Another Thin Cover Winter?

Whiner.

It's mid December.  Do you know where your snowpack is?

Map of Northeast Mountain Biking Trail Reports

I will now start sorting through the angry emails from mountain bikers in Rhode Island and Connecticut.

Now that I finally brought order to our backcountry skiing chaos, I was inspired to clean up the mess that was our mountain biking trip reports.

Mangy, Mangy Moose

The crowning moose.

Little known fact. Moosilauke is an ancient Abenaki word for babyheads. Moose-hillock literally means "crowning fetal moose." A horrible image to describe an even more horrible early ski season phenomenon that I've never before encountered. Until this morning, my first ski tour of the season.

I'd been talked into a solo dawn patrol of Moosilauke late last night by Andy, who made a number of excellent points about the importance of getting a 2012 NEBC tour of The Moose on the books as soon as conditions allowed.

That conversation went something like this:

New Feature: Backcountry Tour Map

This made me realize how much time I spend in New Hampshire.

You demanded and we responded!

Seven Cyber-Monday Deals for the Backcountry Skier

How many First Ascent items can you spot?

While everyone was out getting the jump on their holiday shopping this weekend, you were probably doing some lame thing like spending time with family, climbing a mountain or getting in a few last runs of mountain biking.  Now you only have a month of shopping left!  Have no fear, because today is internet shopping day.  The day the state tax collector hates.

So while you're cruising around feeding the flames of your internet shopping addiction, be sure to check out our seven favorite deals for the backcountry skier.  Why seven?  Cause we couldn't settle on five.

Holiday Gear Shopping Ideas (November 2012)

So you're trying to figure out what Santa should bring you for the holidays.  Or maybe you're Santa and the elves went on strike in with the Hostess workers and now you're left with several million unfilled wooden car orders.

What is there to buy? Where do you start?