Dynafiddle

The mountain demands respect, and once in a while it decides to give you a gentle reminder.

Rippin’ some high angle GS turns in The Chute. Life is great…

Any place but here…

It was a long ride down…

What went wrong? Hard to say. Did I have a close enough look at my bindings to see if there was any snow in the toe piece before I started down? Maybe not. Should I have been charging as if I were on Dukes in the resort? Probably not. It’s a big mountain with real consequences and I think I got off easy…this time. I think a solid goal for next season is going to be the avoidance of any ‘next times’.

Big Jay Waylay

Jay Peak doesn’t look like this right now, but that’s okay. There’s still skiing left, and other great activities on the horizon like climbing and surfing.

On my last day up there Rob and I took Brett over to Big Jay, this time for some touring as well.

Go get some spring skiing!

Soundtrack:

New England Comeback

After enough false starts to test the faith of even the most die-hard New England snowsports enthusiasts, the Old Man finally pulled through and laid down enough of the white gold to make a second foray into the higher summits of the White Mountains. Rob and I first skied Lincoln’s Throat two years ago and have been waiting ever since for the conditions to warrant a return trip. The week of the 6th brought a respectable dosage of snow to the Whites on east winds strong enough to load up the west slopes, and thankfully wound down and warmed up in time for the snow pack to solidify for the weekend. After singing the praises of ‘The Throat’ to every virtually every backcountry skier I know, I rallied with Kelly and Shane for a 6 AM Boston departure and drove north in search of bluebird, big mountain lines. We were on the skin track by 9:30.

We found the slide to be bony in a few crux spots, but filled in enough for good skiing for most of the pitch, and the entire runout. During the approach, we observed isolated sections of pinwheels on the sunny aspects. We ruled out the variation to climber’s left of the main line since it was situated similarly. As we got higher on the mountain we kept out eyes open for signs of wind loading on the lee edges of the slide. May areas simply didn’t have enough snow to slide. Towards the top of the run, where the snowpack was deeper we encountered a few very small slabby regions and steered clear of them.

With perfect visibility, mild temps, no wind, and confidence in the snow we clicked in and commenced slaying…

Sea of Change

Don’t worry, Winter is still here. Due to some constraints and the rain up north last week, Catherine and I spent the day hiking instead, while I wait for Mt. Washington to recover.

Catherine showed me a side of Cape Cod I wasn’t familiar with, including some trails outside of the tourist trap, left especially empty since it’s so early in the season. It was a great day for a low-key adventure without the crowds.

First we checked out a trail down one of the prominent sand deposition features down the Cape. We saw plenty of wildlife and soaked up the views while skipping stones as we walked down the shore.

We wandered through scraggly trees and found our way back to the shore.

Next we went down the street to an entirely different locale, almost like something out of fiction.

I couldn’t believe there was so much variety packed into such a small area of the Cape. Hopefully our trip doesn’t usher in the warm weather yet though, I haven’t nearly gotten my fill of touring, and spring skiing has barely begun!

If anyone is interested in repeating this hike, I’ll update with some clues, but I don’t want to give it all away without a bit of googling.