chamois

Snow conditions up here in NH are still pathetic. Tyson was to have led an ever popular ski down the back side of Wildcat — lift ride up, gentle ski back down towards the neighboring town. We never did get 100% clarity on the trail conditions, but it sounded like odds were, the trail had some bare spots. So instead, Tyson relocated to Mousilake. Theoretically it had snow. But now the trip was an up and down on what was probably a steeper trail. Although neither Scott nor Tyson, the two leaders had been on the trail.

Anyways, the snow turned out fine once you got off the well tracked areas. A lot like we had seen the previous week — some soft stuff on top of a firm but not icy base. One of the trails we took had been a down mountain ski trail, but the Dartmouth Outing Club moved it to be a less steep climb up the hill, and did not cut it wide as a ski trail. We ended up going up to the tree line which was a bit above the difficulty the trip had initially been rated for, but it was absolutely gorgeous. There was an issue with one of the participants getting cold, so we did not stay long or summit either of Mousilake's peaks.

The way back down was a little tricky. Where the trail was in dense trees, there was plenty of snow, but of course the trail was not very wide and had trees on either side. Where the trail, actually old carriage road, was wide and open, the wind had scoured all the snow off the trail and dumped it on the side leaving exposed rocks and hard crust in the middle. The sides of the trail were better, being merely wind compacted drift with small trees and bushes poking out of it. Bill, Scott, Tyson, and I — all the regulars — took our skins off to ski down, but the other two left theirs on to control their speed. I added to my own difficulty by keeping the same skis as I would have taken for Wildcat, namely my shorter cross country skis with their optional cables. Everyone else was on some variant of plastic boots and shaped skis. So, initially, I was skiing the side drift ok, but eventually, I got tired enough that I was just snow plowing and side slipping. And once we got back in to more snow, alpining.

Overall, I'd say not my favorite ski. Tyson wants to go ski it again, but I'm not really sure what redeeming qualities it has. Maybe with more snow and heavier gear it would be more fun. Also, I was still distinctly hurting in places from last sunday's epic, so that probably didn't help. Instead of great skiing, I got good conversation out of the trip. On the way up, I tried to convince Scott to try sea kayaking with us. And Bill and I talked about how to use new media (aka facebook and twitter) to recruit young folks to the AMC.

There was one funny spot on the way down. It was near the top in the deeper snow and narrower trail. I had picked up too much speed, so I turned up off the side of the trail, and my 50% chance of excessively sudden stoppage resulted in a fall. That was all well and fine, except that in falling, I threaded a large stick through my pack straps behind my head. I tried wiggling up, down, left, right, but I seemed good well and stuck. So here comes along Scott who sees me with a stick protruding from behind my neck and my head at a funny angle. That gave him quite the shock until he figured out that, no, no I just needed some help getting extricated.

We got back from skiing early enough that a pack of us went out to dinner and talked about skiing la Gaspesie.

Yeah, I know, you are all wondering why my last n-teen hundred ski trips don't count as skiing.

But, as far as down mountain skiing, I have been working hard on telemark. So every trip down the slope was working on this exercise, or concentrating on refining that bit of technique. In fact I would say that I haven't properly relaxed down a mountain since 1995 when the family stopped skiing.

So it was such a joy to head down the black slope today to just ski. I took all the confidence from telemarking in my leather boots and skinny skis, and I fell into that swaying rythm that used to rock me to sleep at night, that I dream about like a lost love. Oh was it wonderful. It was so awesome that despite the single digit temperatures, the 20mph wind, and the icy slopes, I kept wanting to go back.

Friends heading in to the bar, and my legs getting tired and not wanting to injure them eventually forced me off the slope. But, oh how I now need a big mountain to go ski. And really ski, not just over analyse my way down.

This weekend I taught introductory backcountry skiing. I have taught at winter school once before and been a student twice, so I know the drill by now. It's a weekend full of stuff. Most of the days are spent outside working on technique and practical skills. The morning and evenings are spent in lectures on how to stay safe in the winter moutains. There is no time left for breathing.

