Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Vermont Uphill Skiing Policies

Us
Them

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.

Monday, December 17, 2012

Two Amazing Polar Adventures


This has very little to do with New England, but I know you folks who read this blog are the adventurous sort so I thought I'd mention a couple expeditions going on right this moment way the heck down South (as in the South Pole) that are pretty frickin' awesome.

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?

Monday, December 10, 2012

Another Thin Cover Winter?

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

Thursday, December 6, 2012

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.


Friday, November 30, 2012

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: