CircumBurke 2012

The course map. Of course.

Twenty four miles.  Three thousand feet of climbing.  Bridgeless stream crossings. A soul-crushing twelve-hundred foot, three and a half mile 7% grade climb straight out of the starting gate.  Speeds approaching 30 mph down a glorified streambed covered with leaves.  Twisty singletrack up the side of a mountain that makes FOMBA look like an airport runway.  And let’s not forget the half-dozen or so mud pits big enough to make your redneck friends build a bonfire, buy a case of beer and make a mess of their favorite truck.

These are the foes that line up to do battle with your psyche when you step up to the start of the CircumBurke ride. 

An April Doubleheader In the Kingdom

Sometimes April brings a rare opportunity to enjoy my two favorite sports: skiing and mountain biking.  You would expect that a day where you could mix the two would lead to mediocre conditions for both.  Typically the best you could hope for would be some turns on corn snow followed by a slog on some muddy singletrack.  But last weekend provided an unbelievable opportunity to enjoy both sports at their best.

Google Latitude is not an Avy Beacon

Nothing says I love you at your favorite seasonal gift giving holiday than the gift of an avalanche beacon. My wife purchased one for me last year. Given the annual snowfall we had already seen by January 1st 2011, my new BCA Tracker 2 Beacon was a very thoughtful and appropriate gift, and one we both wanted me to have. She wanted to know I might not die of my own stupid designs, and I wanted at least a slight chance of living through all the future bad lines I might pick on wind-loaded northeast facing slopes above 35°.

Around these parts, 2012 is not shaping up to be a big year for the avy beacon business. Not a single storm where you couldn't measure precip with the stick that god gave you.. ahem... a ruler. Even with these pitiful snowfall amounts and non-existant upper elevation snowfields, I'm now a convert to the avy beacon of hope. So do me a favor.  If you're too unloveable to get one from someone else, run out and buy one for yourself. You never know when some other ski dummy (like me) might need your help.

-Trip Report – Umpire Mountain, VT: Victory Tour (January 2012)

Justin and Tele with Burke in the background.

Vermont can be a case study in how different interest groups get along for their mutual benefit.  Just as mountain bikers and stonemasons are fast friends in Barre, backcountry skiers have a friend in the local logger.

Kingdom Trails: One More Ride

With the end of the mountain biking season around the corner, I ventured back up to Kingdom Trails last weekend for one more run on my favorite trails with Gered, his sister Kara, Justin and a couple new friends: Chris and Brian.  Four hours and twenty plus miles later, we had made the most of our late Fall foray.

Chris brought along his helmet-cam, took some footage, and put together this video of our runs down Tap & Die and Sidewinder: some of my favorite runs of the year.

The Kingdom is closing for the season on Monday (October 31st), so it's time to get up and go if you've been putting off a visit.

Harold Parker State Forest: Merrimack Valley Meets North Shore

A Reese's Peanut Butter Cup of Mountain Biking

The trails of the North Shore of Massachusetts have a discernible character:  rocky, technical, bold, and with lines that have a high penalty for failure.  There is no better embodiment of this style than the trails of Lynn Woods.

To the west you'll find the trails of the Merrimack Valley: Great Brook Farm, Russell Mill and Lowell/Dracut. There you'll find majestic singletrack, which incorporates the occasional boulder, rock garden, or root, on a rolling journey through loamy soils.

In between these two very different worlds sits Harold Parker.

Kingdom Trails: Numbers (August 21, 2011)

Cowpath or Bike Trail? 

Four hours. Three thousand feet.  Thirty miles.

Those are the cold hard numbers that can't begin to convey the more meaningful experience of exploration, exhilaration and downright joy that I found on my third trip to Kingdom Trails this year.

Kingdom Trails: A Video Essay

This past weekend I spent a day with some friends roaming the byways at Kingdom Trails.  It's hard to describe why this is my favorite place to go biking, so I made a little video to give you a sample of what it is like.

Adventures in Sidecountry Part II: Bolton Valley (Get It While You Can)

View of the Bolton Backcountry from Stowe View 

If you've only skied the lift accessed glades at Bolton Valley you've probably been impressed with the acreage of glade skiing, but unless you've also ventured onto their cross country trails with your backcountry gear you don't even know the half of it.

Park City is for POW Lovers

I can't say that there was really any POW on our Park City day, given that it hadn't snowed in a week or two when we got there, and unlike the Deery Valley, people do ski out of bounds and abuse nature's dandruff at the Park. Well, Nor'Easter BC doesn't take this kind of POW abuse lightly. When the average man abuses what nature so gratiously has given, then it's up to the better man to make his own tracks. Uphill. And over the edge.