Old Things New Things 3/24/07

Super Gape

I asked, “Doogie, is that the flying monkey we were looking at from Greeley Ponds Slide?” as we were driving up Route 16 on our way to the telefest at Bretton Woods, which elicited this response; “just because I’m flat and defined doesn’t mean I’m a map.” I can’t think of a funnier way to have started MITOC Gaper Day 07!

When we arrived at the base lodge Chicks Rip Too, Doogie and I met up with Ernesto, Toma, Jose, Juan and Jane, who, to our delight, had already suited up in their gaper (retro) uniforms.

So you maybe asking yourself what has compelled me to write about skiing lift service and the answer is two fold; it was gaper day and I tried to telemark for the first time. The you might ask what is so important about gaper day? Well let me try to enlighten you by telling you what everyone was wearing:

Doogie – neon blue windbreaker style pants, a neon yellow long sleeve shirt, ‘Big Teal’ his teal windbreaker and the ugliest multi colored hat which is about foot tall.

Toma – jeans a green lumber jack shirt and red suspenders

Chicks Rip Too – hot red windbreaker and purple pants

Jose – jeans, an orange button up, a jacket tied around his waste and an orange wool hat that is vintage 1980.

Juan – a neon green jacket

Ernesto – was working for the group putting on the festival and therefore couldn’t where anything fun but when he came to ride with us he went shirtless.
eewwww
Jane – was not privy to our plans to gape (yeah it’s a verb; for real, I’m not kidding), but totally embodied the virtues and values of a gaper.

Me – wool knee high socks, corduroy knickers, a green sweater and a wool red and white hat that had emperor, yes emperor penguins dancing so beautifully that those chickens from “Happy Feet” came to my Dad’s hat for lessons!
I was the only one who also skied like a gaper (poorly)

(Sadly we took so much video that we don’t have picks of everyone)

So after we demo-ed our gear a few of us thought it would be a good idea to take advantage of the free lessons that the tele fest was providing. I showed up to the “crossover” lesson that was designed for alpine skiers trying to tele for the first time, having taken one run and fake-a-marking (making alpine turns on tele skis – this is like driving a triptronic car) the whole way down I was ready for some instruction. However, while getting in line with my group, I saw Toma, Jose, Jane and Doogie not taking lessons and in their beautiful gaper gear, at which point I decided lessons are for suckas and I was going to go have fun with the crew and possibly but probably not learn how to tele. I waited for my instructor and told her I was taking off with the group of gapers behind me (she must have thought I took the short bus to the tele fest). Jose, leading the way with a good 3” gap (this is the trademark gaper gap that can be seen on any Texan in Colorado wearing their goggles low and their hat high) dropped into the gaper tuck (butt up poles up head down) and the rest of us followed.

The tele hippies I was skiing with where nice enough to give me some advice and I was happy not to be in a lesson (illogical stigma). I was getting by, keeping up and even dropping rocks/bald grass sections of trail on the new gear as the whole crew made a ton of noise so that everyone else on the hill would notice our group.

Chicks Rip Too was the only one smart enough to take advantage of the free lessons and when they were done I had the false sense that I was making real tele turns and was stoked to show off. “Fake-a-marking!!” was the groups general response to my turns but more importantly the whole crew was together and we were ready to really put on a show.

The show began with another flying V (a move we've been working on since Greeley Pond) with our shirtless friend, Ernesto in the vanguard. A congo-line followed and the rest of the day was more of the same, just a little less organized.
So Bright!
At one point we had stopped to pickup new demo’s (I picked up the Rossingnol Sick Bird!!!! KAW-KAW) and I saw Doogie standing in the middle of a crowd playing gaper to a T. he was starring into space looking for the rest of us when I yelled “GAPER!” Doogie turned around and said “I’m so bright I can find me not you!” The hilarity is not over continue to read.
Ernesto turning after sending Little Tucks


I didn’t name Ernesto after a hurricane for nothing; he skies fast and he’s violent. Let’s start at the beginning;
Ernesto was working the demo tent and saw me, “get out of here you gaper” as he smacked me across the face trying to rip off my sweet hat. After fitting me for my first pair of teles ever, he thought he would push me over the front of them, just so I knew the feeling but did not succeed.