There were actually 3 instructors for intro skiing -- Scott, Marty, and I. Scott is trying to train me up as his replacement, so I ended up doing a lot of the active teaching. At the beginning of the weekend, my students were terrified of a slight incline and doing more of a shuffle than a nice kick and glide. So I started by running through the sequence of drills Ted taught us the other weekend. I am going to need to learn how to tailor them better at some point, but for this group, covering them all was a good idea. We made some progress on the kick and glide, and then went back to the hill and made a good bit of progress there.

The hill has a steep part and a flat part. All the ski groups started there, so it got rather packed out. By lunch time, we were the only ones left, so I did a quick run up the hill and ski back down, including the little ski jump at the bottom. I managed some nice telemark turns on my long skinny cross country skis, took the ski jump not too fast, and did a tele hockey stop at the bottom. All that practice I have been getting on my heavy gear must be doing something even if it doesn't feel like it. I was styling on my cross country skis (at least I think so even if no one else was watching).

Oh, and another thing that happened while all the groups were still on the slope: One of the young ladies (my age) in another group was uncertain about going pee in the woods. Rather than letting her run in the lodge, I got conscripted to teach an impromptu lesson. Apparently I gave a good one because she was raving about it for the rest of the day.

In the afternoon, we did a short tour. We got going late, and one of the students got tired and frustrated and ended up walking a bit. But the others were having fun. That afternoon, there are various seminars. I got suckered into teaching one on ski waxing. Unfortunately, only one person showed up. So I ended up giving Tony and Bill free waxing service.

Then the usual evening skits and scenarios on what to do if someone gets injured. I think I had more useful to say this time than last. I'm still learning a bit of that stuff myself.

Sunday, the one student who had been having trouble Saturday decided to stay closer to the lodge and work on more technique. Another student who had not gotten the memo that you were supposed to be there all weekend and had shown up late saturday, decided she wanted to leave early sunday. And one of the instructors for advanced skiing started feeling sick. The net result was that Scott was switched to advanced, leaving me as primary instructor for intro with Marty as my assistant. And the instructor who was feeling a little sick stayed and worked with our two folks who were not coming on the tour.

For the tour we did a trail (93Z) that looks like an old road. Nice and broad, but some ups and downs. They did well on the way up. I got to teach stream crossing. On the way back down, there was plenty of falling, but also plenty of giggling. And overall a massive improvement from where they had been saturday morning. Marty even taught one of them the telemark stance which she did until her legs gave out.

We got back a little early, but folks were pretty well burnt out. I did a few more runs on the hill. A couple other folks stayed out a little more. And then we all retired for late lunch and wrap up.

So, no grand adventure stories like some of my weekends, but tons of fun never the less.

20100123-AMCNH-WinterSchool-Emilie

Tuesday we made it up to the AMC telemark clinic at Gunstock. Tony, Tyson, and Paul were having fun showing off their almost identical skis and bindings. Once Tony mounts his new bindings they will be identical.

I have been having an issue this winter with morale and my telemark skills. At the beginning of the day, I have two left feet and ski horribly. It doesn't help any that Tyson looks flawless on his new skis. So I end up grumpy for the first half of the trip. Eventually I limber up and can ski decently, but by then I have missed most of the day.

Well, tuesday was no exception to that pattern. The good news is that by the end, I was doing much better than I have before. What I really probably need is just more practice so each trip is not separated by several weeks from the previous one. I suppose later in the season when we start skiing Mt Washington, I will get that.

Last Wednesday I taught x-c skiing for the AMC. The way the groups fell out, there was one total newbie, and then the others had a bit more experience. I opted to teach the one newbie. I figured it would be easier both because it was fewer people, and because there is so much obvious to teach with a beginner. The most notable part of the lesson was discovering that her brand new skis bought for her by her husband had no scales. There are decent odds they were skate skis which don't even particularly have a kick region. But reguardless, I was not going to teach skating, and her skis were pristine slippery plastic, so I slathered them up with kick wax. Things went much better from there. I did suggest that she switch to scaled skis given that she wanted to do back woods ambling.

Thursday night was the organizational meeting for AMC winter school.

