EAST COAST ROLL CALL #8 14/15 A NEW HOPE

[Fenris]

Last Weekend on Katahdin:




more later

[the Cock]

Nighttime shot is $$

[robrox]

Saturday 7FEB2015, western Whites, geared up and leaving the car at 8:30AM got us into a snowy zone.

After an hour and 15, or so, I spotted a snow/ice/water shot

We continued up and took an exploratory skin line which mostly worked well, but involved a few stubby spruce thickets. This is from low on the new skin line

This is at transition (those poles are at max extension) Noticed batt was low in the cam.


Wish I had fatter skis #boggeddowntoooften
Wish the cold hadn't sapped my camera battery because Zeke flew the Gnarl A drop in fine style.

[robrox]

Nighttime shot is $$

seconded!

[Gepeto]

^^-- looks like snowflakes; today was just ridiculous

Bolton Valley with 7" to start the day and refills throughout.
Made an early lift buddy that raised 5 children on the mountain and was delighted to share every inch of his forest.

He bade farewell with his name and address so that I had a place to stay next time I'm passin through.

What a day :~>

dendrite sightings aplenty - consistency of the like rarely seen on the EC.
(not mobile friendly)



Pico to close out the week if anyone is in the mood... just pm.

PS: vibes to all looking from the outside

[VTColdSmoke]

Its really not that good in VT right now... very hard to turn w/o getting snow in your face/mouth/nose/lungs... better leave it to the pros jk

get sum folks!

[rdennhs]

Its really not that good in VT right now... very hard to turn w/o getting snow in your face/mouth/nose/lungs... better leave it to the pros jk

get sum folks!

happy birthday! such a sick song

[rdennhs]

Its really not that good in VT right now... very hard to turn w/o getting snow in your face/mouth/nose/lungs... better leave it to the pros jk

get sum folks!

happy birthday! such a sick song

[Vt-Freeheel]

BOOM, Nothing says POW like a good faceshot!

8.1` still air and 2" of new blower bob, should be a fantastic day!

So good today, still feel like I'm on a magic carpet.

[buttahflake]

just got to the shop, beautiful day in Ludlow.
14 degrees, no wind and snowing.
ill be at Kmart around 12:30, anyone else?

[VTColdSmoke]

happy birthday! such a sick song

Not my bday, my buddys who we stumbled upon at the bottom of our line, POW was all he wanted for his bday so needless to sa he got first tracks! Love that song, was listening to it on the way to the mtn w/ my little bro. Set the tone for the day

[t-the-east]

just got to the shop, beautiful day in Ludlow.
14 degrees, no wind and snowing.
ill be at Kmart around 12:30, anyone else?

You work at that shop in that little strip mall thing? I bought my dump truck at Benson's. Turned out to be a total hunk of shit. Would never go there again...

[buttahflake]

You work at that shop in that little strip mall thing? I bought my dump truck at Benson's. Turned out to be a total hunk of shit. Would never go there again...

nope, and i could give a fuck about yer shitty dump truck
take a lap

[t-the-east]

Wow. What a douche.

[buttahflake]

Wow. What a douche.

stoke!

[t-the-east]

[Bottleman]

Had just a stupendous day exploring some new spots. Much fun was had!!!

[Mr. Multiglisse]

^ Love the happy faces, Bottleman. Took some laps in the low-angle hardwoods of the Hinterlands yesterday. Conditions are very nice and the snow is fast. Happy faces all 'round. More pics in the The Ontario Thread:

[Jonathan S.]

TR: Western Mass. Wacky Ski Mountaineering, February 2-7

Western Mass. backcountry skiing conditions can be split up in four fairly distinct categories:

1. None.
2. Skiable (at least by our standards).
3. Good (by anyone's standards).
4. So good that you start looking around for lines so wacky to ski that for the next four years or so you'll be looking at them thinking "I skied ... that?!?"

Category 1 isn’t disastrous, since even when we don’t have lots of good snow out here, we still do have lots of good highways.
Category 2 kicked in early this season on November 26, at least on and off.
Category 3 started up sporadically in late December.

Category 4's Day 1 for me was on February 2, when after skiing some steep glades, I thought the snow was so deep and supportable that I checked out a downhill/freeride/whatever mountain bike trail that I’d been almost scared to walk down in the summer (even without having to carry my bike) ...
... sorry, no pictures of that wackiness, but here’s a certain little gal earlier that day tromping through the neighborhood snow sans skis for some odd reason, although that would turn out to be good practice for Daddy later in the week:






Day 2: Here’s the kind of picture that the SAR team analyzes from the phone on your corpse in an attempt to piece together the timeline that led to your demise:





(For the record, it was taken twelve minutes before sunset, almost at the top of ~1,700' vertical of powerline ski mountaineering wackiness, with more tame terrain for the balance of the ~2,400' descent, and I got hit by only one of the two slab avalanches I set off, fortunately in a place where I had enough space and terrain to point ‘em straight and ski off to the side, instead of being carried into numerous hazards including but not limited to rocks, cliffs, ice bulges, assorted shrubbery, towers, high-voltage line, and guy wires.)



