No bikes

Not a lot of bike talk lately. The snow is high and the roads are unpleasant.

So, the hearty have transitioned to skiing for recreation.

I've skied all over the place lately and it's really improved my mid-winter outlook on life.

There was some great snow last night that ameliorated the nasty crust. I went over to Cedar Mountain for a little while and I felt like one of those backcountry skiers who are so cool right now.

Last weekend I skied at Craftsbury Outdoors Center, which is such a cool place.

Johanna liked it, too. 

All the skate skiers zoomed past me, but I quashed my insecurities by reminding myself that I could also ski the snowshoe trails. 

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In search of winter

Can you catch the error in this photo?

I didn't know what to do with myself today. I went for a bike ride yesterday and it was pleasant, but it made my feet really cold. Today, I decided that I would do something else. Johanna is working on a thing for a conference, so I had no one to go to New Haven with and stare at art. I'm not really good at keeping friends anymore, so I don't really have any right now.

So, I decided I'd go up to Granville. It's nice there and I had a hunch it'd still be winter. I brought boots and skis and when I arrived, I was surprised to see that there's still like two feet of snow on the ground. It's not perfect snow, but you don't sink. It's pretty icy, but there's a scintilla of powder on top, so you can almost track straight. However, for a many miles, snowmobiles had "groomed" the trail and it was a lot of fun. It snowed all day and the temperature hovered around 30. Winter lives in Graville, Mass.

I feel like I didn't get enough snow time in this winter, even though we got that big storm. It turned to gross so quickly (or at least I thought it did).

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Ski time is back

We got a bunch of snow. Maybe you noticed it. Before the old year switched to the new one, I ventured out to Salem's house in the storm for some skiing. The ride was pretty damn snowy, but not too bad. However, my power steering was making a weird noise.

We skied Manchester environs and had a great time. It was my first time on skis in awhile and I was a bit wobbly. I fell down pretty early into the randonée. I noticed my pocket was unzipped, checked my keys and  zipped up the pocket. We skied around for awhile, though I had a nagging stickiness to my skis. We got back and were surprised how much snow had fallen. At this point, you've probably realized that I was foreshadowing by mentioned by pockets and keys.

Since I don't drive much and have one of those big car keys, I don't attach it to my house key chain. This has worked just fine for many years. Yet, when I fell it seems that the car key fell out, but not the jingly keys. I had an epiphany about them falling out after that first spill about five minutes too late, but the section of the driveway where I fell had just been plowed when I went to search.

So, I called my dad, who knew about spare keys and he came the next day after I slept on Salem's couch. Then, I discovered I had no power steering.

Johanna and I went to Washington, DC to look at Ai Wei Wei and eat homemade (restaurant-made) noodles, dumplings and oysters.

Today, I went skiing again on Cedar Mountain. It's a great place to ski, albeit rocky. I think I needed one more inch of snow. However, the snow that was there was powdery and quick. Too bad much half of it had been decimated by snowmobiles. Snow machines?

This was kuh-ray-Z! I went up to this tree that had "DEER ->" spay painted on it and there were deer where it was pointing. Cedar Mountain is a weird, weird place.

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Ski free

True to form, I went skiing this weekend. There wasn't a ton of snow. Well, I guess there was way more than a ton of snow, but not a lot of snow. It wasn't enough for places with roots and rocks, but I tried going there anyway on Saturday. It was uncomfortable for me and the skis.

Today, Johanna and I went to a place with fewer rocks and roots and slightly more snow. It was great. It's supposed to rain and be warm this week, so perhaps we'll be mountain biking again by the end of the week. It was a really nice weekend for being outside, hopefully you were.

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A groomed world

Close followers of snow will note that there's about 12-18" of packed snow. With the addition of last night's much need 2", the world has become like those fancy groomed places for cross country skiing. I went off the reservoir for a few hours of skiing and it was awesome. Actually, let me qualify that: off the tails it was awesome. The postholed, tracked trails were kind of miserable because they hardened into super bumps.

Anyway, I went skiing today and had a lot of fun. Happy James Garfield Day!

Nature's fury again!

Take a close look at my tracks in this picture.

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Comes to an end

So, it would seem that my days of awesome xc skiing will be coming to an end due the bizarre ice crap falling from the sky. It was so great I've converted Johanna into a cross country skier.

But, once again I was to attract to awkward stares of pedestrian, drivers and bus stop waiters astride my incomprehensibly awesome snow commuting machine. I'm told this falling ice crap is going to turn to water crap in the afternoon, so I'm preparing myself for the grossest commute home of all time. Grosser than this. Or this.

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Nature's fury!

As you might expect, I'm really going after this thing cross country skiing whole hog.

Yesterday evening, the Snails ventured forth into the woods without bikes, but with skis! It was so intense that Dario's ski exploded.


Today, I took a solitary journey into the land of King Phillip. I saw some hawks and I saw a mutilated deer. It was intense. Things are generally intense for me. Skiing down the Metacomet was a lot of fun because the foot traffic had made a nice little track and I got moving pretty good. Steady improvement in my skills!

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Hartford backcountry skiing extreme!!!!

As you may have noticed, it snowed yesterday. Since I've recast myself as a skier, I decided to do some awesome skiing. Initially, to get in my car and ski outside of Hartford, but driving was quite difficult for most of yesterday. So, I decided to ski out my front door.

At first, I was skiing on the roads, which wasn't too bad because tracks had been worn in my a few trucks. But, the roads ended and I ventured into the wilds of Cedar Mountain. It was extreme in the difficult sense. However, 2 feet of snow certainly makes Hartford seem like secret wilderness. It was pretty cool.

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Skiing across the country

Re: the poll. Road bikes, huh? I like going for road rides and all, but if you look at the tag cloud thing, mountain biking is the biggest tag. Does this mean I should write about road bikes more or that y'all are reading this blog as self-flagellation?


Anyway, mountain biking in the snow is great, but it has a rather narrow window unless you own a Pugsley or Fatback, so last year I started cross country skiing. While I have access to equipment, downhill skiing is far too expensive, and I know that you can hike up a hill with a snowboard and ride back down for free, but I don't own a snowboard. I'm really bad at cross country skiing, but improving. I didn't fall the last couple of times I did it and yesterday was going pretty well until right near the end. I attempted this more difficult trail that traverses a pretty steep hill and ends with two switch backs. I figured that because I could ride it on a fixed gear 'cross bike, somehow that meant that I could ski it because somehow that translates. Nope. I did a pretty awesome face plant, though.

So, you should try cross country skiing!

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