Mark Renson
New member
After work, I navigated through the Big Dig, thru The Pru, rocketed out of the Allston/Brighton toll booth and got lucky at the Westborough toll when I somehow got a fast moving lane. <BR> At the crest of the hill off of Route 140 at about 6:30PM, I turned into the lot at the bottom of the closed Mt Wachusett Road and found Dana's and Jonathon's cars. Snowpack was surprisingly generous. I grimaced at the thought of hiking up the road to the slopes when it dawned on me that there was enough snow to skin up the road. Dana's and Jonathon's tracks verified that. <BR> After a while, I shut my headlamp off in order to let my eyes "acclimitize" to the darkness so that I could be better prepared for the descent. My heart warmed as all of the good memories of skiing raced through my veins. I was back ! <BR> At the intersection of Conifer, I looked uphill and was pretty certain that I saw beams of light. Sure enough, it was Dana and Jonathon. Dana took off and Jonathon stayed with me for a run. So we skinned up in the darkness and I had some difficult moments in some serious ice crust - needed harscheins (or whatever those ski crampons are called). <BR> Stars and the glow of the Fitchbuhg/Leomnstah/Gahdnah metropolis provided some illumination and a warm breeze kept me cheery. <BR> Once at the top, we took off our skins (Jonathon can do it without stepping out of his skis) and pushed off with our headlamps providing the guiding light. The nasty cat tracks made for some awkward defensive skiing and I struggled. About 1/3 of the way down, Jonathon announced that there was some good broken up snow run over by the groomers up ahead that was nearly like corduroy - oh please, please-please-please, bring on some groomed and I'll never whine about brutal grooming again, I thought. <BR>After negotiating this stretch, Jonathon took me to a jug handle which he said avoided the cat tracked frozen sludge. Sure enough, we got candy - untracked wet heavy snow that we made tracks in. Yes!, it's happening all over again (not quite ready to trumpet "These are the best of times", but it was nice) under the dark headlamp-lit skies in the land beyond the I-495 Frontier ! Okay, we can put the groomer back in the garage, now. <BR> Another pitch was had down some brutal death crust. At the bottom where Mt Wachusett Road intersects, Jonathon called it quits and given the brutal crust, darkness and being alone, I deemed it a good idea to be safe. It was too easy to tweak a knee out there. So, down Mt Wachusett road, we schussed back to the pahking loht. <BR> Cool, I was reminded of why I am in love with skiing so much! .... Day 1.