The highly anticipated snowstorm left us with almost 6″ of wet snow on top of bare ground and ice. In the wood, 3″ made it to the trails. I hooked up the virgin roller to run it through the fields across the street hoping to see how it works. The results were better than I had hoped for. Easy to pull and wide which will hopefully reduce the number of passes needed to prepare the trails. This pass reintroduced me to the crappy steering of wet snow over bare ground. After a pass the snow sticks and sets making the steering on subsequent passes still poor but significantly better. The snow also shears away from the ground under the tracks so the ass end of the sled tends to wander a bit going uphill or across a pitch.

Overnight temps dipped into the low 20s which dried and firmed the snowpack. In the morning, the leveling drag was pulled over the rolled areas leaving a very nice skatable 200 meter loop. The forecast called for rain and warm temps and I was feeling a bit desperate to take a pass on the new trails before the snow melts. The new trails have a few narrow sections (openings in stone walls, trees, the bridge deck) and I was curious how the roller fit through or didn’t. The snow was deep enough to put a good lubricating layer on top of rocks and reduce the friction of snowmobile skis in addition to easing the transitions up onto and off the variety of lumps and bumps.

The roller frame is made of wood since it is cheap, available, already made for last season’s barrel, and easily altered. The flaws in the roller are flats at the end to catch on whatever I pass too close and no complete loop around the roller which drastically reduces the stiffness and bumpability. The axle is held in with hitch pins and stick proud of the side rails. Aware of these flaws I decided to go anyway and just be careful. A few times I did stop the sled, unhook the roller and walk it through the tight spots.

700 meters into the new trails at an off-camber slightly uphill left hand turn with the bars at the stop and under light power the sled goes straight, the back jags right. I feel a light bump and hear a loud crack. The flat of the roller frame grabbed a tree and broke. Normally a scenario such as this might send me into a profanity laced diatribe. Not this time. I just laughed at my impetuousness and luck of this happening at the end of a miserable season. I keep a bungee on the sled for some reason and it worked great to patch things up enough to pull the roller out of the woods.

Approaching the turn to head back to the house or across the bridge and the bulk of the trails I chose to head across the bridge and finish grooming with the roller. There were still a few places to gauge and the thing still moved so why not.

7 km. later with 1 to go the right side of the roller clipped a tree dislodging the hitch pin. The axle popped free and the roller experienced catastrophic and terminal failure. More laughing and I removed whatever pieces might fall off on the road and headed home for a cup of tea and something to eat. Later that day I loaded the debris into my truck and stored it in the barn for reconstruction this summer.

With rolled trails the only thing left to do was ski. Aside from crust skiing at the airport my beater skis hadn’t been used on the house trails all season. They have also never been waxed and the whitish bases should have miserable glide on the wet snow. Good thing too since there is still only enough snow in the woods to hurt myself on the downhill sections.

Even with the busted roller the day was a smashing success. The trails ski very well, the bridge held the equipment and I am now forced to buy some steel and weld up a proper roller frame.

2 comments

The forecast is calling for 6-10 inches of snow this Lap Year Day overnight. So far this season, the forecasters have been overly optimistic. If the snow falls into this range we should have enough snow to groom. The 4″ we received last week was enough to run the roller around a few of the trails but still not enough to ski on with abandon.

Tonight I’m expecting a NorIncher but hoping for the NorEaster or at least enough snow to ski in the woods. The treed sections of trail only have enough snow to cover the rocks and sticks. For my classic ski the other day temps were 25 F. Instead of wondering if blue wax the kick wax of choice, I pondered what “stick wax” to use. In the fields where there was enough snow, it was a wonderful blue day.

With any luck, I’ll awake in the morning to enough snow to groom and more importantly, to ski. It’d be fun to write about grooming and stop rehashing the lack of snow.

2 comments

This winter in the Upper Valley has been a bust. My hat is off to the skiers who made the effort to find snow and make something of this dismal weather. Mostly, I am impressed by the number of Vermont based skiers currently racing on the World Cups, Youth Olympic Games and currently racing for the US at the Biathlon Junior World Championships. Congratulations, thanks and wishes for great races to you all.

