch rain event, but at least 10 inches had covered that. we were pumped.

pumped and pumping, sometimes through more than two feet of snow, other times through ragged frozen gullies, washed out by the water that must have been rushing during that rain. they promised some excitement crossing back over under speed when we came back down.


speight: "sweet gap!"

me: "oh yeah, lots of fun--more like funny...if you had a video camera!"





when i sank into a hidden washout up in the tight spruce i called "lunch o'clock!" i got a picture of speight finishing up his crust standing in the hole i had left. 


as we geared up for the descent, i caught sight of another skier skinning up the trail--it was skip! he had talked to pam and gotten the intel on where we were going to be. it was sweet to have him join us.


he stripped his skins quickly, donned his helmet, and put an extra jacket on faster than i had ever seen him get ready before. in very short order, we were whooping it up through the trees, at least i was. speight was bombing down the skin track, floating the edges for some variety. every once in a while he would stop to check in on us old guys.






i stopped at one point to get a picture of skip and his smile. i don't recall seeing speight from here on out to the bottom, but we were enjoying a slow 'senior' descent. 


on the last steep pitch i went into the woods for one last 'glade' adventure. i managed to avoid the big, immovable trees as my line angled back to the main trail. skip following the 'beat of his own drum' popped out of the woods right nearby.


we glided out the last quarter mile or so avoiding a last drainage gully and a blowdown we had left for someone else to cut out. speight was sitting on the snow bank at the truck, tired, but really happy with his second backcountry experience.


while i didn't hear skip announce "...the best skiing ever!"  i imagined he might have been thinking it was close. it certainly was a good day to "go outside and play!"

cold everywhere; a long-ish climb; a slow-ish, grabby descent...

it was not "the best skiing ever", but it was a grand day to be out...on skis!

what does that mean? basically, there was plenty of deep snow, not the light fluffy stuff below 0°F would tend to favor, but with a dense under layer, packed stiff by two days of heavy wind. that made turning tricky at best--difficult at worst. but, it was sunny, and forecasted to be much warmer and less windy than the day before. that made it a perfect day to get out.

adam had been planning to go up the carriage trail on moosilauke but i convinced him mt carr, across the valley, would be just as good, if not better. moosilauke is higher, but above treeline, and a good portion of the upper 'low spruce' zone, would be brutally wind slabbed. then there was the mile and a half slog into the steeper sections, which skip and linda reported had a lot of blowdowns in the late fall. and finally, 'nobody' skis carr, so it will likely offer fresh tracks.

we pulled up to the end of the road and parked in front of the huge pile of snow left by the plow. so much for 'nobody', there was a drifted in ski track heading across the field into the woods. as we put skins on and got into boots, i suggested that a track in front of us, would make it easier, break up the depth and clear the snow out of overhanging tree branches. i tend to look on the bright side of everything.

and speaking of bright, this picture at the start shows why i should have brought my sunglasses. fortunately, i did bring the silkie saw. as soon as we got to the woods across the field, we ran into several balsams, loaded with snow, bent over blocking the trail. the ski track stopped--so much for a broken out trail.

heading up toward the waternomee falls junction, adam kept looking to the woods for possible lines. depending on snow, there were plenty of opportunities. i had tried a couple of trips through that area when there was plenty of speed. after making the turn, we were skiing by the top end where we stopped to snack & drink a bit, plus take a couple pictures. 



the woods beyond adam, were what he had his eye on riding when we came down. there was plenty of coverage, but the snow had a stiff layer under a top fluff that might make it slow and grabby. with a snowboard and float, that would be easy to handle. with skis, it might be harder. it was hard enough just going up and we switched leads a fair bit.

we kept breaking trail, climbing, testing depth and consistency with pole plants. my fingers were warming with the effort, even though most of the track was pretty shadowy. whenever we passed through a patch of 'full' sun, adam's "that sun feels good" reminded us how cold it was.

besides finding the sunny spots, adam kept looking off into the distance for more lines. i took to singing "love the one you're with" to focus him on the path ahead. when the trail got steeper, the snow deeper, and climbing sometimes almost arduous, he started asking "aren't we there yet?" i always gave my same comeback, "oh, about half-way!"













several half-ways later, we started up this strip of sun. the beauty of it made all the work getting 'there', deep cold and grabby layer of snow not withstanding, a worthwhile investment. 

shortly after this picture, we got confused in the spruce, trying to find the trail. that made it a good place to stop for more snack & drink, announce it was now 'all the way', take the skins off, and lock things down for the descent. 



it took me a while to get the handle of not driving the front end into a carved turn. the deep cleansing reward of a face plant into a drainage definitely helped. the trick was to lean back and slide the rear end gently around. that kept the tips above the grabby layer and speed up. once i learned that, i was even able to drift by adam--after i took another picture.

it didn't take him too long to zip by me again, waving and whooping as he went. at one point i heard him, shout, "oh no, i missed our trail!" he was referring to the little path we had packed out on the way up. it led to a huge boulder that looked like a great place to launch from on the way down. as he was climbing back for another run at it, i went by and told him, "oh yes, that will give me time to get the camera out!"

as the document shows, it's obvious we should have packed things down a lot more. despite the 'non-launch'--more a tip over the edge--it was a bit of fun and bonus, nobody was hurt in the making of the video.

the next time i caught up to adam, it was my turn to yell. "going left--hope it's not a mistake!" turning into the woods looking for one of those lines he was eyeing at the beginning, was a risk. given the stiff snow and the likelihood of needing to turn quickly to avoid the trees, maybe it would be better to be wearing a helmet and goggles. despite lacking those, it wasn't half bad, with a couple of sweet steep spots, clear enough for four or five turns. coming back to the trail, there was adam. he had found his own line off-piste and was smiling as he split his board into ski mode, for the final quarter mile of flattish trail.

we made it back through the trees hanging over the trail and got to the truck, both smiling now. my comment, "even though we spent slow hours going up, the quick hour down was totally worth it!" 

it was a good day to be outside and playing!