02/14/2015 Happy Valentines Day!
We started out today with a pre-key-swap, which, with a little confusion at first, seemed to work well. Pete and Alan took seven others and skied south from Harriman Dam in falling snow and temperatures in the teens. Just minutes into the tour one skier broke a ski and had to drive to where the southbound group had taken his car, get another set of equipment, drive back and chase the remaining SB skiers. He had apparently been tempted by the powder route down under the powerlines (the trail switchbacks here because the fall line is very steep) but his otherwise-perfectly-acceptable-for-flat-Section-1 lightweight skis weren't up to the task and broke.
Marie and I took the remaining fifteen (counting us) and skied south also at first, from Harriman Station (not Dam) to the MA/VT border. Here the requisite pictures were taken (please send me links to any pictures you post so we can share them) and we did our traditional ski circle,
02/15/2015 Southern Week Long Freezathon, Day 2/Section 2. The 'life-threatening cold and wind chill due to frost bite and hypothermia' phrase in the weather alert caught several people's attention and the head count plummeted with the temps. A few of us met early for a very nice breakfast at Jezabel's. We were only 16 by the time we squeezed out of Folly Foods (a mix-up at ZAC left them closed for our meeting time), nine in the SB group and seven in the NB 'Fisher Express' (named after the sister/brother duo). We (Marie and I skied with the Fisher Express) had easy going on the old Hoosac Tunnel and Wilmington RR right of way ("Hoot, Toot and Whistle" or "Hold Tight and Worry") from Harriman Dam, except for some drift busting along the reservoir's edge. We had thought we might meet the SB group at Wilder Brook, 4 miles for us, six for them (they had a shorter drive again) but when they weren't there we moved on to the huge rock cut the railroad made in 1922 in hopes (quickly dashed) of being out of the wind. We had a quick lunch (nice oatmeal brownies, David) and skied on, studying porcupine tracks along the way. I was just getting "officially worried" about the SB group, since we were more than halfway and I had expected them to beat us to the halfway point, but then we met them. Seems they'd had some very tough drift busting along Rt 9, and more of the non-railroad bed terrain as well. They seemed ready to keep going as we met and un-swapped keys. We then enjoyed the long gentle downhill remote snowmobile tracks, and met Rich and Sheri at the bottom, by prior arrangement they were skiing south to meet us. This helped me get to the plus side of my target of ending with +/-10% of the people I started with. No one wanted to use the bail out car to skip the last few miles, so we plunged down (some more carefully than others) from Medburyville and froze as we crossed the open field along the river into the wind. It was bit more sheltered after the short road walk, and then we gained another trip member, a rambunctious black Lab who followed us (too closely most of the time) the rest of the way, up to his belly in snow. The 'terrace' around Searsburg Station was challenging as ever, the wind had taken the snow off right down to the ice. Then we took turns re-breaking the trail that the SBers had broken in the morning (they had the same experience in the drifts along the reservoir), the wind had filled it right back in for the most part. We had to leash the Lab (Marie got to ski-jour a little) to cross Rt 9,
02/16/2015 SWLT Day 3/Section 3 Just another life-threatening day on the Catamount Trail. We had a nice breakfast at Cup 'n Saucer, then met at Zoar Adventure Center ("this is the best meeting place so far") to sort out the pre-key-swap. The temperature was -6F, but at least it was supposed to get warmer. Everyone was prepared with extra layers, neck warmers, heat packs, etc. Both groups (seven SB, twelve NB) had to break out old blown in broken trail until we met about mid-day. At the back of the pack there was a nice knee deep tracked out soft trough.
My Dear Fellow Skiers, You have indeed escaped the terrible Bennington Influenza Epidemic of 2015. The Gluttony Extravaganza and Goodine B&B will be back in action for another tour in the future. My apologies to the tired, the hungry, the cold, and the party-loving Catamount Trail Skiers. Some dusty old poetry has been hanging around on Sam's site for a few years and it may be time for a touch-up. We all say a prayer for white stuff, 'Cause skiing on leaves can be tough, We're up to our pits, Or can I say tits, Snow Dancers, OK, that's enough. Low temperatures quickly get old, Treat mild days as if they were gold, If you stop to eat, You soon will beat feet, Nobody likes to ski cold. An old fashioned winter is here, Most watch their TV and drink beer, We're not into that, We slide skis and chat, And that's why we live around here!!!!!! Jim wanted to host the whole pack, He just never saw the attack, He went into town, Came home and laid down, A whole week he's flat on his back.