Then this weekend, we decided to be productive since from now until the end of February, all our weekends are booked. We worked on taking down more trees on the lot. Everything in the house is gone. The east and north of the house are close to done. South needs some more work. There are different values of doneness for south. There is enough space for the house. And then there is removing pines for winter sun. And the east west side is not done at all. There are trees right up to the house.

One of the things the AMC does is teach classes. However, to teach classes, there need to be competent instructors. The best of our cross country instructors agreed to spend some time today with the rest of us. It ended up only Tyson, Bill, and myself signed up.

Once we got over running late and basically throwing all the same stuff back in the car from yesterday, including the food, the day went well.

Ted ran the day as he would a normal lesson, but then we would step back and learn why he was teaching the various exercises. We started with simple static balance excersises. We then progressed to dynamic balance. Gliding technique is not necessary in the back country, but we covered that too since it would sure make some trips faster. The last bit before lunch was up and downhill technique. I find it hard to remember how painfully flat of a «hill» beginners need to start on.

After lunch we did a general tour and touched on more miscellaneous points as they came up. Overall I think I learned as much about how to teach as ways to improve my own technique. Definitely time well spent.

A lot of what the NH AMC does is trudging up and down hills. It might be good to broaden that out into more distance covering tours. I think we would all be more well rounded skiers.

As it was, only 4 hours trying to keep up with Ted was enough to get me some very sore muscles this evening.

For those of you who do not know, The Capitol Steps is a comedy group made of former DC staffers and the like. They make fun of politics and current events. NPR stations tend to have them on as new years entertainment. I had been bemoaning the fact that we had missed hearing them for the past couple of years for various reasons. So when Bill called up his wife on the carpool home and started discussing whether or not they were going to see the Capitol Steps, I had to butt in and ask when and where they were playing.

It turned out they were playing that night in Concord. There was not enough time for us to make it home. And as it was, we had to drive back south a half hour to drop Darrell off at his car. But we managed to go see a performance for the first time in a long while!

Bill and Patricia were kind enough to have us over for dinner, and then we all went off to the show together. I was not sure what Tyson would think of the Capitol Step's humor. Luckily, they did not disappoint. We had a great time. I don't think I have seen Tyson laugh that hard in a long while.

Saturday we signed up for the AMC Doublehead trip. The big prompt to going was Tyson's new skis that showed up friday. Obviously they needed to be christened on a back country trail.

Bill choose an ungodly hour of the morning to meet, so we were out of the house before 5AM. The advantage of the earlier start was that we could ski the trail more than once.

The Doublehead trail is another CCC ski trail like a bunch in the Whites. It is a bit narrower and has long stretches with double fall lines. I think I'll have to put it down as not my favorite. The surface conditions did not improve the impression as all the powder from the previous weekend had been compacted into a solid surface.

However, the weather was gorgeous. The views from the top were nice. And the bottom of the trail was wide enough to be pleasant and softened in the afternoon sun.

We hiked up once all the way to the top and then skied back down to the start of the stream crossings. Tyson looked great on his new skis and bindings. I was still feeling quite incompetent until near the end.

Once there we were supposed to regroup and decided if people wanted to ski back up for another run. However, one of the guys whom I did not know had skied on ahead without waiting. And the other two guys who weren't regulars decided they were done for they day. Bill, as part of his trip leader duities, escorted them out.

This left Darrell, Tyson, Bill's pack, and myself. Tyson, conservatively, decided to keep the packs company while Darrell and I skied back up for another run. This run went a bit better since it was just the good part of the trail and I had limbered up some.

Then we parked ourselves at the packs to wait for Bill. It was pleasant lounging in the sun. Various people passed us and stopped for a chat. After not too long, Bill appeared around the bend in the trail.

Bill swaped boots and skis with Tyson to try the shiny new gear. Tyson stayed down and took photos while the other three of us headed up for another lap. I would say this lap went about the same as the second one. Not having a pack also makes skiing easier.

Back down at the packs, we swaped skis again. I was now on Tyson's, Bill on mine, and Tyson on Bill's (which are actually Ivan's). Tyson said I looked good skiing his skis. I did manage turning, but I wasn't having any success controlling my speed. There was one time in particular where I had to ditch off the trail to slow down. The best spot was a gap between trees two hands width wider than my pack. I had enough control to aim for that gap, but yet could not slow myself down on the trail. It was kind of frustrating.