The snow cover on the house trails resembles the sugary white glaze found drizzled over some brands of ginger snap cookies. Shiny, hard and useless. The drizzle might also be thicker than the current offerings of snow. The snow we do have is impressively durable forming a great base. Its held up fantastically well despite being an inch thick and subject to a lot of rain and sunshine.

A summertime hobby is flying sailplanes; un-powered airplanes. My interest in un-motorized aviation extends to following the Vermont hang gliding scene. A member of the Vermont Hang Glider Association Yahoo group put together a study of average temperatures for winters since 1950. The winters are broken up by month. What his study indicates in this snowless winter follows a 30 year cycle based upon his small sample size. He correlated the data against some ocean temps whose cycle overlay the air data pretty well. Makes sense. I’d like to believe this winter will not be the new norm and is part of the micro cycle of climatic variability and not the introductory phase of catastrophic climate change.

A few old timers around here recall a winter during the early 80s when it didn’t snow until Valentine’s Day. They also recall receiving a good bit of snow to end the winter. There are still six weeks of potential snow producing weather so I remain optimistic for the opportunity to groom out the new trails and go for a ski.

There have been a few positives due to the lack of snow.

The glaze does a fantastic job contrasting the saplings and other bits of vegetation I thought I had cleared from the trails.

The wet areas I was worried about held enough snow they shouldn’t be too much headache during a more normal snow year. I hope the insulative value of the snow and larger amounts of potential melt water don’t prove this wrong since I’m quite happy with the trails.

I haven’t had to shovel any roofs.

I can head to the woodpile in sneakers.

There are fewer chunks of snow to crush when walking around the house in socks.

Without roads to plow and get in their workdays, local road crews are cutting back trees from the side of the roads greatly improving visibility.

The iceboating has been pretty great.

With luck, exposure to more consistently cold temps will kill off a good portion of the ticks which winter over in the leaf litter and rely on the snow to stabilize the temperature.

The overall lack of shoveling has been wonderful. The downside is losing shovel fitness for landscaping season.

Watching the frost grow along stream banks has been fascinating. The trails have several small creeklets maybe 2 feet wide I can usually groom right over. Midwinter they are hidden. In many of these waterways, a rise of 6 inches will blow them over the banks. The frost has lifted the banks over a foot in some places. The crystal structures separating the soil particles are very pretty.

Some friends currently living in and area of snowless Minnesota came east to get a New England fix (they grew up here). Today we plan on walking the ski trails to show them off and return home to tap trees. The temperature cycle is perfect to start the sap running. Maybe sugaring season will be decent. At least collecting buckets will be easier without having to wallow through the snow.

Comments are off for this post

The January thaw arrived just in time to thaw….what? A bee keeper friend explained the January thaw is crucial for the survival of bees. The warming temps are an opportunity for the bees to clean out the hive which helps prevent disease in the colony. Bees are a vital part of food production and I like to eat so if a few days of mid 40F temps help ensure a good supply of fruits and vegetables the following summer, sacrificing a bit of snow is a worthwhile tradeoff.

This winter Vermont’s Upper Valley has not received very much snowfall so the bees chores should be vastly simplified. The trails around my house have a gross snowfall of 16″ since Thanksgiving with 3″ of ice encrusted white gunk still here.

With new trails cut, the desire to head out and ski is very high. I’m curious if the trails actually ski as well as planned. Before the rains of the January thaw, we had 3 to 4″ of snow cover which is just enough to ski on and hurt ones self.

Rocks, stumps, roots, sticks, and clods of frozen dirt along with very uneven ground are covered with a thin veneer of very powdery snow. My wife Jill and I decided to temp fate and go for a ski around the trails. In short, the skiing sucked worse than Tom Brady’s self deprecating analysis of his performance in the AFC title game. We were able to ski around the trails with several crashes onto the aforementioned debris and frozen earth. One crash produced an impressive hematoma on Jill’s rear end. Beg as I might, requests for photo documentation for the loyal CG readers was denied so you will have to take my word for it.

The raspberry covers and area the size of a tea saucer and from the correct vantage point, the bruise appears to be a mottled pair of cycling shorts (it covers one butt cheek and half a thigh). Fortunately, this is the extent of the injury.

On the plus side, we skied across the bridge! The 17 feet of hard earned trail brought a huge smile to my face while gliding and not fighting my way across the creek. In the open field sections of the trails the skiing was quite good and enjoyable.

