Adirondack Backcountry Skiing - 1/4/14

After the most recent snowstorm, Ace and I had been itching to get out into the backcountry. We started the day at Gore, sat in a gondola full of a-holes, and met a -20 degree windchill at the top of Bear Mountain. After one run down Twister, we had had enough. The day that followed was way better.

We dropped a car at the Ski Bowl and headed to the Garnet Hill Lodge. Some friends of ours rented some tele equipment, and we were on our way. Originally, we were just going to take the Raymond Brook Ski Trail from Barton Mines road, but we decided to lengthen the trip. Here's a good description of the trails around the area. And here's a map (available at Garnet Hill, or in town at the Hudson River Trading Company):

We started out in high spirits on the Halfway Brook Trail towards William Blake Pond and The Vly:

After a few rolling hills, we reached William Blake Pond (remember, you can click on the pictures to enbiggen them):

There was a little bit of uphill to get to the next wetland:

We kept hiking for a while, a gradual up, then a gradual down towards the Vly:

Fishscaled, metal edged backcountry skis are the tool of choice. The tele setup does take a little getting used to, though, for the uninitiated (look out below!):

After climbing up from the Vly, crossing Barton Mines Road, and climbing up about 200 vertical feet from the start of the Raymond Brook Trail, we finally got some legitimate downhills in:

There was some history:

And a pretty nice downhill/traversing exit (with a couple of small uphills, too):

We started at Garnet Hill around 12:15 or so and came out at the Ski Bowl at 4:15. It took a little longer than anticipated (lots of photo breaks and a relaxed pace), but we still had a good amount of daylight to work with. This picture was taken as we left to begin the drive back up to Garnet Hill:

So, it was a pretty great day. Definitely a lot better than braving the crowds at the mountain. These are the kind of days that make me want to break out of the ski instructing grind and recapture winter weekends for myself - Good friends, great snow, empty trails, and freedom. Recipe for fun.

Big Tupper Video

I've made a couple of GoPro edits over the past few days that have a pitifully low view count. So I'm posting them to this here blog in hopes that more people will see them. I was pretty happy with this one - skiing Big Tupper last year when it wasn't open. If you have a touring setup and a defunct ski area within driving distance, there's no reason not to sprinkle a few of these days in throughout the ski season. They're always fun, it's a novel experience, and you don't have to deal with typical resort crowds. Usually it's just some friends and their dogs:

Whiteface Auto Road: 10/27/13

I didn't want to throw myself into the crazy Killington early season shitshow, and I wanted to extend my streak to four straight years of skiing on natural snow in October.

So I picked up a couple of girls who just wanted to go for a hike and I hit the Auto Road at Whiteface for a little low angle fun.

There wasn't a lot of snow at the toll house, but we started to see snow on the sides of the road pretty quickly. After about a mile or so, there was probably enough snow to ski on. I waited a little longer to put my skis on.

The snow started to look pretty damn good:

And it got better and deeper:

We went up to just above the Lake Placid turn before we turned around. The view was slightly better than the last time I was up here, but still not great (loving the snow, though):

Oh the way down, I was just psyched to be skiing. Ace took some pics for me:

So instead of a shitshow, I had a shit eating grin:

I rolled on down, just enjoying sliding on snow again. Mountain biking is fun, but nothing compares to the feeling of skiing:

I skied until the snow ran out, and I took off the skis and boots:

The walk down was a piece of cake. And the weather got nicer, too:

It was even sunny in spots on the drive home:

I can't say enough how much I prefer this kind of skiing to the craziness at Killington or Sunday River. It was peaceful, fun, and a really good time (great company, too). Could it have used a little more pitch? Sure. But at this point in the season, I'll take what I can get. Like I said, I'm just happy to be sliding on snow again.

A Tale of Two Backcountry Trips

I haven't posted in a while, because the weather has been way too nice to waste it sitting inside staring at a computer screen. I would like to talk about a pair of ski trips I took over the last few months, just to highlight the variety of trips that people talk about when they say that they are "skiing the backcountry".

