Greeley Ponds

Even though I am back stateside and working full time once again, I can't let Hilary and B have all the fun! In the middle of last week, some weather passed through that did almost nothing around Concord, but dumped upwards of one foot of snow in the Whites. So come the weekend I pulled out my backcountry skis and cold weather gear, put Jasper in the back of the station wagon, and headed north.

I searched through our library of outdoors literature to find a trail that would be:

• fun on skis, because I haven't gotten to do much of that this year
• not groomed trail, because frankly I would just embarrass myself trying to properly cross country ski or, worse yet, skate ski. jasper may not be welcome on groomed trail, anyway
• not heavily traveled, because who wants to be doing the same thing as everyone else
• not too technical, because even though they're technically backcountry skis, I have neither the equipment nor the ability to do serious telemark skiing through the woods without breaking something
• not too far away, because even through the best stuff is in the notches, I don't want to spend hours in the car for this

I found a nice looking candidate just off the Kancamaugus Highway, about 75 minutes from the house: Greeley Ponds. There is a well-used hiking trail from the main trailhead, but also a little-used ski trail that parallels it on a gentle ascent to a pair of ponds nestled between Osceola and Kancamaugus peaks. The ponds freeze predictably (especially during this winter!), which would allow some skiing out in the open. From the trailhead to the far end of the ponds and back would be perhaps 5 miles.


View Larger Map
 

From Snowshoe Hikes in the White Mountains by Steven Smith, 2000

In planning the hike, I had the choice between 40s with a chance of rain on Saturday, or 15 and mostly sunny Sunday. I chose the latter, because it is still winter here and, dammit, I'm gonna enjoy it! It was chilly, but I prefer a nice clean cold to still-pretty-cold-in-addition-to-wet.

Jasper was excited to come along no matter what:

The hiking trailhead was packed with cars - folks headed up Osceola mostly. But 0.3 mi west I pulled up beside a solitary vehicle at the ski trail head. Jasper immediately began his usual snow-frollick:

Since the snowstorm a few days before, it looks like just one other person had come through, followed by some thawing on Saturday, a dusting overnight, and then Jasper and myself. There were also some fresh paw prints - a fox or coyote perhaps?

On the way up I ran into only a few people. One older fellow from Sanbornton caught up to me on skis, and we journeyed across the ponds together. He apparently comes up to this trail frequently, and is a veteran of many of the long thru-hikes in the U.S. He explained to me that the trail further south past the lakes eventually emerges in Waterville Valley ski area, but has been hard going since Irene a few years back. After a bite of lunch, Jasper and I headed back across the ponds:

Jasper's energy was much diminished on the way back. Even though he is largely impervious to the cold, there's no getting around the fact that it was only in the mid teens with some wind. Although I had scrupulously purchased some new booties for Jasper the day before, I neglected to actually put them in the car Sunday morning, meaning that Jasper and I had to stop occassionally to de-ice his paws. He was a good sport about it though, and I think he did have a good time. He was pretty tired - and snowy! - by the time we returned to the car:

While Jasper usually sits up and pants excitedly anytime he's in the car, today he konked out all the way home.

Brynna Skiing

A little ways down the road (about one half hour door-to-slope) is a modest ski area: Pat's Peak. They have a surprisingly large beginner's area, which is free of charge. This is BRILLIANT. It means that we can take B most anytime with almost no risk. If she is done after one or two runs, we aren't our umpti-ump dollars for a lift pass. It has also meant that we've gone more than we otherwise would dare. And so, probably not this year but next, they'll score at least one and perhaps several season passes from the Mooses. We took her a few times last winter. She wore the strap-on skis that Hilary had when she was that age. But she advanced out of those pretty quick, so at the end of last season we got her a set of real skis and boots. She's got to going downhill part pretty well squared away. Turning and stopping, those minor details, are a work in progress. Two weeks ago she got to show off for one set of grandparents. The following weekend: her other set of grandparents. And now the whole world:



I never considered myself all that good skiing backwards. Turns out to be pretty easy on the bunny slope! Holding a camera steady while skiing backwards and watching out for others is still pretty tough.

Little Ski Bunny

Brynna was very interested when she heard that Mama and Dada were off skiing during our vacation. "I want to go skiing!" she said on Friday as Alex and I headed out again.

So we decided to oblige her. When we got back to Concord on Friday night, I pulled out my baby skis, which my parents had brought up a few months ago, and we adjusted them to fit onto Brynna's boots.

We started the skiing lessons in the living room:


B learned how to maneuver around quite quickly, especially after we explained the importance of not crossing her skis.


A high five for our little ski bunny:


Pleased with this small success, Brynna and I planned for a try at some actual skiing on Saturday morning. When she woke up at her usual atrociously early hour, we got all our warm gear on and headed off to Pat's Peak, our local ski area, where the beginner's area is free.

We strapped on our skis and practiced "scootch-scootching" as we made our way toward the beginner's hill. She actually has fairly good balance on the flat, but no weight to do any sort of edging when the going gets rough!

The bunny slope features a "carpet lift," which is a rubberized moving sidewalk that takes you up to the top. B was able to stand on her little skis right in between my big skis, and thought it was great fun to ride the "magic carpet." There were little animal figurines scattered in the woods that she took great delight in pointing out each time we headed up.

Once on top, I held a ski pole in front of her so she had something to hang onto, and zoomed her down inside of my snowplow. She loved it immediately! We developed a little chant: "bend your knees and straighten your skis!" (She doesn't have the power yet to be able to execute a snowplow herself, so we just focused on keeping a little weight in her skis, and pointing them in generally the downhill direction.)

