Real snow in Northeast?!

I arrived back at school after my winter break knowing that it was supposed to rain that night, so I grabbed my friends and did the most appropriate thing: hiked up and skied the last of the powder turns before it rained. And you know what? It wasn’t all that bad!

Strawberry Park Hot Springs

It is a Steamboat tradition and a perfect day for it. Why the perfect day you ask?
After skiing this morning and the last two days, I am SORE. Hot springs are the best. Rotten egg smell, dips into the freezing cold river and all!

BONFIRE!

Do you know what is better than the homecoming bonfire at Dartmouth? A bigger bonfire in the middle of the winter, in the middle of a snowstorm in Clark, CO. Do you know what just adds to the awesomeness? Skiing the most epic ski run through new growth right out the backyard, and skinning back home just after sunset at 6, making 4 pizzas for 4 people, lighting a bonfire and sitting in the snow tired, full and with a perma grin. Oh yeah, and we had some ski mountaineering in there. If only the old wives’ tale of expressions getting stuck on your face were true, because I would love for that expression to be stuck on mine.

A Big Conundrum

Wow, I thought as I puttered along on my 1980’s model snowmachine. How does anyone like this? 

Snowmobiling is really loud, cold, and hurts my back. Thank god I’m not a snowmobiler. Yes, I was thinking this while sitting on a snowmobile. I was accessing backcountry skiing, and I was on a snowmobile that was worth less than my left ski boot, but I was snowmobiling nonetheless.

We were exploring the Routt National Forest from Clark Colorado,  trying to find the best skinning to vertical ratio for a snowmobile shuttle. We snowmobiled here and there, skinned to ridges, scoped out the terrain and skied untracked run after run, but it wasn’t ‘it’. At the end of the day, we saw it, a beautiful tree run that looked like it went for miles. We scoped it out for later, noted where it was on the topo map and returned to the cabin to shoot some skeet as the sun went down.

Skiing, route finding and skeet shooting in the same day? I guess I can be a contentious sledneck in order to do all that.

Walton Peak P2

Last night was another three inch day on top of yesterday’s ‘three inches’, so we decided to skin up to Walton Peak - old reliable - again. The second that we pulled into the parking lot, I knew we were in for a day of it. The snow on the trail was up to my waist standing there, I kid you not. So light that there was no point in trying to pull your feet above it to skin, we broke trail by plowing through the lightest snow I have ever seen in my life. And there was a lot of it. So much in fact that it took us two hours to skin a mile and a half and we were swapping the lead almost every 5 steps near the top.

The descent was so worth it. The method was to point straight, close your eyes, and hold your breath. When you did need to breathe, you stopped, but since your eyes were closed and your facial area was now completely full of snow, you couldn’t really tell if you were still moving. The snow billowing around our heads was so intense that every run we needed to pull the snow out of our coats. We stayed out and took laps until we thought that we would freeze if we stayed out any longer, then we went down.

On the way out we passed ten people on their way up. They asked if we broke the trail. Yup, we replied, and we take a trail tariff. One of the girls looked at us and replied umm, I have pretzels. Pretzels? I was ready to eat a whole cow by the time we got to the car.

The Toilet Bowl

After our epic day at Walton Peak, I was ready for some sunshine, and it came. So I planned on hitting one of my favorite spots - the Toilet Bowl. I thought I remembered where it was, and if anyone knows me, they would laugh at the fact that anyone let me lead the charge. After breaking trail at an unnecessarily steep angle, we dropped down into the Toilet Bowl.

The freestyle team uses the toilet bowl in early season for jump training. They build a giant backflip kicker, and even in mid season it is still there in full force. After a few runs of turns, we hit the jump. There were great thrills and spills, and we only left when my skins stopped sticking.

Day Off Skinning

It snowed three inches. Three inches? Well, I thought when I woke up, I guess I’ll go skiing anyways. I’m glad I did, because three inches reported in Steamboat is apparently many many more inches on the mountain. Yep, that’s Steamboat: the only ski area in the world that reports less snow than there actually is.

Janet’s Cabin Epic

I feel like the luckiest person. I accidentally picked a full moon weekend for a group trip to Janet’s Cabin, a 10th Mountain Division Hut near Copper Mountain accessible via a 5 mile skin trail. The tree skiing was amazing, the full moon meadow hopping was ethereal, and the food was as good tasting as food should taste after a long day skiing.

The Whole Crew

It really is amazing how I tend to forget the wonderful feeling of falling asleep exhausted from outside activity after a term at school, but every time I rediscover it, I fall in love with the outdoors all over again. We had 3 days of incredibly fun skinning and skiing, and the mountain views in the morning were incredible!

Impossible to not smile

Did I mention how pretty CO is?

Skiing as the sun set

Is a caption necessary?

Walton Peak

Every plan needs to have a fall back. For some it is what to do on a rainy day, or if you only have x amount of time, or if your friends bail on plan A. This type of fallback doesn't really happen when your hometown is Steamboat Springs. Regardless of whether it has snowed during the last 2 weeks in Steamboat, I have choices. I can ski at the ski area. If I don’t want to be social, I can ski at our ranch in Clark, CO. If I want a shorter drive, I can just skin and ski on Rabbit Ears Pass.

On this particular day, I wanted to sleep in, not drive very far, get some exercise and ski powder with friends who had just arrived last night. Therefore we settled for Walton Peak. And by settle, I mean to say that it was a damn good time, filled with friends and fun.

Winter Biking

What do we do in NH when there isn’t enough snow to ski? We mountain bike, of course! One goal for the winter: to master the art of keeping feet warm while biking in subzero temps!

Wolverine Guardian Lorin Paley

At the end of this summer, I had the amazing experience of showing my second home, Hanover, NH to Wolverine as part of their Guardian Project. I was really excited to show them my favorite trails and hangouts near school, but I needed to think about the ‘guardian’ part of myself. According to the Wolverine Guardian site, guardians are shepherds and stewards, creating, maintaining, repairing, educating, and guiding so that others can continue to explore and enjoy.

I have never considered what I do as guardianing, but just trying to get more people outdoors having fun. My feelings toward bringing new people into the outdoors is that if we cut a 2’ wide trail through the forest and get people on it, those people will want to protect the scenery surrounding the trail.

And the best part? Enjoying the outdoors is a damn fun time.

Check out the amazing video that they made.