Examining the weather forecast and seeing the lack of snow on the ground I am getting a bit discouraged about the prospects of grooming and fearlessly skiing the trails. I am aware there are still 2 months of snow producing weather ahead and we might receive more snow than we care for but right now my mood is pretty bleak.

Hoping to break up the hopelessness I contacted Harry Roberts, the east coast distributor for Yellowstone Track systems grooming equipment and also the North American importer of Alpina Sherpa (no relation to the boot company) snowmobiles. http://www.trailgroom.com/ . Harry has a warehouse in White River Junction and we met up one afternoon so I could ogle the sleds and YTS gear. He offered me the chance to take a grooming pass on a trail with 4″ of snow. Cold weather and my lack of preparedness (no gloves, wearing sneakers) and having to pick the kids up from school forced me to take a raincheck.

The Sherpa is an impressive machine fitting in between a full on snowcat (Pisten Bulley, Thiokol, Prinoth) and a utility snowmobile. Powered by a Ford automobile engine driving twin tracks provides great floatation and traction. With a Sherpa it would be possible to pull wider equipment and groom up my trails making one pass rather than three. The market for these machines are touring centers and industries ranging from mineral exploration to energy production and transmission. I figured while I was dreaming of having snow I might as well fantasize about having a tow vehicle I can also use to pull cars out of ditches. Cutting grooming time and not smelling two stroke exhaust would also be a plus.

The YTS grooming equipment is pretty cool too. After having built up a quiver of implements I’m not in the market for anything new right now but while I’m fantasy shopping let’s add an 82″ Ginzu with dual tracksetters to the order.

3 comments

This past weekend, we got together to taste friend’s collection of single malt Scotchs. The collection is quite extensive with each distilling region of Scotland well represented. While debating and discussing the merits of Highland region Scotch, someone brought up the lack of snow here in Vermont. I wish it was an excess of tasting causing me to whine, bitch and complain about not having any snow to groom or the ability to ski locally. My diatribe was the product of being spoiled not loaded.

After twenty seconds of whining about being all dressed up with nowhere to go I was told to shut up and quit complaining. A lot of people (ski industry, property maintenance workers, snowmobiling, etc.) who depend on snow to earn a living were going to have a hard time of it even if we receive the average amount of snowfall for the rest of the year. After the flooding of Irene put a hurting on the autumn tourist season and the lack of snow, the tourism dollars Vermont is so dependent upon are way down.

He had a good point so I returned to discussing the balance of malt and peaty smoke, the finish and general impressions of the 16 year old Ancnoc in my glass which I raised to toast those who rely on snow to make a living. I am still disappointing and aware of being a bit spoiled by my good fortunes of skiing right out the door. Part of my disappointment with the lack of snow is grooming has become a bit of an end in itself. I enjoy grooming the trails and watching people having fun while skiing on them. The trails are clear of sticks, rock, and debris. The snow catching and eye poking limbs have been cut and the grooming equipment is all set to go as soon as we receive another 6″ of snow.

The latest snowfall event dropped 3″ at the house. This brings the total snowfall to 16″ for the year. Only the latest 3″ are still here everything else having since melted. There is now just enough snow to cover rocks. roots, bumps and frozen ground. There is not enough snow to bury them enough to ski safely.

The snow line must have just passed us by because 10 miles away the Strafford Nordic Center was blessed with enough snow to groom and open the trails. This winter is the first season for the new center and I’m glad to see the trails are available for skiing. I’ve skied there a few times and gone running with the owner this past autumn. They have a beautiful area and fun terrain. If I really need a grooming fix maybe I can beg my way into the extra seat in the snowcat and take a lap or two of the trails.

Lake Fairlee has frozen over and the three inches of snow have been transformed into a nice layer of styrofoam. The fun of skiing on the lake is the ability to ski 4 abreast with the family. The lack of hills is a bit dull but the constant wind makes for a slight change of pace. The lack of groomed snow accentuated the tracks left in the snow. Based upon the number of different tracks we saw, humans are the only animals traveling in a straight line. Everything else wanders around. When I downloaded the GPS the trace on a map wanders around quite a lot too. Looking at the small animal tracks in the snow and the large animal tracks (us) on the map was a fine example of fractals. The kids pointed this out so evidentally sending them to school is paying off.