After I had gotten somewhat comfortable on the free heel sticks I started fake-a-marking switch (backwards) and this really opened me up for an all out attack from the hurricane, once again I ended up on my feet, ha!

Doogie on the other hand was not nearly as lucky because when Ernesto pairs up with his nemesis (me) nothing can stop him and Doogie ended up kissing his ski tips after a full on attack from the two of us!

I have written about the epic skiing that Tuckerman’s Ravine holds but I have neglected, up until this point, to mention that Bretton Woods is the home of ‘Little Tucks’. This run is a huge joke but because gaper day is a huge joke let’s talk about it. This cute little run has a cute little cliff band at the top and then nothing but to focus on the glory that can only be achieved on gaper day by a group of glory hounds, Jose, Ernesto and I decided to duck a rope and drop some rock! Ok they were a lot more like pebbles but with the crowd we had watching us these things may as well have been 50 footers! I dropped first and landed my second cliff on teles but decided that was good enough and didn’t bother to make tele turns. Ernesto came off next and made some nice turns on the way out and so did Jose. Jose seemed to be energized by this drop and spent the rest of the day hoping over any dirt patch, rock or tree he could find!
Jose is a bad name for such a good skier; I'll fix that - later

As the day went on and I began to feel more and more like I wouldn’t figure out how to actually make a tele turn, Jane and Chicks Rip Too decided to drop some knowledge on me about how to bend my knees which I feel was the key to making the few real tele turns that I did make. I’m not claiming to be able to make tele turns but I did feel what was right by the end and yes, to answer your question, I’m hooked!

Gaperisms

“Look” pointing
“ooooooooooo” pointing
“wow’ pointing
“How long have you been skiing?” (any answer is fine) “Well, I just started on Saturday and now I’m skiing blues!” pointing
“oo gosh I can’t see my goggle are all fogged up.” Wiping the goggles, on the wrong side and pointing
“wanna race?” pointing



pointing



(If you want to see more go to the MITOC site click on 'trip reports' and then click on the 'gaping at spring fling tele festival' link - funny stuff)

Sick Day 3/20/07

Monday night at Harry’s, the greatest bar in Boston, we were sitting at the rail, 6 wide, trying to play trivia as a team when I noticed that it was really coming down outside. I thought if Boston is getting this… the Gulf of Slides on Mt. Washington, must be getting pooped on! Chicks Rip Too may have seen through my flawed reasoning but had no qualms in taking my joke too far. “We’re skiing tomorrow!” I said, obviously being facetious when I looked over and saw a bobbing head that guaranteed that my work would hear that I had eaten some bad shell fish/pork and would not be able to make it into work on Tuesday.
Harry's

Tuesday came and CRT showed up at my house to hear the bad news. “The avy danger is still low but there is some ‘ankle biting crust’, sorry.” I revealed in a disgraced voice. While I was committed to the adventure, I couldn’t be sure CRT was ready to bag her day of school to go ski the “ankle biting crust” (the Mt. Washington park rangers write an avalanche/snow report and they think they are pretty funny). Lucky for me she was just as excited to leave Boston mid-week and spend the day outside no matter how bad the conditions were.

About an hour away from the trailhead we pulled over and I called into to work and found out that none of my bosses were going to show up either and Tuesday would have been a waste of their money if I had showed (see Mom, it’s cool!). After relieving myself of the awkward call I was nothing but stoked to get back to Mt. Washington, where Igor and I had skied about a month ago and had an epic day.

The cool part of the Pinkham Notch trailhead area, is that you can put your skins on inside and read an avy report like you were out west! The conditions looked safe but not promising for making the ascent on the slides themselves. We figured it would be more fun to do the 2 mile 2000 vft trek up to the base of the slides than go to another nearby mountain that may or may not have better conditions.


CRT had planned to make it back to Boston in time to drive from Medford to Brighton and get to class downtown by 6, so we brought a watch with us. This does not mean that we were rushed. The peak of Mt. Washington was socked in but everything else was blue bird and it was a beautiful day to be outside and outside of Boston. By the time we reached the base of the slide we were hungry and thought this would be a good time to take a break check the time and rig our skis to our packs so we could start the boot pack up the steeps.
Nice place for lunch

Well, we did eat but we didn’t check the time and we shouldn’t have put our skis on our packs because we still had about 100 yards of flats that we ended up posting through (non skier note – sorry no car analogies – this is when you are walking over a snow bank on the sidewalk and instead of staying on top your foot breaks through).

