Given the imminent arrival of summer on the calendar and the rising temperatures, I suspected that this morning might be a good opportunity to get some sunrise photos. With the sun rising on the far side of the ridgeline, Vista’s observation tower seemed to be the best option. With great reluctance, I managed to get up shortly before 0400 and head out the door at 0415.
Although a Snowbird patroller seeking my input on snow conditions in Perla’s surprised me, it was a pseudorandom encounter with Marc Guido (firsttracksonline.com editor and skivt-l chief avalanche poodle) that started turning a good ski day into a memorable experience. No, it wasn’t just Marc’s politeness in waiting until after establishing that he knew me to ask what was going through my head in deciding to ski Perla’s while it was nice and firm; it was experiencing closing day at Alta with a bit of local guidance.
After spending most of Christmas Day working, I decided to take a few runs after dinner. There are a lot of downsides to living twenty yards from your office, particularly as the lone person in an IT Department, but there are also benefits. Taking three runs after dinner is one of the more important ones.
As I was wrapping up a few things at the office, Jess called. She mentioned a few things, among them an inability to take advantage of the full moon and shoot some photos. I realized that I hadn’t gotten much exercise in the past week—the best day I’d had was spending half a day outside shooting photos during the Flying of the Towers—and that the conditions for being out under the moon were as good as they were likely to get. With a busy weekend approaching, I decided that it would be a good idea to put on some appropriate clothes and head up the hill.
Sometimes, you just have to go skiing.
When you get hit with two feet of Vermont powder in late October, you are experiencing one of those times. I got a hint of what was to come when, on the night of 25 October 2005, my car wouldn’t go all the way up the access road. I’ve worked at Bolton for over two years now and was living in Burlington until last April, and that’s the first time I’ve ever gotten stuck coming up the hill. Admittedly, it’s the first time I’ve tried to make my summer tires work in a snowstorm, but that just adds to the excitement.
So yesterday (8 November 2005) was the Flying of the Towers. A large helicopter landed in the Sports Center parking lot early in the morning and then sat there until the clouds lifted sufficiently around noontime. The Free Press, The Times Argus, channel 3, and channel 5 all covered the event.
Since the “Fall Back” clock change has put an end to my after-work hiking, I decided that I should try to get in a longer hike last weekend. After not making it up Mount Hunger on Saturday due to poor directions (the turn off from Rt. 100 is Howard Ave, and it’s approximately 0.3 miles South of Cold Hollow Cider, as noted in 50 Hikes in Vermont, which we should have looked at to begin with), a late start, and Jess not having done much hiking recently, I decided to head up to Harrington’s View myself on Sunday. The weather was ominous from the start, but I decided to go with the forecasters (since more than one of them agreed and the radar looked promising) and expect the nasty stuff would hold off until later in the day.
In the interests of making it a longer hike rather than a shorter one, I decided to take the long way up–I started up the Bryant trail around 0915, reaching the Bryant Cabin in about half an hour. The Bryant Trail was generally in reasonable shape but quite damp in places; however, it didn’t have the amount of windfall damage I’d encounter later on the trip. I continued on Birch Loop and Raven’s Wind, stopping at Olga’s Falls just past 1000 for a couple of pictures, and reached the Long Trail, elevation 3190′, around 1025. A short ways into the Long Trail section of the hike, I caught up with Russ (one of the money-counting folks with whom I work), explaining the solitary set of bootprints that I had found on the trail to that point (most visible in the remaining snow drifts, which topped out around mid-shin and were probably washed away in the ensuing rains). We also passed animal sign of several varieties, although I’d be hard pressed to identify which prints and which scat went together.