With the wind cranking pretty good I broke out the traction kites stowed away for the past 5 years. With metal edged tele gear strapped to my feet and by attaching a rope to the back of my harness it was possible to tow the kids around. The 7 meter Flexifoil generated a good amount of power and the kids had a blast cutting big turns and slingshotting around behind me.

We ended the MKL weekend by taking the dog out skijoring today. Pip has been the sled dog last year (there might be photos in previous posts) when we had deep snow and defined tracks. With the open space provided by the lake he too wandered around quite a bit. Pip is at his best with something to chase so I skied out front while Jill, Liv, and Nate took turns attached to the dog.

The forecast is calling for a wintery mix with 1″ of snow before switching over to rain for Tuesday. With luck it will be all snow.

Comments are off for this post

Christmas morning got underway at 5:30 AM. In most households with kids, the morning usually gets started by children sneaking around trying to be quiet hoping to appease parental units who have set some sort of curfew about releasing noisy excitement. This year it was me kicking things off. Not so much from excitement; I just couldn’t stay in bed any longer.

The morning was fun. When the after present opening hangover set in we all decided to burn it off going for a ski. The 3″ of snow we received a few days before stuck around and was transformed by the sun and cold nights into a 2″ layer of excellent styrofoam just perfect for crust skiing. The house trails are too bumpy and in the trees to have any decent amount of snow to ski so we headed down the hill to the local airport. The grass runways are free of rocks and have been supporting early season/low snow skiing for years. It was a blast ripping around (relative to sitting around in the morning) the airport. We played freeze tag and just skied 4 abreast for about an hour.

Arriving home it was disheartening to see the trails with snow at an unskiable depth. Then it rained wiping out the airport nordic center. The rain did fill up the “pond” out behind the house. This depression gathers and hold water during the winter months and might be 20 meters long and 8 meters wide. We messed around and played some form of pond hockey. It soon dawned on me there was more snow like skate generated white stuff on the pond than on the ski trails. I Googled home snowmaking while sipping on a cup of hot chocolate. Making snow will be extra impracticable so I just might try it at some later date as we get more desperate for snow to ski on. The bridge has been decked and the frost has firmly attached any rocks to the earth so prying them loose will have to wait for summer. What to do to advance the condition of the ski trails?

There has been a 24″ diameter section of double walled plastic culvert sitting in the back yard for the better part of two months. Time to build a roller to replace the crappy blue plastic barrels I have shish-kabobbed with a piece of conduit and haul around behind the sled. It works but is too narrow and not very round. It has terrible directional stability and tends to slide downhill while traversing slopes or to the outside of turns due to the taper acting as a ski tip shovel allowing the thing to glide over the snow.

The first task for building the roller was figuring out how to support the axle inside the barrel. My friend and fellow CG, Andy, used wheels from an ATV. He stuffed the wheel assembly into the culvert, inflated the tires and ran a steel rod through the bearings. A wooden frame connects to the axle to the sled and he has a very cool roller. Seeing Andy’s roller was inspiring. I don’t have an ATV to cannibalize but I do have a pile of 1″ square steel tubing and a torch.

Using AutoCAD to divine the dimensions of the steel pieces, I set to work cutting the long stock to finished length. My bearings will be a section of plastic decking bolted to the four armed “spider” and have another piece of conduit for the axle. The spider will have stubs welded to run parallel to the long axis of the culvert. The stubs will accept bolt to keep everything together.

I hadn’t welded in a year or so and it shows. My old shop teacher must be rolling in his grave assuming he’s dead. The welds will hold despite being splattery and slightly under-filled with rod. The welds did improve as I regained some form but overall they look really fugly.

Next up is retrofitting the barrel frame to accept a 6 foot long cylindrical roller. The wider roller should reduce the number of passes I need to push the air out of the snow after it falls. I still have faith we will have a decent ski season ahead of us.

2 comments

2″ of snow helped lubricate the trail surface greatly enhancing the ability of a telephone pole section to slide. The smaller pole required about an hour to move the final 100 meters to the creek and span the gap. Not too bad with one down and one to go. The larger pole must weigh 50 to 75 pounds more than the smaller section. Just enough difference to make lifting it onto the dolly a lot of extra work. In frustration with the extra lifting, my impatients got the best of me and I managed to peel the tire off one of the wheels. Riding on the plastic rim, the dolly continued to work easing the pulling but the smaller diameter tended to become stopped more often.

