Jay Peak 2K11
Another successful trip to Jay Peak has come and gone. Jay is a skiers mountain, despite it’s lower trail count (77) and less than huge vertical (“2,000ft”) the terrain is awesome and challenging. The glades cannot be beat and the access to off piste skiing, so I hear, is a huge plus. I did not get to partake in the off piste this trip, but maybe a repeat trip is necessary in March???
Valhalla glades and Andre’s Paradise remain a couple of my favorite glades, you can’t beat the views off of Vermonter from the Tram and flying (literally) down The Jet left me with quite the adrenaline rush. Marissa enjoyed The Jet in freshly groomed condition as well as Goat Run, JFK, Ullr’s Drea, Northway, Catwalk and Montrealer.
More updates and pics to follow!
Link to sick pic of the Jarvv in action.
Backyard Backcountry
Mt. Tom, one of my favorite hiking/trail running state parks in WEMA, actually used to be a ski area. I (or maybe Jackson, I forget) discovered this last year while perusing the NELSAP (New England Lost Ski Areas Project) website. Earlier in the season, fall’10, we discussed the possibility of checking it out after a big powder dump. Well dump it did on 1/16-17, and I, of course, completely forgot about our goal to hit up Mt. Tom after a dump until a friendly reminder from the Jarvv himself while “working” the Thursday/Friday after the storm.
Plans were cleared with The Boss and Jackson arrived late Friday night for a cold brew before passing out. Dreams of untouched powder, face shots and earned turns passed through my mind all night. We all (Marissa “The Boss”, Jackson and I) woke up, had some coffee and breakfast and a good catch up sesh before Jacko and I suited up, packed up the car and made the short drive from Casa Cautino to the base area of Mt. Tom.
Mt. Tom base area.
It was about a 1/4-mile walk up the access road to the base of the slopes, while it was plowed asphalt, there was a good shoulder of pow that prompted many a “can’t wait to get skins/AT setup” comments from both of us. Once we got to the base we could clearly see the trails and even spotted a couple of people diligently (hilariously) making (tumbling) their way down the mountain.
- Note the blue skies
As we began our ascent it was b.e.a.u.t.i.f.u.l outside, clear skies, sun shining, a crisp mid-twenties, which was welcome as it was near zero degrees F when we woke up. Despite it only being in the low 20′s the hike up kept us warm, I even had to ditch the hat goggles and gloves and I was overheating a bit. [Quick tangent, I debated with myself for a few minutes back at the car on wether or not I should bring my ski jacket, so glad I left it at the car, I would have been the first person to die of heat exhaustion in January in New England on a sub-freezing temps day.] We made our way up the main slope and reached a flat area where some other trails merged, and where there apparently used to be a snack shop of sorts. From this landing we decided to go up some more lightly traveled trails to the summit, insert more skins/AT setup comments here.
Main slope, some saplings and undergrowth visible.
Summit! Looking at the radio tower from the drop for the old lift line.
We reached the summit in under an hour, we think (we forgot to check our watches before we left). It was starting to cloud over a bit, so we checked out the old lift house for a minute before gearing up and dropping into the powdahhh!
Fresh Tracks!
After a break at the bottom to reassemble the a-frames and chow on some cliff bars it was obvious that we had to do another lap! We took a similar route up the mountain, trading off with the camera and noticed some old snow guns hiding in the overgrowth.
Hiking back to the car after a great morning of exploring Mt. Tom on skis, maybe we’ll have our AT setups next time…
Saw this on the way to work this morning…
Clearly this guy is the man.
October Turns!
This past weekend Jackson and Nick Arvidson and I summited Killington Peak and took our first turns of the season on the way down.
What’s that, you say? Turns? In October? Surely you jest.
Check it out:
BAM, more to come later
One-legged cycling
This past weekend my dad Eduardo came out for a visit. Jackson joined in on some of the fun Sat. into Sunday. The main adventure is Marissa’s and mine patented WEMA trip: park at Hadley walmart and ride bikes on the Norwottuck Rail Trail into Northampton for lunch and brewskies at the Northampton Brewery.
This is a pretty easy 11 mile round trip and the NHB has excellent food and a great selection of brews.
This turned out to be no normal adventure.
As we arrived at our destination I went to unclip my left pedal, but ended up ripping off the whole crank!! That was strange… We locked our bikes up and I thought I successfully re-attached my crank to my spindle. Great, let’s eat!
Jackson and I ended up splitting a couple of delicious sandwiches: the NHB take on the classic Cuban sandwich, which was amazing, and their roasted turkey sandwich with a orange-cranberry spread, wicked good guy. The pops Jacko and I all ordered beer samplers and all agreed that the Chaos was the beer of the day. Marissa ordered her fave, the Basil’s Rathbone: “Sliced tomatoes, roasted red peppers, red onions, fresh basil, provolone cheese, and garlic mayonnaise, baked on fresh ciabatta.” In other words, a vegetarian delight.
Lunch was great, but we had to hit the road. As we all mounted our bikes I again ripped my crank off my bike. WTF?!? I tried again to bolt it back on, but it appeared that the Aluminum nut in the crank may have been stripped. Jsut to make sure, we stopped at the Northampton Bicycles where their bike mechanic proceeded to jump off his stationary and come check out the sitch. Bam, Stripped nut, crap. They didn’t have a replacement in stock (which would have been a minor miracle to begin with) so we bid adieu and headed out.