Thanks to Tim Marr, Section 3 trail chief for his efforts and experience. We found a bit of ice-storm damage up high, but (except for the deep snow pack putting us higher into the branches than usual) the trail was nice and clear.
Thanks to Keith and the Zoar Adventure Center for hosting us this morning. Chairs to change boots in, radiant heated floor, heat packs on sale, rest room, pretty cushy on a -6F morning!
Tuesday will be a tropical 15F! For Thursday Andrew says "If anyone in the group needs encouragement for Thu. let them know that the total distance is only 9.8 miles, or 7.2 miles if they bail out at N Brookwood Rd."
02/17/2015 SWLT Day 4/Section 4 - The Land of Unending Drifts. Today's key swap started off a bit rocky, but everyone got to ski and no one got left at a trail head or Seven-11 head. It might seem like I'm too detail-oriented getting things set up, but clearly not enough. We were fifteen NB skiers and six SB, today Rich gets the Most Mileage Award since he skied SB until the groups met (way south of the half-way point) and then turned and skied NB. The NB group's morning started at 10:45 (cold and cloudy and calm) with missing blazes where the CT leaves the snowmobile trail. The rest of the morning consisted of breaking trail and squabbling over who got to break trail. Our pace was pretty slow, even though the trail breakers were swapping off and basically doing intervals. Early on the SBers radioed to say they were out on the reservoir skiing since they were having too much trouble with the drifts in the woods. This required regular radio contact so that we didn't ski past each other and miss the key swap. We also had a broken pole, luckily we were carrying a spare. We met up at the snowmobile trail to the lake. Now the SBers got to ski our broken trail for the rest of their trip, and the NB'ers, it seems, had only done 2.0 miles by 12:30. Given the slow pace breaking trail and the fact that the drifts were getting deeper and harder, the NBers slowly leaked out on to the reservoir (what happened to all those people who wanted to break trail before lunch?). I declared that skiing the reservoir instead of the trail still 'counted' as skiing the Catamount Trail for today's end-to-end hopefuls. I did a bit of trail breaking in the woods on my own (I rarely get to the front of the pack) after everyone else was on the lake. I like breaking trail, and even though I was having to climb up over drifts that were about waist high, and that busted apart in big chunks the size of a large pizza, I thought "I could do this all day." Then I looked up the lake, saw how far it was to the end, and realized that that was exactly what would happen, so I answered my co-leader's plea to join the rest of the gang on the lake. I usually don't like skiing on lakes, you can see for hours where you are going and there is no challenge, but this day, being calm, was pretty nice.
02/18/2015 SWLT Rest Day - Brian skied part of Section 12S, Craig and Bill and Randy skied Section 1,
02/19/2015 SWLT Day 5/Section 5 - Two new End-to-Enders. Today, at Day Leader Andrew's advice, all nineteen of us skied together NB. The temperature stayed in the teens all day, the sun tried to peep out, and the snow showers left a few inches. The trail-breaking wasn't bad (I'm told), several inches of fluff on an old broken track. We could see the hard work of Trail Maintainers Sarah and George and Andrew cleaning up from last month's wet snow damage. More stuff had come down, enough to snag my pack-mounted emergency snow shoes a few times, but it was not the impenetrable mess that it had been. The base was quite deep, some blazes were close to the snow line and the branches were close to our heads. The Stratton Pond Trail was beautiful but challenging in places, trying to climb short steep trail trenches slowed the group in places. We had a quick lunch in the Stratton Pond Shelter
02/20/2015 SWLT Day 6/Section 6 - Powder Hound Heaven. Today's turnout was greatly reduced by the cold forecast, the ski started with about -4F temperatures and some wind. We decided to all ski NB, partly due to the relatively small (eighteen) group, partly due to having the wind at our backs, and partly due to the anticipation of powder in the glade downhill to Rt 30. We had a nice breakfast and warm meeting room at the J.J. Hapgood General Store, then dropped off cars and a bailout car and drove to the start at Kendall Farm Rd. We had trail-breaking right from the start, gentle ups and downs through mixed forests. The long snowmobile trail climb stretched the group out a bit, but the next section of trail-breaking bunched us all up again. We had a quick (too quick for some) lunch at the top of the Rt. 30 glades. This fairly steep descent has been thinned nice and wide by Andrew, Dagny and others. As on Pony Hill (this is much shorter) yesterday, some folks stuck to the switchbacking trail, but many others found their own powdery route, and some enjoyed it enough to climb back up and do it again, yeehaw! Knee-deep and still pretty fluffy, I heard someone say "This is what I live for". One skier took the bailout option at Rt. 30, the rest roadwalked up to another short, sunny, almost warm lunch at the end of Upper French Hollow Road. The temperature never got above 10F but the sun made it feel warmer, as long as you kept moving. After more lovely spruce and hardwood forests we had a undulating open woods downhill to our cars at South Road. About 20 folks met at the Landgrove Inn for a nice dinner. We will be meeting back there Saturday at 9am in their lounge on the right side of the building. We are expecting 34 skiers, so we will do a key swap, carpooling is fine as long as everyone in the car is skiing the same direction. Optionally, meet at 7:30 at the Landgrove Inn for breakfast. High of 27F, bring your tee-shirts!