Saturday morning in between basketball tournament games (one in the morning and one later in the afternoon) the kids were co-opted into moving pipe sections while I yanked on the rope. There was a section of pipe with a strip removed sitting in the scrap pile. The rim of the dolly slipped perfectly through the slot and supported the wheel enabling a much easier traverse of mud, rocks and roots. The second and final pole is now set across the creek awaiting the decking to complete the bridge.

With the bridge poles in place the next order of trail building was plucking rocks from the skiing corridor. Anything up to the size of a bowling ball was easily popped out with the pointed end of a pick axe. Bowling ball to laundry basket sized rocks needed a pry bar to lift out of the soil before being rolled off the trail. Bigger than a laundry basket and another form of mechanical advantage was necessary.

In addition to size, the shape and how it is buried determines how much effort will be needed to move a piece of stone. The tool kit for moving the BIG rocks is a chain, several nylon tow straps, pry bars, and a come-a-long. If the rock can be moved even the slightest bit there is hope of getting the thing out of the trail. A bit of digging is needed to find some aberration in the surface to give purchase to a tow strap connected to the come-a-long. By pulling with the come-a-long and lifting the rock using a pry bar, the large piece of stone can be lifted up and out of the ground. Once the rock is free of the earth it can be rolled off to the side of the trail.

The kids enjoy moving large rocks and spent the time between Sunday’s tournament games pulling the handle of the come-a-long while a neighbor and I added power with pry bars. For the really big stuff the kids stepped aside, took photos and enjoyed telling the adults to keep working. Best guess, based upon moving large stones while landscaping, the biggest rock we moved weighted in somewhere in the 800-1,000 lb range.

While not perfect, the trails are now skiable. I have a line on some 2″ rough cut hemlock to deck the bridge and this task can be accomplished even after the ground freezes. There is still a few hours of trail work to complete but with enough snow what we have now will ski just fine. Each pass of the trails gets them a bit closer to use with minimal cover. Eight inches of cover is enough to begin grooming. Right now, the newly cut trails need about a foot of unpacked snow to cover the assortments of objects (rocks, roots, wet areas, etc.). Two feet will be better. There is no snow in the week’s forecast but with nighttime temps in the teens the ground should freeze so any snow we do receive should stick around.

2 comments

The last few posts contain quite a bit of whining about my procrastination for getting firewood put up and the completion of trail work/bridge building and how these chores have been compromised by the arrival of snow. The stars aligned this past week and blessed me with no work, no kid chores and decent weather. The firewood is almost finished being split and stacked. The ski trails are free of downed trees and stove ready logs.

The new sections of trail have been flagged and mostly cut. What’s left is clearing the cut wood and trying to remove a few large stones. The first goal was to make the new sections of trail groomable and skiable. If the snow holds off the next order of business will be to make the trails skiable with minimal snow cover.

There is hope of connecting a few sections of trail now separated by roads. Having continuous trails will greatly improve the ability to groom and enhance the skiing. The currently finished trail system is made up on four plots of land. The lots are separated by either a road, creek or trail-less wooded areas. Skiing between lots requires a bit of off-piste skiing or removing skis to cross roads. The bushwhacking is okay going downhill but heading up just plain sucks. Most of the suck factor is not having packed snow to prevent pole baskets from disappearing. Crossing a small creek adds to the difficulty of a ski. Diehard skiers don’t seem to mind but for those new to nordic skiing, the bushwhack and stream crossing don’t do much to make skiing fun. True cross country for sure but a lot of work.

This past summer a few telephone poles were replaced along the road. The installation crew told me the old poles were available to whom ever wanted them. I snagged one planning to build a small bridge to cross the aforementioned creek. 16 foot long sections of telephone pole are too heavy to drag as they lay. The field across the road with the shortest access to the creek is undergoing a restoration and we were asked not to drive a vehicle through to the woods. The poles were moved by hand using rollers (3″PVC) a few nylon straps pilfered from the climbing rack, a come-along, some chain, a pry bar, a few shackles, and 100 feet of 5/8″ static rope. From the base of the driveway where the poles were stored to the bridge site is, at most, 500 meters.