First, there was a trip in Early March up in the ADKs that can only be described as a slog. Here're some pics:

I'll try to stay out of the location disclosure/nondisclosure kerfuffle that was raging earlier this year, and I'll just post this picture that tells everybody exactly where we were:

And since I'm not saying the location in writing, there's absolutely no chance someone will try to google this mountain, along with the term "backcountry skiing", and gain all of the important knowledge that I am about to impart. Haha, secrecy and jingoism win again over knowledge and information!

Anyway, the reason the trip was a slog was that it took forever just to get to the base of the slides. It was 5.8 miles of up, down and flat skiing with skins on our feet, and it was not ideal. In retrospect, I should have used an XCD ski with some fischscaled bases that would have enabled me to kick and glide over the flat parts, ski the downhill parts, and hold my own on the ups. But, since I didn't have that ski, I just had to use my NTN setup with skins.The way in, although annoying, was pretty beautiful:

We reached a lean-to about 5 miles in. A better plan would have had us staying here the previous night, but I'm not big on winter camping. Someone else seemed to have used the shelter recently, though, because there were signs of fire (and a relatively fresh skin track):

(Photo by Mitch)

After a hellish 0.75 more miles, we reached the slides, the low clouds started to lift, and we started to get some views:

(Photo by Mitch)

The slides are named as fingers on hand would be (pinky, middle, index, ring), and you use the "wrist" slide to access. I'm pretty sure we skied the index slide, but I still have to buy my updated ADK Slide Guide to know for sure. Here's a couple of pictures from the descent:

(Video Capture by Mitch)

The snow was good. Tiny little crust with about 5 or 6 inches of pow underneath. After skiing, it was just a quick 5.8 mile jaunt back to the car:

It was an awesome trip. We were the only people on the mountain (the only people for miles, actually), the conditions were wintry, and it was a ridiculously long day - probably about 12 miles of hiking when all was said and done, which was a pretty epic day as far as my winter adventures go.

It was about as far as you possibly could have gotten from two weekends ago at Mount Washington:

It seemed like everyone in the east coast skiing community was there that weekend, so you can read their reports. I'll just give you a couple of pictures to show how different it was from the earlier adventure:

We arrived on Saturday around 9:30 am, and we were forced to park a quarter mile down the street from Pinkham Notch. We walked in from there with full packs (I was carrying 24 beers for consumption that night at the shelters):

The hike in was fine, if crowded. Before we even walked a mile, we were able to put our skins on:

Up to Hojos, which was a mob scene. We met dogs (this one was named Steve):

And picked out some lines:

Then we hiked in to the ravine:

And went up:

Paused at the top for a second to check out the steepness:

(Instagram by Mitch)

Then we did some skiing:

Definitely a good day. We didn't want to leave the ravine:

(Beers came in handy)

We stayed in the shelters that night. The party was good, but the camping was kind of chilly - and I stupidly left my sleeping pad at the bottom because I didn't feel like I had room in my pack (what with all the beer). Sleeping bag on top of Lean-to floor was not the most comfortable arrangement.

Didn't stop us from getting up early the next morning to check out Hillman's Highway:

 

Hang out at the top of the climb:

And ski down the Highway:

After navigating the Sherburne trail, we hiked back out, and went to a bar for some well deserved hot food.

The point to all of this is that there's more that one way to ski backcountry. Whether you're skiing alone deep in the woods, skiing a well traveled BC "proving ground", or just skinning a closed ski area (Big Tupper Video coming soon - I promise), there are lots of ways to put that shiny new AT gear you bought to use. You can camp, or just do day trips. You can be by yourself, or with the entire skiing population of the east. Just go out and do it.

There will probably be one more skiing report this year - I'm thinking either Killington or Tuckerman again by way of the Auto Road. After that, we're on to summer. I've already had the mountain bike out a couple of times this year, and the trails are in pristine shape. Loving this time of year.