Twofer Tuesday

During my outing on sunday, I knew that it had been snowing a little bit up in the hills of Vermont.  I even saw a little bit of snow on top of the hills as I was driving past Middlebury Gap.  However, I didn’t really think much of, having read the forecast that was calling for at most 1-2 inches.  That night, I found out I was quite wrong – it had snowed a fair bit up near Stowe.  I realized that I might still have a shot at getting some May turns in, if the weather would hold out for for another few days for me (unfortunately, I had work to be doing on monday).

On monday evening, I saw more photos that showed that there was in fact still snow left up in them thar hills.  And so, I made plans to head out on tuesday morning to get some May turns at Stowe.  It was somewhat ironic that I would be skiing on this day, as this was the day that I was finally getting getting rid of the snow tires and putting the normal summer tires back on my trusty steed.  But hey, when Ullr gives us a May dump, we might as well go out and play in the snow!

After a bit of hiking, I spotted my objective, National, from below.

Wait, I’m supposed to skin up this?!

The skinning was thinning. (Heh-heh-heh).

Nearing the top of Nosedive.

Looking out towards Smuggler’s Notch with more of Mansfield on the left.

I passed some neat icicles on the way up.

And before I knew it, I was at the top, sitting out on the deck of the octagon and enjoying my lunch – a peanut butter, jelly and granola wrap.  It may not sound great, but trust me, they’re delicious.  Especially after climbing a mountain.

Mt Mansfield and Smuggler’s Notch looking awesome.

The outdoors make me happy.  Very happy.

After my lunch, I decided to ski down part of Nosedive and then go back up to hit my main objective, National.  I only skied down a little bit, but it was glorious.  My tracks are the ones on the left.

A closer view of my tracks (on the left), including the spot that I fell.  As I was skiing down, wearing my baseball hat, I was musing to myself about the fact that I’d never before skied in a baseball hat (if you’ve seen any of my photos from winter, I always wear a helmet – the few times I’ve skied recently without a helmet, it just feels weird – I don’t like it).  Just as that thought was going through my head, lo and behold my hat flew right off my head.  I tried quickly stopping, but due to the stickiness of the snow, that turned into falling down the hill.  I did manage to stop myself before I went too far down, quickly grabbed my hat, and continued down.

After those too few turns, I switched over to skinning and headed back up.  Soon enough, I was back at the top.

Looming in the distance is Mt Washington and the Prezzies (left) and Franconia Notch (right).  Click to enlarge.  The photo isn’t the greatest (due to the haziness), but trust me when I say it was really impressive.

After a brief rest, I skied off the top and hit my main objective of the day, National.  I even had a chance to open it up a bit and make some bigger turns – what great fun.  It was quite challenging skiing though since the snow was really getting baked under the intense sunlight.  My tracks are on the left.

I finished skiing down National and was able to make it a bit farther down, including a stream crossing in skis, before I had to take the skis off to hike the last little bit.  Here’s the end of the snow.

And when I got back to the car, I had a wonderful IPA waiting for me.  Mmmmmm…

Although I was done skiing for the day, I wasn’t ready to head home just yet.  I decided to finally get out on the water and spend a few hours trying my luck on the Cotton Brook, a small stream in Moscow, VT.

Nice looking water.

It was good to be out again, if only to work out the kinks from not having fished for around 6 months or so.

Beautiful water.

Alas, I wasn’t able to catch anything.  I do think that the water was a bit too cold for much fish activity, especially since most of the runoff feeding this stream was in the form of melted snow.  Oh well, maybe next time.

All in all, it was a great day.  I got some May turns in (making this the 6th consecutive month on skis) with beautiful weather, was able to spend a few hours on the river, and after all that, I finished it out with a beer or two at the Alchemist.  And really, any day ending at the Alchemist is a good one, if you ask me.