Every time we got to the bottom, she'd say "more!" And then at the top, she'd hold her arms out and say, "I ready!" As soon as we started to glide down, I'd hear "let's go faster!"

We ended up doing ten runs down the bunny slope before she decided she was a bit tired and was ready for some hot chocolate. But after our snack, she demanded to go back out again, and we did five more runs before heading home.

I may have some actual on-snow pictures to post next weekend...since it was just the two of us on Saturday I wasn't able to hold her up and take photos at the same time!

Vacation, pt 2

Tuesday afternoon, after a reasonably relaxing morning spent lounging about the cottage, Hilary and I took Jasper an about half our gear to Bear Notch, located about halfway between North Conway and Crawford Notch, for some cross-country skiing. It's cheaper than downhill, more athletic, and much less crowded. A key advantage was that Jasper was permitted there, too. Jasper, of course, was beside himself with excitement: miles of running through the snow. The only downside was that we were going to make him wear his booties, so that his feet didn't get galled up with snow.

Oh the indignity!

He also got to meet a long lost cousin: a fluffy black dog of similar breed to his own.


Hooray for the outdoors!

Vacation, pt 1

Hilary gets her vacation doled out in week-long blocks a few times per year. It might seem like a lot in aggregate, but is a small pittance compared to the 60-80-hour weeks and weekends she outs in between. I, aside from some long weekends here and there, haven't had a proper stretch of time off since I started my current job some 20 months ago. So, we were determined to take a real, honest-to-goodness vacation when Hilary had some time off this first week of March.

We looked at going someplace warm (the Virgin Islands or Puerto Rico, for instance), but got scared off by the price. We ended up staying close to home and having a winter wonderland vacation in the north country. We ended up staying a few nights at a cottage that's a part of the Farm by the River Inn, where Hilary and I spent a fine long weekend some months back. Knowing that it would be difficult, probably impossible, to do the kinds of things we wanted with a 2-1/2 year old in tow, we brought along some help in the form of my mother.


We are all actually pretty good about traveling light when it comes to ordinary trips, but we also were bringing four pair of skis (2x downhill, 2x XC), a pair of boots for each pair f skis, two pair of snowshoes, enough warm layers for an antarctic expedition, some food for the week, an impressive variety of wine, our dog and his provisions, entertainment options and a carseat for Brynna, etc. etc. On Monday we slowly, painfully, packed up roughly a metric ton of gear between our station wagon and my mother's car, and eventually rolled out of Concord under cloudy skies and freezing rain.

After reaching the cottage and settling in a bit, we headed into town to our favorite North Conway restaurant - the Flatbread Company, for some awesome wood-fired pizza. We split an excellent dessert four ways for my mother's birthday as well.





The Farm by the River isn't really a working farm any longer, although they have leased a piece of the land to a fella who wants to make a go of it. Instead, they keep about a dozen horses and take folks on carriage, sleigh, and horseback rides. In the background there is Cathedral Ledge, one of the best places in New England for rock climbing.

Are we relaxed yet? (images by B)

Jogging Stroller

Thanks to the generosity of her Aunt Katherine, Brynna has herself a jogging stroller. A really sweet piece of work, a Chariot Cougar 1. She actually had it before she was born, because Aunt Katherine found an awesome deal on eBay. She probably won't be able to use it for a little while still, because she can't sit that upright for long periods.


In addition to the jogger setup shown here, we also have the hardware to pull it behind a bike. That won't happen for longer, because Brynna will need to hold herself up and a helmet, so probably not until next spring. And hey, there are other modes in which she could use it, like with ski attachments, or with a pullbar that turns her parents into rickshaw drivers.

Weekend in the Just-Barely-Frozen North

The promised break in the weather has arrived, it's been balmy 20s and low 30s for the last couple of days!

Saturday morning we rambled up to the local coffee shop, giving Jasper a nice long walk but keeping him on the leash so that he wouldn't leap into the river after the geese. We spent most of the afternoon sunning on the porch, then went for a ski on the golf course before it got dark. Our forced bulbs did some sunning too:



The artistic highlight of our weekend was a local symphony performance. It was all Russian all the time: Tchaikovsky's "Slavonic March," Borodin's "In the Steppes of Central Asia," Prokofiev's "Symphonic Suite from The Love for Three Oranges" (shockingly, even though you have probably never heard of this Prokofiev piece, you almost certainly HAVE heard the Marche from it, check it out on iTunes if you don't believe me), and Shostakovich's 5th Symphony. I am not a Shostakovich fan, but despite my pleading, Alex said that we couldn't just leave at intermission and skip the symphony. It turned out to not be too bad, but I am much more excited about the next concert, which is all Mozart.

Today, in addition to spending lots more time reading on the porch and doing the normal weekend household chores, we headed down to the Root River Trail in Lanesboro for a longer cross-country ski. Here's a photo of Alex...since he's usually the one taking the pictures, I wanted to make sure to get one of him today:



Jasper is slowly getting more used to the skis and poles, and he just loves any opportunity to get out in the snow! He does quite well with the extendable leash, only running circles around me once or twice an outing, and today gave me quite a tow as he went chasing after a family of wild turkeys who crossed our path. He is turning out to be quite a sensible outdoor dog: here he is taking a rest at our turnaround point today (yes, there are eyes under all that fuzz, we promise).



He seems to be resigned to the booties, which definitely make him more comfortable on these longer treks. This evening, he's been pretty zonked out, though he did just wake up long enough to give Alex the pleading eyes and get a piece of apple pie.