Jim Bauman
New member
Accumulate it did. Not gobs and gobs of snow, but well over 6" new, slithery, sifty, stuff at Smuggs that acted a lot like powder but did have a crust underneath from Tuesday's rain. It was letting up about 3:30 and some blue sky was even sneaking out in the twilight hours. <BR> <BR>Amazing day full of adventure. For starters, it took 2 hours to get to Smuggs from Burlington. I'll spare the details, but it can be summed up in pretty much one word: Essex. Next time I'll try Rt. 104 from I-81. <BR> <BR>Our Lady of Perpetual Windhold was present, leaving the M1 out of commission. Sterling and M2 made up for it, though even the light mid-week traffic had sliced up the freshies pretty well by 11:00 a.m. The woods on the upper elevations at Smuggs are prime. Still a little less base then mid-winter, but the rain has made a nice bonding layer to help avoid a lot of nasty nubbins. Poached a couple connector trails for freshies in the first four or five runs, and then set out in search of more adventure, taking a route pointed out by Mr. Duffy last season. Some serious 20 minutes of thrashing about in the woods later, I was quite psyched to get an honest to goodness ski run that was majority unofficial woods. <BR> <BR>Spurred by this success, I gave my new strap-on, faux mohair climbing skins a test, put on the bulky Trekkers, and started up Shuttle towards the top of Madonna after another Sterling ride and woods descent. The first steep pitch I encounted held hip dip, blown in, wind-consolidated snow. That combined with the pitch rendered the skins ineffective. Much thrashing and cursing later, I was _glad_ to find wind-exposed scratchy snow I could kick step up rather than vainly swim up. <BR> <BR>After my impression of a salmon swimming back to spawning grounds was complete, I re-donned the skins and made a "charge" for the summit, losing my water bottle in process. The skins work quite well when the pitch is mild, but start to fail when you use a lot of sidehill to reduce the angle. Tough to get the straps tight enough to keep them from squirming out from under the ski. I may have to graduate to glue-ons before too long. <BR> <BR>Didn't see a soul until the buzz of a snowmobile broke the placid scene and I thought my jaunt had ended. Surely it was some employee of Smuggs who would ask me to turn around. It was about 2:15. I'm sure he saw me, but it was likely a snowmaking chap who had little concern for my adventure. The wind up high was light, until you hit the last pitch to the summit. There it instantly stepped up to a steady 20 mph, as a guesstimate. Seems to me they've run the M1 in heavier winds. <BR> <BR>After summitting Madonna and de-skinning, I scoped out a closed Upper FIS. Looked very slabby, exposed as it is to the fierce winds up there, so I opted for Upper Chilcoot. Magical esses trailed behind my in a flurry of bobbing turns on skier's right. I savored the rest of my run, pausing often to admire the sublime pleasure of at least a portion of a ski area all to myself. <BR> <BR>At the top of Doc Dempsey's, though, I ran into a party of three who had hiked up from the top of M2. Dempsey's might have been a better choice than what I did, but the sheer amount of wood and rock poking through made me back off. I also inspected Robin's Run, but again, it looked wind exposed, and a boarder had already found it. The other party took Liftline and I chose the run skier's right of Liftline, getting pristine freshies between some slabby snow, ice flows, and a few boulders. Drifts could be linked, and a perfect launch of a mini-boulder into a puff of white magic completed the sensory perfection of the moment. <BR> <BR>Down at the bottom at 3:15, I indulged in one more Sterling ride, and opted for more adventure, this time down to Rt. 108. (Another Mapadu-provided route.) High speed was needed to keep momentum up enough to avoid stalling in the heavy, often mid-thigh deep fluff. This particular line isn't quite wide enough for too many turns, and so like the Master Thespian character John Lovitz used to play on SNL, "I flailed." No matter. The last run had been a sweet success. Now time to satisfy that peculiar type of hungry a full day of adventure on skis or on hiking trails can provide. <BR> <BR>Still snowing lightly all the way back to Burlington. Saturday looks like rain is likely for So. Vt., but the north could escape with only some changeover to sleet, according to the "Eye on the Sky" from VPR.