On the way up we could tell what Smokey the park ranger meant by “ankle biting crust” but we still had hope that the steeper aspects would be different, (ignorant maybe) and we would be able to get one descent of slide #1 in before CRT needed to get back to Bean Town.

“So here’s my plan, we’ll hike up to that vegetation and then we’ll make our decision?” I asked and without much of a response we continued up about another 50 ft when CRT stopped me. “Do you think it’s going to get any better, I mean look at this, the Bruins don’t play on ice as nice as this” (no she didn’t say that but she should have because it would have been hilarious!).
OK, fine, you got me, these aren't my pics; I can't find them! Damn Technology

While not happy to have to take our hands out of our gloves again so soon, (it was freezing) it is always exciting to peel skins and get ready to drop elevation. The ride down was very similar to the ride I had behind my house; the crusty crusty crusty but I had recently skied this sort of garbage and was ready for it. While it was a CCC trail it was constantly steep and wide enough to make some turns. There were plenty of trees to hop which was good; being that the only way to ski this “ankle biting crust” is to be in the air as much as possible.

This CCC trail, to the base of the Gulf of Slides, wins my favorite CCC trail award (this does not include any water falls or rockslides I have skied, fyi) and while the snow may have bit our ankles once or twice we left smiling and very late! Chicks Rip Too made it to her 6 o’clock some time around 7 with her car in Medford.

It was a Sick Tuesday!

Skiing is the best cure for a hangover 3/18/07

My St. Patty’s day was best summed up by my Mom as she was entertaining Chicks Rip Too and Doogie at our après ski in West Stockbridge, MA; “Josh called me yesterday and when I asked him what he was doing, he said that he was at a bar and plowed!” While I actually said it’s loud, what’s the difference? Doogie and I had celebrated the day by marching from Davis Sq to Boston starting at the Burren at 9 am, stopping at multiple bars along the way to grab a Guinness. While we had been semi responsible and left the Bean Town Pub around 10 pm the damage had been done and we were relying on Chicks Rip Too to drive us to Petersburg Pass so we could ski the new deep stuff!

After Chicks Rip Too figured out that I am horrible at giving directions and Doogie slept (pretended to sleep) the entire ride to New York we were at the base of the old ski area. I had skied this spot a few weeks ago and knew that it would make for a perfect place to take it easy and get over the fog St. Patrick had left me in.

While my vocabulary wasn’t fully functional, my skins were and the four of us (Chicks Rip Too brought her awesome dog, The Buffalo Killer, Killer for short) were able to turn “the hangover trip” into a great day.

We were able to make 3 laps and couldn’t stop laughing.

Doogie “Is that a steak knife?”
Me “yeah, I packed last night, it seemed like a good idea.”

Doogie “it’s St. Patrick’s DAY not NIGHT, that’s why we celebrated all day!”
CRT “It’s Christmas DAY too but you don’t open presents all day.”
Me “if you’re poor.” (this one may turn out to have been funnier in person?)

CRT “Hold on guys.” As she bends down to free her heels from her AT bindings after she had already skinned up at least 10 yards. (for the non skiers this is like driving with the emergency brake on but much harder)

This moment came a few minutes after Chicks Rip Too had told us a funny story about one of her friends who didn’t know how to use her gear. Once again I am not making fun of anyone because she told us that story in response to the fact that none of us could seem to remember how we should be using our gear.

Doogie “Goggles?”
Me “Check”
Doogie “Skins”
Me “Check”
Doogie “Hat”
Me “Check”
Doogie “Let’s Go!”
At the bottom of the run
Me “I’m still in walk mode” (non skier note – this is like driving on ice)

It’s great to be able to get a bunch of runs but you have to be ready stop and switch your gear from touring mode to skiing mode. While there were great turns that will be remembered I feel like we spent the majority of our time either at the bottom or top playing with our gear and Killer as he looked at us with a perplexed face, thinking, what are these silly humans doing and why do they keep stopping to do it?

The day was a perfect compliment to St. Patty’s Day and because we were out near my parents’ home we were able to meet up with them right next to the last stop on the Mass Pike and get a bite to eat, thanks Mom and Dad.