This is where it got fun. I proceeded to make my way back to the cars with my one good pedal powering me. As we got going, Jackson would speed up a bit, give me a push on my back while I would proceed to pedal as hard as I could to boost my speed as much as possible. We proceeded like this for the 5.5 miles jaunt back to the cars. The system worked pretty well as I would gain a good enough amount of speed to coast for 4-5 seconds before giving things another go. We ended up making pretty good time given the circumstances and laughed about the situation the whole ride.
Needless to say my right leg was toast when all was said and done, but we made it back under our own power without waiting for Marissa and Eduardo to ride ahead and get the cars.
Stefan: 1, Renegade Crank Nut: 0
(pics to be posted later)
Been A While
It has been a while since my last post, and despite being at work for 5 out of the last 14 days, I have basically been on vacation for the past 2 weeks.
First was the Kingdom Trails weekend with Jackson and Timecee. This was followed by a week of “work” and an early Friday departure on my way to Nantucket!
Some Bullets:
- FAST FERRY, say it with me now F-A-S-T F-E-R-R-Y, the ONLY way to go, unless you are bringing a car with you.
- Lost wallet no said Ferry, eventually found by ferry peoples, totally intact, WOOT!
- Arrived in beautiful downtown Nantucket after a total of 4 hours of travel ready to eat a snack and pass out, which I did.
- Woke up Early and took the dogs to the beach with the Wife and FIL, had an awesome time
- Beach, every day except for Thursday, Golf. I’m talking 6-7 hours of beach every friggin day, PHENOMENAL
- Ernie loves the water, Rocko does not, vids to follow
- Boogie Boarding down there rocks, solid waves, beautiful beaches
- Seals
- Dunn-nuh .. dunn-nuh ..
- No Great White sightings though… sad? happy? relieved? Dunno, would have been cool to see a great white destroy a seal.
- Great food, ate at:
Boarding House (twin lobster tale special, omg good) el Corazon del Mar (awesome guac, fish tacos, “Alote” style corn, amazing) and Lola Burger (Best burger I’ve had in a loooong time) - Couple of feasts at the house, Jim and Pete’s Lasagna, Tim D’s Perfect Fillets *TM
- Awesome sandwiches at the beach, Portuguese sweet rolls, mmmmmmmmmmmm
- Delish drinks and brews at the cisco brewery
- The Slip for drinks, multiple occasions
- Ended up following the locals to all the bars, completely not on purpose, we must have it their schedule in stride that night
- Boarding house bartenders pour with a HEAVY hand
- Green “football” type ball thing, wicked fun to throw around, so windy at beach you’d throw the ball in an arc towards the ocean to pass it to someone down the beach
- Throwing the dogs in the ocean and watching them body surf back to shore
- Marveling at the ridiculous yachts and fishing boats
- Corona, Pacifico and Kona Longboard Lager choice beach drinks of the week
KINGDOM TRAILS
Here’s the montage, ya’ll, unfort. youtube wouldn’t allow the soundtrack due to copyright issues so for those who want the full HD version, join up on dropbox and i’ll send you my info to get the vid.
For now:
Bacon!
Delicious sandwiches for breakfast and lunch today, both featuring B-B-B-Bacon!
First off a double egg bacon and super sharp cheddar on an everything bagel thin.
Second a turkey, muenster, avocado and bacon on wheat with a little BBQ sauce.
USA!!USA!!USA!!
USA – Algreria this morning!
GO USA!!
NY Times WC Blog – Awesome soccer blog, great stats, graphics, comments, analysis.
Mem. Wknd. / I’m Old Now….
I had an amazing weekend hanging out with friends in the cape, playing soccer and football on the beach, grilling for every meal, drinking adult beverages and playing games of all varieties. The only problem? I am officially getting old and my body hates me for all the fun I had.
I think soccer did me in the most as I pounded my bare feet running on the hard/wet sand while straining every muscle in my legs, kicking the ball, running into the Persian Wall of Persia followed by chucking the football as far as we could into and with the wind. Awesome fun, awesome pain.
The weekend started out driving from WEMA to Easton for a pit stop (chicken parm from marios) and then heading to JT’s family’s cape house in East Dennis. Hanging out ensued as JT, Mazz and Jeff were already there, Wife and I joined followed later on by Tom and Jill. Jackson arrived int he morning and we cooked up tons of bacon, pancakes, JT’s bananacakes and other goodness. Then. Beach.
The beach was great, perfect weather, low tide provided us with the soccer pitch and football field. Jackson had the genius idea to make pina coladas, DEEELISH. We gilled up a couple pigs worth of brats, basa and knocks then back to the beach for more fun. Nate and Ash finally made it sometime during the day, I forget if it was pre- or post-lunch. T and SQ showed up in the evening, drinks were had, games were played, food was eaten, LOTS of food: Shrimp Etouffe (sp?), rice, beer butt turkey, pasta salad.
Sunday was more of the same, Iced coffees, pancakes, bacon, beach. More fun times with the football at the beach and in the water which ended up being a perfect temp. The afternoon rolled around and the Wife and I headed back to Easton 
/ 
. because we were leaving the cape and because we got to see our pups and I got to play a horrible twilight round at Riverbend with Mikey. Met the Raskey pup, all the pups chilled.
Monday morning, 18 holes at Old Scotland Links with Timmy C, Tim D, and Mikey. Tim was ON FIRE, I was trying my best to not play golf apparently because my scores just kept going up and up and up and up…. In the end Mike beat T by a few strokes, Tim D. was a few more behind and I was waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay behind. After all this madness I went back to the Driscoll residence for their Mem. BBQ, proceeded to pass out on the patio couches and woke up just as people started arriving. Good times, good people, good food.
Tuesday morning, back to reality… and a 3 day work week!
Golf tourney Friday, let’s hope I remember how to hit the ball!