02/21/2015 SWLT Day 7/Section 7 - "We are the luckiest people in the world". I've written enough sentences: breakfast, warm meeting place in Landgrove Inn Lounge (Thanks Tom!), key-swap, -6 degrees F, ski (17 NB, 14 SB), easy trail-breaking, ponds, bridges (thanks John Stearns!), fast skiers, slower skiers, blue wax, green wax, uphill, downhill, whoop-de-doos, side step, herringbone, birch, maple, hemlock, spruce, pine, lunch, road walk, bailout car, 11 degrees F, snow showers,
02/22/2015 SWLT Day 8/Section 8 - Three cheers! Three cheers: for temperatures in the high 20s, for 5" of new fluff, for seventeen NB skiers, for "oohs" and "ahhs" as skiers started off on the fresh snow, for Utley Brook Trail,
Recap of the 2015 SWLT Thanks to everyone (skiers, co-leaders, day-leaders, CTA staff, trail chiefs, landowners) for making this another safe, friendly, fun and memorable SWLT. Marie and I can always go out and ski just the two of us, but doing it with new friends and old makes it more fun. Here is the SWLT by the numbers:
8 days of skiing,
over 210 skier days registered,
166 actual skier days skied, reduced due mostly to extreme cold,
56 skiers skiing at least one day,
71 miles of Catamount Trail skied,
1467 skier-miles,
31, most skiers on any day,
16, fewest skiers on any day,
1800 dollars raised, at least (more is always welcome), for CTA,
4 degrees, top temperature on the coldest day,
35 degrees, top temperature on the warmest day,
-6 degrees, temperature at coldest start,
2 days with 'life-threatening cold and wind chill due to frost bite and hypothermia' in the forecast,
2 people who got confused about where to meet,
2 key-swap snafus,
5 days of key-swaps,
1 broken pole,
1 broken ski,
1 minor case of frostbite,
6 new End-To-Enders on the tour (is this a record?),
1 other End-To-Ender who finished that week with our help,
1 father-daughter pair,
11 couples skiing together at least part of one day,
4 skiers who skied at least part of all eight days,
15 skiers new to MultiDay Tours,
13 skiers who were already End-to-Enders,
3 skiers who skied every part of all eight days,
11 (at least) skiers who went skiing more after a day tour was over,
2 pairs of wooden skis,
2 foot/boot problems,
5 group breakfasts,
4 group dinners,
1 cancelled Gluttonyfest,
1 skier from Florida,
3 bailout cars used,
3 days of new snow,
4 skiers who 'bagged' another CT section on the Rest Day,
13 trail chiefs who helped keep these sections of trail clear and available,
560 emails to or from the SWLT coordinator,
8 co- and day leaders,
5 hosts who opened their homes for SWLT skiers,
0 days cancelled for bad weather,
0 days cancelled for bad skiing,
0 injuries,
0 lost skiers,
0 skiers who went away mad,
0 skiers who missed a day due to communications mix-ups,
0 skiers left at a trail head,
0 car problems or accidents,
These things were all uncountable, as they should be: smiles, laughs, thank yous, tele-turns, brownies, etc., calories burned, help offered, beautiful vistas, tracks in the snow, interesting trail conversations.
Here are some links to pictures:
Neil Fisher's Section 1 pictures and videos.
Neil Fisher's Section 2 pictures and videos.
Neil Fisher's Section 3 pictures and videos.
Sheri Larsen's Section 2,3,4,6 pictures, start with number 22.