Stowe Does NOT have a superpipe 3/11/07

SUUZ

As I left the crew in Lincoln and headed to Burlington after an awesome day in the back country, I was on another level of excited! Not only had I just had an amazing day messing around in the woods on a frozen river but I was on my way to see Suuz!!!!!!! Yes, that is her real name and I am only using it here because her friends in Burlington have taken to calling her by her full given name which will not now or ever be mentioned again, by anyone (we hope, right Suuz?).

Suuz is amazing and too good for you so stop asking me to introduce you! but for all this praise you might assume that I see/communicate with Suuz more than once every year but I don’t and this was our yearly visit and it was, as usual, a great time.

The plan was to drink some free beer (Suuz is the voice of magic hat - The site is http://www.magichat.net/ You click on "Happenings" from the main area and then on "Blog" Suuz writes it) because it was free and then go to Stowe and ski some superpipe. Living in Breck last year I had an amazing pipe in my backyard and I was pretty excited to get a chance to take it easy and ride the chair and mess around in the park all day. Sad as it was to find out there was no pipe Suuz made it all worth it and I had fun skiing with Suuz.

I don’t believe in writing about skiing lift service but what I want you to remember is that her name is SUUZ, SUUZ do you get it? SUUZ!

60 emails + 6 guys + 1 speeding ticket = some level 1 fun! 3/10/07

Totally skiable “Photo: Patrick Allen”v

Gapers

Toma or Igor sent out an email at the beginning of the week and to entertain ourselves at work Doogie and I kept the thread going all week. The last email came in some time before 4am Saturday morning when I woke up to put my pack together and head over to Frank’s Steak House where Doogie was waiting for my with my rented crampons and axe (that’s right, we got technical!). As the sun came up and we got closer to Mt. Osceola and Greeley Ponds Slides the nicest state trooper walked into the middle of 93 and pointed at me. Having worked for the Boulder DA’s office for years seeing DUIs handed out like candy to small children out of the back of a molesters 1970 Chevy van, I assumed that the cute little guy was doing random sobriety tests. This illusion was fostered by my belief that 10-15 over isn’t worth being pulled over for especially when I didn’t see a police car on the side of the road clocking me(they used a PLANE, a PLANE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!). So as you have already figured I didn’t get the joy of passing a field sobriety test but received a speeding ticket faster than anyone has ever been processed before in the history of mankind (seriously, the cute little guy was back with my ticket faster than fat kid is out of a dodge ball game).

After the ticket Doogie and I searched Lincoln NH for the non-existent Dunkin Donuts that we were going to meet the rest of the crew at before we headed to the trailhead. Jerry-rigging my new toys (crampons and axe) onto my pack and seeing Igor, Toma, Ernesto and Huckleberry made me forget all about the ticket (lies, I complained all day) and I was once again wicked stoked!
My Pack

Never having used crampons or an ice axe before I was really hoping that there would turn out to be no need for the devious looking tools and as we skinned up/across the approach I still had hope that we would be able to do without. Huck and I tried as hard as we could to avoid the inevitable but that only got us 20 feet higher than the others. We had just skinned over one of the two frozen Greeley Ponds and bush whacked our way to the river/stream bed when we reached the steeps and needed to switch gear. As you may imagine with a frozen river bed, it was icy.
This ice is nothing “Photo: Patrick Allen”

We all slapped our skis on our packs and our crampons on our feet and that’s where I began to learn how much fun it is play sharp objects. Thanks to Igor, Toma and Ernesto who had experience with the technical gear I feel I became competent after some initial difficulties. The river bed was beautiful and steep with multiple ice flows protruding from the variable, at best, snow.
Initial difficulties

3/4ths of the way up we were faced with a gnarly looking ice fall that created a difficult climb up but the promise of a sick huck on the way down. While no one else believed that I would send the fall, I could tell Huck was interested in paying the postage to send it as well.
Send it!

“So do you think you’ll be able to stop after you drop that?” “Huck, you’re going to send it!” “No I don’t do that.” “You should do it, you’ll kill it!” “nah.”

