BUT . . . the ski trip was scheduled . . . so off we went, along with about 22 other club members, to Jackson, NH.
Winter was in full force (good for us).  The worst day was snow and a little drizzle late in the afternoon.
The remainder of the week was a little or a lot (negative degrees) below freezing.

The snow was plentiful and the conditions superb.

Susan, Linda and I skied The Wave and surrounding area on Monday in Jackson and a nice 12,8 k loop at Bretton Woods on Tuesday.
On Wednesday Susan and I skied out The Ellis River Trail and up The Hall in Jackson.  For those of you who have done The Hall you KNOW the ski back was fast and fun.  For the rest of you The Hall is a 1.7 K climb, partially gentle, partially steep.  At the top you can turn around (creating a 10 k out and back) or continue to the Vista Outlook another 3 k.

We went to the top (about 35 minutes) then back down (about 10 minutes) — where we realized that The Ellis River Trail back to Jackson is actually slightly downhill.  Great fun.

On Thursday we went back to Bretton Woods…up B  & M and around and down on Clinton, Beech and Dark Forest.

I was hoping to ski the Mountain Road, but the temperature was only in the low teens and while the mind said yes, the body said no.

Final good news…we ate a lot more food than at home but gained not an ounce.

Glenn Abelson

Susan and Linda – Bretton Woods

January 7, 2011 – GHI gets 8″ of snow.  Yeah!

January 9, 2011 – Glenn and Susan arrive at GHI and Glenn is out on  Old Faithful Trail inside of 45 minutes.  Nice, packed dry snow.  The trail was torn up a bit from the day’s traffic, but there were no bare spots.  It was, for me, a perfect wind down from the drive up and an introduction for the week to come.

The next day Susan, Linda Frank, Irma Klein and I did the Old Faithful loop followed by a run down Trapper to the bus pickup.  Parts of that were thin on cover.  However, later in the week, after the second snowfall the same run was perfect.

The four of us tended to ski together, but we  were joined, on one  occasion, by Regina and Kim.  That was a particularly nice ski on Thursday morning.  We went down Andy’s Run from the lodge.  Then down Hooper to Farm Road.  Finally down Beach to Thirteenth Lake.  Then we  had the wonderful opportunity to go back UP.  However, we took the direct and gradual trail, Wilderness.  Past the ski lodge we continued to another downhill and rolling run to the bus pick.  A great 2 hour 8-9 km ski.

The LICSC group of 18 hit the trails the next morning.   About 60% of the terrain was open, packed and cordoroid.  The skiing was really nice.  There were a few sketchy spots but not enough to ruin our fun.

January 11, 2011 – GHI gets another 8-12″ of snow, and they start tracking the trails.

All in all good skiing.  My main complaint was that GHI seems to be working with a minimal trail grooming staff.  After the mid week snow they seemed to be slow in laying down track.

Regardless, Susan and I had a wonderful time.

More photos are HERE.

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Glenn Abelson

Got the walks cleared and the cars cleaned from the 20″ of snow that fell.

Felt the ski legs tugging at me.

What to do?  The local roads were still in lousy shape and the winds were gusting up to 30 mph.

Susan and I drove a full half mile to Hempstead Lake State Park. Well, not actually to the park, since the road and parking lot was not cleared.  We parked on the street and walked over the foot bridge.

The good  news was that a skier had been their earlier in the day and left tracks.  Also, no hikers had walked in those tracks.

The bad news was that the wind had blown over almost half those tracks so we had to re track in deep snow.

We finally managed a short one hour ski with a lot of taking turns tracking.

It was good to get out, however.

We have tomorrow and Wednesday to try again.  Hopefully more people will be out skiing so we can all do more actual skiing.

Glenn

Our wood skis went through many seasons and allowed us to climb many hills without bothering to herring bone.  They also required me to carry wax, cork and scrapers and be prepared to reapply and/or remove wax from the bottom of  the skis, should the temperate change.  Of course, if you had the dreaded klister (for really wet snow or ice) on the bottom, you hoped for warm temperatures so you did not have to remove it.

