Endurance races, ski trips, musings, and adventures on the East Coast.

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Midweek Shot

A quick shot from this morning (Tuesday). It's still pretty deep out there! More snow on the way too.

Sunday, February 26, 2012

Get Out There

This picture doesn't even do it justice. It's soooo good right now.


One more shot from the weekend...this one of Nina finding the goods in VT yesterday. Should be good all week. See you out there!

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Can we get our hopes up?!

Given the way this winter has gone, I'll believe it when I see it. BUT, the weather reportis good for tonight into tomorrow. Totals in the 6-12" range, and it snowed up high today, so it seems like this weekend could be the thing we've been waiting for. Plus, up high it's never been too bad; the images below come from 3,000-4,000 feet on Monday in good old VT. See you out there this weekend!


Sunday, February 19, 2012

Making the Wrong Call (or not)

How bad is the snow, well, Saturday we went mountain biking...which was a good reminder that even though the snow isn't great, it's still February; it's still SKI season. So today we decided to do better. Did we find some sweet blown in powder stashes? Nope. Did we care? Not really.


Instead we embraced the challenge of skiing crusty logging roads with exposed water bars, which was actually a pretty good time.



It doesn't have to be too steep to Feel steep when things are crusty.


I had forgotten just how awesome it is to jib. We spent at least half an hour playing on this little "rail"...too much fun.

See you out there.

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Scrubby Skiing

It's been a season of battling that overzealous early successional scrub that flourishes in the otherwise open tree lines that make for great skiing - to think what a foot or two would do. If you want the goods right now you really need to get above tree-line, whether that's in the Whites or on one of the few open summits in the Greens. But this weekend time and energy didn't allow for a high alpine excursion, so we set out for a mid-elevation tree stash. Expectations were low, and the snow, not terrible actually.




Really, we were pleasantly surprised. It could have been a lot worse, and it always feels good to be out there.

Pray for Snow!

Sunday, February 5, 2012

Turns are turns right?

I guess I have to admit it, not all turns are created equal. And while we have certainly had some powder days this year, many of which I've been lucky enough to enjoy, we don't have much of a base. So far, we've had none of those bottomless days where you can ski anywhere and the grin won't wipe off your face for days. Yesterday we had an inch of powder on a wicked crust, and the skiing was, well, sketchy. Not an excuse to stay home though.


Skiing on these sorts of days, for me, means altering my goals. Sure, we spent a lot of time talking about skiing and hopes for powder, but what was it really about? Enjoying all that sunshine!


And taking advantage of the easy skinning (no need to really "break trail") to find some interesting new zones. Plus, any skiing with a view like this is sweet in my book, especially when you have it all to yourself and a few friends.


The trees required some definite survival skiing skills yesterday, but it was fun nonetheless, and we'll be back when the snow is deeper.


Some solid turns...


Pete took advantage of a break in the sunshine to scrape the ice off the bottom off his ski (incurred during a stream crossing). We were only 20 minutes from the car and the sun was shining, so I went swimming. For some reason though I couldn't convince anyone else that it was a good idea.

In the end it's like going on a hike to a new place on a beautiful sunny day with friends, and you happen to get a few bonus ski turns in. Doesn't sound so bad when you phrase it that way right?