We stopped for lunch and as conversations with these guys usually do we started talking about other trails we should kill bunnies on and what mythical creatures we saw in the rock slides on adjacent mountains (a flying monkey is always a good guess). Lunch ended and once again we decided to dig a pit that we would ignore mostly because the two guys, who had broken the trail we were following, came over a ridge as we were digging and told us that we were on the safest back country run in NH. The first man was reported to be 50 but looked more like dead and I was incredibly impressed that this corps had made it up to that point. Of course they were cool guys (bad people don’t go back country!) and they liked the novelty of a group of Boston back country skiers who used super high tech MIT computers (google earth, not nearly as high tech as the NH State Police, jerks) to find the trail.
Pits are fun “Photo: Patrick Allen”

As we watched these two take off we put the shovels away and decided to take their advice and started back up the river. We made it up to the ridge where we first saw them, and then we saw a bottleneck and decided that it was time to face the ice playground that was behind us.

This trip was very well documented and being that it is good practice to only go one at a time the way we all waited our turns was commendable (glory hounds) and made the run down that much more fun! None of the drops we took were anything to write home about I will write to you about them.

To start we dropped a cliff that was almost as cute as the trooper who had given me a ticket earlier that morning and Doogie proved that his tele bindings do release (I hear that can be a good thing?). Now don’t think I’m insulting Doogie here, all of us found time to caress the snow and whisper sweet nothings into its chunky ears (I know, I’m practicing for my B romance novel – which, I promise, will not have nearly as many parentheses!). As we made our way down finding ways to use every feature on the way, Huck greased a sick little ice fall, Igor connected a sweet combo of ice and rock drops, Ernesto skied through trees that bunnies couldn’t fit through, Doogie came to play and sent at least two meat packages while Toma, who learned to ski in his 20s, made us all respect Texans and his ability to shralp the ice.
All day

Now you may have connected the fact that I’ve named someone Huckleberry with the act of hucking. After the conversation we had on the way up I wasn’t going to push Huck to drop anything (I wanted all the glory for myself) but I had a feeling that he might be game for the waterfall (that looked much bigger in person) and he was. I had walked away from the fall as I thought everyone was down climbing and came back to Huck standing over the edge scoping his line! We both sent it after spending plenty of time on top licking the stamp and from then on neither of us stopped smiling. Huck hucking

“Photo: Patrick Allen”

Back at the cars I was lame and said goodbye so I could make it to Burlington before the sun went down while everyone recapped and watched video in Lincoln. Either way I had another awesome day with a great group!

Oh yeah, Igor did an Iron Cross!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ski in ski out 3/4/2007

Jorge, Clark and I upped the value of my parent’s house by copious, yes copious, amounts on Sunday. 271 View Drive, is no longer a cute home on the side of Lenox Mt. but a prime “ski in ski out” property. The three of us made the first ski descent (so we will forever believe) of Lenox Mt. MA. The trail, while clearly a CCC trail, also (solely) functions as power line that runs up to a burnt out fire tower about 600 vft above the house I grew up in. The unofficial trailhead begins at the base of my parents driveway.

The snow was a thick crust of punchy ice that made some of the most horrifying whoomphs I had ever heard but luckily Lenox Mt. rarely gets steeper than 30 degrees and is well anchored. While the snow didn’t look promising we finished the ascent and spent some time on the summit messing around on the fire tower and I did my best playing tour guide, pointing out the landmarks that run up and down the MA/NY border.

The first descent of the fire tower trail turned out to be a one hit wonder (Clark and I found a cliff band and send it!) and was enough to encourage us to head back to my house. We skied into my backyard and jumped in my car so we could try a local hot spot after my secret stash didn’t exactly pan out.

About an hour north, is Petersburg Pass, a closed ski area on the border of Williamstown, MA and Petersburg, NY and is where we would earn the rest of our turns. I had heard tales of this closed ski area and had done some research which made it even more exciting to finally put my boots back on and start skinning up the remains of PP’s main trail. The snow was still crusty but not nearly as gnarly (yes, that is a derivative of gnar!) as the snow behind my parents’ house and made for some decent turns.

I was glad that Jorge and Clark had decided to give up the great snow NH was getting and meet me in the Berkshires for a shot in the dark. The snow may not have been the best but we earned a first descent (I don’t want to hear about it if you’ve heard otherwise) and found what could make for an awesome day of up and downs (yo-yoing?) if we get there before summiting a Mt. an hour south.