About five or six years ago we bought a new par of waxable fiberglass skis.  They were lighter than our wood skis, but we still did not like the waxless ones.  Now we had a good system. Although I still needed to deal with wax changes, from time to time, on the trails, the klister was only on the wood skis.  It never came off.

This winter we planned to buy new ski boots, but in the process started to think not only about waxless skis, but short ones as well.  Why?  In marginal conditions at some point on the trail you might want a warm weather wax or klister . . . and that was not something we could fix in the middle of a ski.

So, we tried a pair of  short,  waxless skis.  They were noisy compared to the waxable skis. They still had about 40% less glide.  But they were ideal for conditions that varied betweenwarm weather wax and klister. AND they were easier to turn and herringbone on than full length skis.

After 38 years, the wood skis have been retired to an honored place in the basement, with the original bamboo poles!!!

The waxable skis will come out for good snow conditions, the girlie, wussy, sissy short waxless skis (which I still apply glide wax to on the tips) will be used rest of the time.

However, now it is late March so its time to get back on the bicycle.

Glenn

The good news was that increased elevation played a key role with temperatures in the 30s all week.  Bretton Woods had very good conditions until Friday pm and Great Glen had fair to very good conditions depending on the day. The drive over the pass to Bretton Woods was a bit hairy at times, but, thankfully, we never had to seriously consider driving to the Balsams (about 65 miles away, but with excellent snow and colder temperatures).

Susan and I skiied Monday at Great Glen.  We tested waxless skis in the morning (until now we have been die hard waxable skiiers).  Wet snow in the pm had us on our wood skis with the klister base.  Skiing on klister in marginal conditions is really nice. Applying it and removing it, however, is yucchy.

Deciding to breakdown and buy waxless skis and shorter skis to deal with the marginal ski conditions, we did some shopping and picked out a new set of skis, bindings and boots at Ragged Mountain Ski Shop.

Next morning we headed up to Bretton Woods.  Here we donned our narrow, long, waxable skis for incredible skiing in great conditions.  Time for my rant here.  I know waxable skis require extra work . . . sometimes as much 10 whole minutes . . . but if you do it right you get all the benefits of waxless with the advantage of significantly more glide with less effort.  Basically its involves applying hot wax (or not) to the tips and back of the ski now and then and applying and sometimes removing temperature based wax to the kick zone.  None of this is difficult or messy.  Rant over.

Day three back to BW, but this time on our new short waxless skis with on and off snow falling.  They felt really good, and we enjoyed using them, but we really did notice the difference.

On Thursday we went back to Great Glen to ski in drizzle and we snow on wet snow.  Susan and I accept what the weather is and decide to have a good time regardless.  We skied a bit less and finished the week happy.

For us BW has long gentle terrain that allows for getting into a tempo on your skis and just going and going.  No real steep downhills or hard climbs.  Nice change of pace from places like Garnet Hill, Prospect Mountain, Mountain Top, etc.  Great Glen is much smaller, but has the ups and downs I have come to expect, so we like to mix it up.

Eagle Mtn House was lovely, the food was good and the company fantastic.

Thank goodness its time to go home so I can rest up from vacation.

Glenn Abelson
Webmaster

. . . the real question is does anyone in LICCSC have a wish for 15 minutes of fame, via the printed word?  If so, your chance is now.  If the club is to have a BLOG, it needs a blogger.  The requirements are:

• You like to write short pieces, breezy or thought provoking and feel you write reasonably well.
• You feel you can write at least one every other week between November and March.
• You welcome comment and feedback but realize you might not get any.
• You will accept $1,000 a month for the job.  (Really?  No, not really.)

The biggest fear is being afraid of not having anything to write about.  When I started my blog for The Bicycle Site I went through the same trepidation.  Dozens of blogs later I can report, that I often have no idea what I want to blog about next.  However, a topic, or even two always seems to pop into my head.

So, we get a volunteer, this blog will be a feature.

If not, I will remove it from the menu until such time as it becomes relevant.

Regardless, enjoy the holiday everyone.

Glenn Abelson
WebMaster