Showing posts with label Vermont. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vermont. Show all posts
Monday, January 7, 2019
Taconicked: Day One, Vermont to Rhode Island Adventure Ride
How far can you get on trails? That’s the burning question that has motivated my bike adventures for the better part of two years now: The Kingdom Sampler, Boston to Northampton, Southern NH Overnighter, the Trunkline Adventure, and the Big Dirty South ride. All iterations of the same goal: get as far as I can using as little road as possible.
Labels:
2018,
Bikepacking,
Massachusetts,
Mountain Biking,
New York,
Trip Report,
Vermont
Saturday, November 11, 2017
A Kingdom Sampler: Bikepacking Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom
Brandon and I were running out of daylight. Miles short of our goal, we pushed our bikes through dense forest and around jagged rocks, lifting them over blowdowns on a barely visible trail that seemed more a figment of my imagination than reality. I had been nervous about this scenario all day- and now my fears were materializing. We were hitting the most difficult section of the day at precisely the wrong time. The thick woods were closing in around us, further choking out what little light remained in the gray skies above. Just as I began to consider retreating to the road we crested out of gully and my perspective changed completely.
Labels:
2017,
Bikepacking,
Mountain Biking,
Vermont
Friday, September 23, 2016
Moosalamoo's Leicester Hollow & Chandler Ridge Loop (August 2016)
Sun, bike, singeltrack and water: a winning combination. |
I'm no stranger to brambles, having stumbled through more than my fair share of bushes over the years. I regularly fished for baseballs in rasberry bushes wearing only shorts and a t-shirt when knee high socks and parachute pants were all the rage. Heck, you'll still find me waist high in thickets of prickers looking for hidden singletrack. I've picked more thorns out of my body and cursed more burdock than I care to remember. So a warning about "stinging nettles" didn't phase me, until he repeated with any hint of a smile now gone from his face: "Really, watch out for those stinging nettles."
Labels:
Moosalamoo,
Mountain Biking,
Trip Report,
Vermont
Wednesday, August 12, 2015
Prime Time and a Return to Ascutney (August 2015)
Mt. Ascutney |
But is more always better? And does trail building equal improvement or progress?
Labels:
Mountain Biking,
Trip Report,
Vermont
Friday, February 20, 2015
Lincoln Gap and the Last Truffula Tree
I speak for your trees? |
Labels:
2015,
Backcountry Skiing,
Lincoln Gap,
Trip Report,
Vermont
Monday, December 15, 2014
Thanksgiving: Turkey, Football and Lincoln Gap
In what has quickly become a Thanksgiving tradition. I made a trip up to Lincoln Gap to sample the powdery goods that the closed Lincoln Gap road has to offer.
Labels:
Backcountry Skiing,
Lincoln Gap,
Trip Report,
Vermont
Monday, September 22, 2014
Green Mountain Trails and The Fourth Lap
Coolest. Medal. Evar. |
Labels:
Green Mountain Trails,
Mountain Biking,
Racing,
Singletrack,
Vermont
Tuesday, June 3, 2014
Blueberry Lake Trails: First World Problems
I'm getting really fed up with the beautiful scenery too. |
Labels:
Mountain Biking,
Singletrack,
Trip Report,
Vermont
Thursday, January 3, 2013
Trip Report: Lincoln Gap 12.28.12
If you're anything like me you'll spend most of your workday this Friday pawing through satellite images, psychoanalyzing canopy density, speculating on tree species and forest age, tracing shadow length and slope grade, and generally looking for the perfect backcountry tour. But before you do, burn this image into your mind. This is what the world's most perfectly spaced hardwood glade looks like. From the ground up.
If, by some stroke of luck, you can actually learn to read the signs and find yourself guessing right and standing some place that looks a little like this, there's a very good chance you will be somewhere in central Vermont, just south of Lincoln Gap Road.
Labels:
Backcountry Skiing,
concrete boots,
Gered,
Glades,
kirk,
Lincoln Gap,
Powder,
tree judo,
Trip Report,
Vermont
Friday, December 21, 2012
Uphill Report from Pico: 38 Degree POW
I may be a GED legal-beagle when it comes to public land use lawyering, but I make up for it by being a semi-professional weatherman when it comes to picking amazing ski tours to do on apocalyptic end-of-Mayan-calendar days like today.
In a world of climatic uncertainty, at least one thing was guaranteed. There was no way I was going to let the end of days pass me by without skiing one last time, low pressure front and 38 degree air be damned.