Day 3: Falling here would be bad form as your corpse would inconsiderately interrupt traffic flow on one of the state’s busiest East-West highways:






Day 4: I skipped out on the ski mountaineering wackiness and instead just went backcountry skiing, over 8,300' vertical of almost entirely untracked powder.

When you have a skintrack this deep down low where you usually you have only a crusty angry inch, you know the skiing is going to be deep up high (and indeed it was, with crotch shots on all the steep turns across the fall line):






Day 5: Conveniently located only eight minutes from where I had to pick up our daughter that afternoon, this non-aerial tramway was quite the attraction back in the day:





The tramway sustained extensive damage in the Great Hurricane of 1938 (which was also a part of family lore, as my grandfather lost several men at a job site, and the never-ending guilt he felt over that might have contributed to the ulcer that killed him before I was born).
Eventually the remains were disposed of in a controlled burn in the 1960s.
However, part of the hotel it served has been preserved for a very nice summit visitor center, but unfortunately the park ranger presence up there and also at some administrative buildings at the base of the line prevents any clearing.
Fortunately, the entrance from skier’s left stays relatively clear naturally, and then after this open middle section starts to close in:





.... the exit on skier’s right stays relatively clear naturally.

Most importantly, because of the way the major highways nearby wrap around, this line is visible from many different locations, so I’m eagerly anticipating looking up at this for years to follow and thinking, “wow, wouldn’t it be great if that were ever skiable ... or, wait, right, it was!”


Day 6: A busy agenda, with local synagogue special Shabbat (Sabbath) service in the morning, niece’s birthday party in the afternoon, followed by town winter festival and fireworks after that.

Hmm, how to fit in a wacky ski mountaineering adventure, with birthday party at the Holyoke Children’s Museum ... why, that’s only ten minutes away from this place where we first went hiking in November 2008:





At the time I wrote that, “This would be the most amazing couloir ski descent -- with about, oh, say, 20 feet of snow.”

Flash forward to February 2011 combined with, well, not 20 feet of snow, but quite a lot:






I skinned up the south rib of the ridgeline to find far less snow this time, although fortunately I was also far better prepared this time:





(In case you’re wondering, the blue is not water ice but instead graffiti, and the steel crampon is indeed attached a ski boot, but the white Dynafit TLT5 when covered with snow is kind of stealthy.)


After carefully downclimbing the chimney on skier’s right, I was relieved to find an absurdly easy climb>ski transition because of all the deep supportive snow.
Unfortunately though, it really wasn’t deep enough to ski well, with shark teeth lurking everywhere below the deceptive smooth white canvas, both in the bottom half of the couloir and then below that on the open apron.

And here’s the crown line of the small slab avalanche I set off, fortunately managing to stay put as the debris trundled down about fifty feet or so:






Eventually though I emerged into the open glades – or at least what used to be open glades before last year’s microburst:






Finally I reached the road, and looked back up at the line I had just skied – or at least descended on skis ... if whatever it is up there can be called a “line” (with its rather minor contribution to my over 243,000' earned vertical so far this season):

[east or bust]

So much stoke! VTCS sweet video and pics everybody!

You all can attribute these killer conditions with the fact that I wasn't able to ski this weekend. At least I got mine on Thursday.

[FussyDutchman]

So much stoke! VTCS sweet video and pics everybody!

Based on where I just ran in to him, I'm quite certain there will be more to come later!

A couple of solo hikes this morning paid off with some incredibly deep turns. One shitty cell snap just before running in to VTCS a few hours ago well off the beaten path. Look forward to seeing today's edit.



MMP, sorry you had to bolt early but this is what I had in mind for you, next time!

Nice effort Jonathan, too bad it did't yield better turns and great stuff Mr. M, Bottle et. all.

[couloirman]

WUnderground just knocked their predicted snow totals for some of the resorts way down. Wonder whose getting the most out of this storm now and if I should take Monday or Tuesday off work?

The Thunderbolt was awesome yesterday. If the Berkshires get hammered again I would love to go back. At least knee-thigh deep blower in the trees, but the trail itself was seriously chunked up and variable but soft. Tons of hidden rocks/stumps in the trees made it tough to go fast without risking serious injury. First tracks on that thing would be awesome though

[Jonathan S.]

Nice effort Jonathan, too bad it did't yield better turns and great stuff Mr. M, Bottle et. all.

I didn’t take pictures of the over 14,000' vertical of untracked powder from those days.

[Jonathan S.]

First tracks on that thing [Thunderbolt] would be awesome though

I can definitely confirm that!

[steamboat1]

Mad props to 2ski2fish4ever for the tix's. Beers on me sir!

If that's John you're talking about yeah he's a good guy. Skied with him a few times & talked about fishing while riding the lifts. I know him by another tag name on a different site.