Thursday, January 24, 2008

WVT

Last Sunday I met up with Ward Solar to get out for trip on the Wildcat Valley Trail. Ward and I met up in Jackson to stage a car and then I piled into the back of his new Element and Rebecca drove us up to dump us at the base of Wildcat.

I was in my full ninja black uniform- very stylish. You'll notice that Ward has full on tele gear and skins and I was running a pair waxless Karhu Catamounts- which is a good choice of ski but was a bit lacking on the climb.

The trip up was good, nice even pace, took about an hour to climb the 2100'. It was cold but we were working so it wasn't bad. As we got toward the summit the wind was a bit bitting. The entire trip up the views were unreal of Mount Washington and while we didn't spend much time at the summit due to the wind we did take a minute to enjoy the view (this isn't a shot we took, but it is from the same spot).



We quickly got into the woods to get out of the wind and it was amazing how much more comfortable it was in the woods. We descided that brunch at the Red Fox would be in order after the trip so I texted K to let her know that was the plan and then we pushed off.

The snow was great, there were a couple of sets of tracks so speed wasn't and issue and when the pitch was there you could get into the untracked and enjoy some nice turns. About a quarter of the way down we were complailning that neither of us brought a camera and then Ward realized that he had a camera on his phone- this is me looking dashing in the woods:

It was a great trip down and the Birch Glade was, as always, amazing! Ward was making some nice turns and got me wishing that I had brought "big gear", but I was managing fine just not able to be real aggressive with my turns. Of course the tables turned when we got to the flats and I was digging being on lightweight XC gear.

There were a few sections of old logging roads that had some interesting waterbar sections. Ward and I were doing out best 1980's spread eagles and Ward even threw in a very stylish back scratcher

It was fun skiing on the edge at times and there were even a few "gaps" that needed to be cleared at speed as some of the waterbars had running water going through. It should be noted that at one point we skied up to a small stream and I felt that I could jump it- Ward felt it wasn't doable- even trying to get his camera out to record either me laying in the water or me with broken skis- but I made it (barely) and then on his attempt he put a ski in the water which made gliding a bit interesting for a short bit.

We finally made it out to Carter Notch road and intelligently took off our skis and walked the half mile to the car and met up with everyone at the Red Fox.


Ok so we didn't do that- instead we began a foolish bushwack that included me beating up a blister to the point that I'm still wearing clogs four days later- but I won't go into details on our foolishness. Needless to say we made it out and then went and chowed down at Brunch.

It was great to get to ski with Ward and then catch up with Rebecca as well. If you haven't read her posts about here first crack at racing cyclocross in Belgium this past December you should- good stuff.

That's it for now- but we'll do the trip again- this time Ryan up at GGTOC won't bail on us- and we'll get JJ and my wife to go as well.

later,

DEA

2 comments:

bluecolnago said...

let's hear about the foolish bushwack.... :)

sn0m8n said...

Had I known there was going to be a spread eagle contest...