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!