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Discussing in the car on the way back, and again today, I think there are some issues that more classes could definitely help with. There is the obvious problem of not enough weight on the back foot. Bill pointed out that with modern shaped skis, I should be using their natural turning action when you put them on age. Then today we were discussing x-c turning technique. There you unweight your skis to turn them, whereas I remembered Tyson and Paul describing an exercise from their telemark class where you were specifically extending (applying pressure) in the turn, and contracting (unweighting) in between turns. So I'm wondering if a bunch of my issues are with the transition from straight to shaped skis, rather than from alpine to telemark stance which is what is usually taught.

For those of you anxiously awaiting the photos from my last adventure. Here they are.

20100103-GreeleyOsceola

There are two ways to ski up to Greeley Ponds. I had been up one way, but not the other. For various reasons it ended up that the AMC trip I'll be leading at the end of the month is planned to go the other way. So today's trip was to scout it out.

The continuous light snowing for the past few days ment there was delightful powder. There was another group who showed up just ahead of us, so I knew I was at least starting in the right spot. There is a map posted at the bottom and it showed two trails: one a blue trail which joined up with the hiking trail, and another a black trail which stayed apart until the saddle. I figured we would take the blue trail since I was planning on an intermediate trip. Unfortunately the other group took the black trail so they didn't break trail for us on the way up.

The blue trail was easy and not very notable except for the beauty of being outside in the snow, and the amusement of not being able to see one's skis when breaking trail. There were a couple of open stream crossings which required some bushwhacking to get around.

Then we hit the hiking trail. It had been beaten down by snowshoers so the going was easy even though it was a constant up hill. Neither Tyson nor I had any issues with it, but it seemed to require a bit more hill climbing technique than I was sure an intermediate skier had, and it was narrow enough that herringboning would be hard. Also I wasn't sure about the down hill ski on it. So I was wondering what the black trail looked like.

At the saddle we met back up with the other trail and the other skiers tracks and also a side hiking trail up to East Osceola peak. There was a sign giving distances, and it said we had been 1.3 miles. I found that a little odd since the description I had copied from the previous year said 7 miles total. We skied the short way down the hill to the first pond. The ski trail went straight across the mostly frozen over pond. I say mostly because we could see where the other skiers had sunk in slush.

Once on the other side, I was back on familiar terrain, however I insisted we press on to check the total distance. At the second pond we ran into the other folks again. They were busy scrapping skis and weren't inclined to cross the second pond. We struck out across the pond in a manoeuvre that felt more like being swept down the pond by the wind than skiing. There was so little purchase on the ice that I ended up with my skis sideways to my motion a number of times. At the other end we checked the gps — halfway distance of 2.25 miles. That definitely doesn't add up to 7. I am guessing the trip description from last year was copied from the year before that when it came up the oposite trail. And somehow the distance never got updated. Oops.

Well we headed back up the hill. Lunch was back at the first pond. We figured we would take the black trail back down. We pulled out my map and it actually rated it as blue and didn't show the way we had come up at all. However, if we just went down, we would be at the car in no time at all. Instead we decided to take a gander at the hiking trail up to East Osceola.

This was definitely a hiking trail. Within about 6 yards we decided to put the skins on. The first while was easy going with the skins on. There was snow in the air, so we never got propper views, but we got hints of the valley below and the oposing mountains. If the whole trail had been like the first part, we probably could have made good progress. But the map showed the middle section as crossing lots of contour lines. It was quite evident when we hit that section. The going got hard. We started slidding back a bit. And we started looking back down the trail wondering if we really were going to ski back down it.

We eventually got halted by the trail. I was not able to climb any farther. Tyson suggested booting it to get up to the ridge, a worthy destination. That got us about 2 inches higher. Obviously traction devices (crampons) were needed here. It also happened to be just about 3pm, my turn around time. We made it up to 3350' starting from 2200' at the saddle and 1850' at the parking lot.

The first bit back down, we just slid on our boots. Skiing looked like an invitation to death. Then we skied out the rest of the way with our skins still on. The hiking trail was narrow enough that there was not much way to turn. So we were relying on the friction of the skins and a foot or more of powder.