Moving the pole section was simple. The pole ends were lifted up onto the rollers and by tying one end of the rope to a tree ahead of the pole and running the free end through a shackle (no pulleys on hand fit the rope) a makeshift doubler was made. Even with the friction of the rope on shackles, there was enough mechanical advantage for one person to pull the rope and move the poles. Working alone since all of the available help have jobs, I was able to move each pole about 75′ per hour. Most of the time was spent walking around the poles picking up sections of pipe, finding a fulcrum to help lift the pole and inserting the pipe beneath the pole. The longer the pipe, the less likely the pole would fall off which reduced the amount of time rigging things. Pulling was the easy part.

All sorts of speculations have been made about how the Egyptians built the pyramids and how the blocks of stone were erected in England to complete Stonehenge. Someday, maybe an archeologist will ask how the bridge was built across the creek. In some odd way, moving the poles with rollers was satisfying but I couldn’t help wishing for a tractor and a pint of diesel fuel to move both poles in about 10 minutes. After a few hours, the poles were still less than half way to the bridge location and I was moving the poles through pretty level terrain. The next section of trail is filled with rocks, mud, roots and holes.

The pipe worked well but took a lot of time to keep resetting. As long as the leading edge of the poles was off the ground they moved relatively easily. Searching around the barn, an old mower was cannibalized and the wheels used to make a simple dolly to support the leading edge of the poles. The dolly worked great allowing the poles to more easily cross small roots, logs, rocks and even shallow mud. I quadrupled and maybe even pentupled the the distance moved per hour. The distance was now long enough to switch measuring units from feet to meters when describing how far the pole has been transported. Human power was still satisfying although I was still pining for help from internal combustion engines and hydraulics.

In total there are still 350 pole meters to go to the bridge site. Snow is predicted for tonight and while I’m still not finished with chores best done without snow, the idea of even more reduced friction while pole dragging gives new hope for having a bridge to use this winter.

Comments are off for this post

It was fun while it lasted. Most of the pre-Thanksgiving snow has melted to an un-skiable depth. Temperatures came up into the low 50F range during the day and just dipped below the freezing mark at night stretching out the skiability of the trails. I managed to get out four times on the home trails and skied one day at a brand new ski area, The Strafford Touring Center, in the nearby town of Strafford, VT.

The early snow cancelled the Center’s Turkey Trot running race scheduled for the day after Thanksgiving. Jeremiah Linehan, one of the center’s principals and former US Nordic combined team members, decided to host a 5k ski/snowshoe fun race instead. The race was planned as a community centered event intended to introduce the center to residence of the Upper Valley. Jere was hoping to attract 20 participants. Temps in the mid 30s and bright sun blessed the event. Based upon the size of the crowd at the start line and by doing a bit of race number math, my best guess is over 50 people participated in the ski race. Some people had never skied before and came out anyway. Patrick, the rep from Solomon, was mounting and prepping the rental fleet and sending the new gear out as soon as it was ready. It was awesome to see the enthusiasm from everyone involved racing, watching and running the event.

Skiing at an area besides my own trails gave rise to a few realizations. Having trails right out the door is nice albeit a bit solitary. Grooming and skiing the same trails has made them excessively familiar and heading out on unfamiliar trails was fantastic. I’m lucky and maybe a bit spoiled. The kids had fun getting away from the house too. Part of the idea of having trails at home is making activity part of the family’s lifestyles. Ski, snowshoe, running, whatever; just get outside and do something each day. This winter we’ll make an effort to get away a bit more to help keep the skiing part fresh. It’d be a downer to think giving the kids the easy opportunity to ski actually makes it boring and they want to stop such a wonderful lifetime activity.

The melting snow gives me another chance to complete, or at least get started on, the unfinished trail work. There is bucked up firewood to remove, a few wet spots to drain, a small bridge and a roller to build. Second chances are worthless of we don’t take advantage of being given them. The early snow and skiing a few k went a long way in helping me trade the mud season doldrums for a new found enthusiasm for the upcoming ski and grooming season.

The forecast predicts sun and the same pattern of temperature swings we’ve experienced for the past week.

Comments are off for this post