Labels:
Backcountry Skiing,
dawnpatrol,
noreaster,
pico,
prayer,
Sidecountry,
Trip Report,
Vermont
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Vermont Uphill Skiing Policies
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Being from biking circles I always thought the term 'randonèe' referred to a bunch of aging fat nutters who pretend a weekend ride from Paris to Brest and back (or, Boston-Montreal-Boston) constitutes some sort of race. Only when Andy took the term on as part of his web-Avatar did I become aware that randonèe refers also to a bunch of young super fit nutters who like to race up random Alps (almost always in France) on skinny short skis and whiz back down again.
I'd never seen it in action until one fateful day last winter.
Labels:
Backcountry Skiing,
gui,
Killington,
Randonee,
Sidecountry,
Utah,
Vermont
Friday, December 14, 2012
Kmart Special: Ski the Skiddies for Free
A rare shot of Killington without hundreds of human cannonballs overhead |
Two days ago the New York Times reported that the ski industry was dead. And the Times is almost never wrong. Everyone but me remembers what they did to disco. And maybe Donna Summers too. But skiing? Not on my watch you leftist tree-humping pessimists. Not when mankind can harness the power of dead dinosaurs to pump millions of gallons of reclaimed sewage water into sub 32 degree air, to freeze before it falls like concrete onto the logging and fire road wastelands of America's ski areas.
And this magical phenomenon is even more appropriate when you consider how much manmade snow in a bad snow year makes a mountain look like a pile of s#it with streaks of white skiddies all over it. A white ribbon of death from your a@%.
Luckily I'm within driving distance of the cradle of s#itty man-made skiing, and this morning I rose extra early to find out for myself if the rumors were true. It's been years since I've violated that sacred oath that every Vermont grade schooler takes daily before the pledge of allegiance. To never, ever, not even for a million dollars ski at Killington. Would the ski gods ever forgive me?
Labels:
Backcountry Skiing,
Killington,
Sidecountry Skiing,
Trip Report,
Vermont
Saturday, November 17, 2012
Five Favorites Countdown (#5- Camel's Hump)
Camel's Hump |
Thursday, November 15, 2012
November Is Thin Cover Month
Baldface showing a little stubble. |
Just like the thin cover of creepy facial hair that sweeps across men's faces in November, so too is the terrain transformed by a thin cover of snow.
Labels:
Backcountry Skiing,
Lincoln Gap,
November Activities,
Vermont
Saturday, November 10, 2012
Pre-Season Stoke: Burke Mountain's East Bowl
My favorite trail sign of all time. |
Labels:
Burke Mountain,
East Bowl,
Sidecountry Skiing,
Vermont
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Bolton Backcountry Fundraiser This Wednesday (11/07/2012)
If you're a fan of the Bolton Backcountry, like we are, here's your opportunity to make sure those lands remain accessible to the public.
Labels:
Backcountry Skiing,
Bolton Valley,
Vermont
Thursday, November 1, 2012
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.
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
-Trip Report- Mt. Hor, VT: Insert Inappropriate Remark Here (February 2012)
Gered ponders whether he can freeclimb a granite wall with tele skis. |
If you look out from the mid-mountain lodge at Burke, you can see an immense crack between two mountains where Lake Willoughby is located. Let me tell you the story of that crack's Hor.
Labels:
Backcountry Skiing,
Glades,
Guru Gered,
Mt. Hor,
New England,
Northeast Kingdom,
Vermont
Monday, January 23, 2012
-Trip Report- Lincoln Gap Road: Backcountry Groomer Lemonade (January 2012)
I did not use the low gear. |
It seems like every place you take your skis in New England , you’ll hear this year’s catchphrase “If we could just get a little more snow...”
Sick of thinking about what “could be”, I decided to take my thin cover lemons and make some backcountry lemonade at Lincoln Gap in Vermont this past weekend.
Labels:
Backcountry Skiing,
Glades,
Lincoln Gap,
Slides,
Vermont
Friday, November 18, 2011
Millstone Hill Trails: The Video
It looks like mountain biking weather for another weekend, so in celebration (okay consolation) I put together a video from my recent trip to Millstone Hill with Brad.
According to the Millstone management, this is the last weekend that the trails are open. So get out and enjoy them while you still can!
Labels:
Millstone Hill,
Mountain Biking,
Vermont
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