By the time we got back down to the saddle it was dusk. We deskinned, filled up on hot chocolate, and pointed our skis down the so called black trail. Now it was fortuitous that the other group had taken that route because their track gave us an obvious path in the declining light. Compared to what we had just skied, it seemed like a green trail. I tried to pay attention to note what sort of skill level trip participants would need to ski it vs the route we had taken up in the morning, but really, I was just headed home in the dark on an easy glide.

We got to the car a bit past 5pm. So the issue with it getting dark was not my estimate of how long it would take us, but rather the fact that I had thought the sun was setting around 5pm. oops.

Photos. There is a really awesome photo I took of Jen.

Today was awesome. I really need to take my cross country skis and do crazy stuff more often.

As usual the day started with a march up the mountain. The fact that I was on light weight gear made it into not nearly as much of a trudge. As it was, though, there were 4 AT skiers in the group who well outpaced us on the way up. (Something about at least one of them bicycling the Ididarod (sp?) in winter.)

It snowed the whole way up. But surprisingly we got some nice views of the mountain. I once again misjudged my heat production capacity vs the weather. So I was in a sweaty wet t-shirt by the top. I ended up taking that off before heading down. The AT skiers got cold and so headed down before us.

On the way down, I did a brief trial to see if my telemark technique had improved enough to be usable on my cross country skis. One visit to the bushes later and I decided not. So I did my old standby — a mix of parallel, wedges, and anything goes. Ye ha!

The trail was in gorgeous condition. Sure there were tracks, but it was a nice fluffy snow cover. Actually in a few places too nice because it made it hard to lift my skis up to turn them.

Tyson, meanwhile, was skiing on my new telemark skis and having a riot. His excuse for borrowing them was that they are better for his knee — probably true. But now he's decided that they are just way more fun than his. It sounds like it might be a while until I get them back.

Amazingly, we were down and packed up by 12:30. The brisk pace on the way up and then lovely conditions on the way down made us fast. Normally this would have been an excuse to head back up again for a second lap. But the wind was picking up and some folks had commitments and others no energy left. Guess it will have to wait for another day.

Photos will be posted once we get home.

I won't say that I was ahead of schedule for christmas this year. But I will say that getting the flu a week and a half before christmas ended all possibility of a heroic mad dash to success. Among the unfortunate victims were my christmas card and presents for anyone remote. I am a little disappointed at the cards, so I might still do a new years card if I find time.

The presents I did manage to make were four patterns of custom fabric for Tyson's Mom. This was my first use of spoonflower. The light colors came out a bit lighter than I'd hoped, but the patterns still looked nice.

The other present was a fleece robe for changing after kayaking for Tyson. I probably should have gone and bought a standard robe pattern. But I was feeling lazy and so just came up with my own. Luckily robes are simple because I started christmas eve morning and was able to finish by the evening. Unfortunately, it was late enough by the time I was done that all the grocery stores had closed. Our supply of mac'n cheese, canned soups, and pretty much everything else easy to cook had run out.

Come christmas day, we were still wrapping presents. Since we were sick, we just did a quick stop by the family gathering to exchange presents and get our doggie bag from the feast. It sounds like our presents were well received, so that's good. And then I spent the rest of the day working on a fleece robe for myself. It looks like I'll have some fleece to spare. Any ideas what to do with windblock fleece?

Despite being sick, I went ahead with my solstice party saturday. Actually Tyson did most of the prep work. He even came up with a proper picnic table. Tyson was right that the huge pile of pine tailings didn't make a ginormous fire, but rather a nicely sized one. It was an absolutely lovely evening for a bonfire. The only downside of the party was that of the people who had RSVP'd yes, all the families canceled on account of tired kids, and some of the adults on similar excuse. And most of the rest of the adults canceled in fear of the snow storm that wasn't due until midnight. The neighbors on our side of the runway showed up, and they were a hoot. I might have to have more bonfires just for them. And then two folks from work.

Not much of an update, mostly because I've been out sick for the last few days. Curling up under piles of warm blankets on the couch doesn't tend to lead to thrilling adventure stories.