Tales from the Hinterland: 2014/2015 edition

It was really good seaweed (sweet and salty shredded nori)....

...For seaweed.  

You guys,,,,, you're supposed to smoke weed not eat it.

Snowballs wrote

You guys,,,,, you're supposed to smoke weed not eat it.

This is the new millennium, Snowballs... We've evolved.  
Stick that in your pipe and smoke it.....

TD

Dagnabit. Guess I'm old school.

Some people get up early and do "dawn patrol." Not me, I start late and do dusk patrol. After a slow start to the day and few household chores, I decided to go for a little tour from the house. At least six inches of light, fluffy snow had fallen since TD and skied yesterday and it was still coming down hard. I thought I should at least blaze the trail out to Secret Hill and maybe take a run. Well, I ended up taking two and skiing home in the almost-dark. Didn't quite have to use the headlamp but it was close.

Believe it or not, this is a fork in the trail. I went right, and it made all the difference:



The pole is set at 145 for touring. It is deep out here:



A happy snowhead. Not the snow-laden balsam fir behind me:



Secret Hill looks very mysterious. If you look closely, you can see the deer trail crossing the pitch:



The snow felt silky and I found myself making swooshing sounds with every turn. You know, "swish....swish..." Or maybe you had to be there.



Getting ready for the up. I'll tell you about my awesome McGyver skin tail clip fix later. Short version: it works. Knee deep in ski boots:



Stop taking pictures and ski - it's getting dark!

The last one deserves a post in the Charger love thread.  Just because...

Oui mon ami.

La Grizzly Adams et Charger est grand.

Vive la Voile !

Snowballs wrote

Oui mon ami.

Le Grizzly Adams et Charger est grand.

Vive la Voilé!

Fixed it for you. Sort of.

Merci  Monsieur Grizzly ! Je m'excuse, mais je pense que vous ayez quelque chose dans votre barbe. On dirait une crotte de nez, non ?

Snowballs wrote

Merci  Monsieur Grizzly ! Je m'excuse, mais je pense que vous ayez quelque chose dans votre barbe. On dirait une crotte de nez, non ?

Non, mon ami, simplement un glaçon. Je suis Grizzly, pas Yogi.

Where is MadPat when I need him?

awesome awesome, looks extra beautiful !

Mmmmmmmmm - snow. I wish we had some.

It was blower today.. Frigid air last night sucked the moisture out of it.  

Ventured out skiing today - I'll leave the TR to SBR, as that's his deal.  It was cold, as evidenced by this pic of SBR on the drive home - note the glaciated beard.   BRRRR!

Telemark Dave wrote

Ventured out skiing today - I'll leave the TR to SBR, as that's his deal.  It was cold, as evidenced by this pic of SBR on the drive home - note the glaciated beard.   BRRRR!

Note also the frozen PBH sandwich.

The cold sucked the life force right out of me, the TR will have to come after a good night's sleep.

I will give you this, from much earlier today:

Sick Bird Rider wrote

Telemark Dave wrote

Ventured out skiing today - I'll leave the TR to SBR, as that's his deal.  It was cold, as evidenced by this pic of SBR on the drive home - note the glaciated beard.   BRRRR!

Note also the frozen PBH sandwich.

The cold sucked the life force right out of me, the TR will have to come after a good night's sleep.

I will give you this, from much earlier today:

I cannot wait to find out what happened!!!!!

Dave,
Gord seems to be holding a tiny probe but were you guys also carrying avalanche bacons? Looks like a lot of snow!

ml242 wrote

Dave,
Gord seems to be holding a tiny probe but were you guys also carrying avalanche bacons? Looks like a lot of snow!

LOL...  Yeah, audible ones... I had to use mine.    <TD, in the process of ripping a beauty deep pow tree line, catches something deep in the snow..>.   " ARRGHHH..FUUUU$K"

...SBR... "You ok?  

Audible beacon worked fine for our terrain traps.

Hinterlandian Weekend Update - part one:

As you may have gathered, we went exploring yesterday. LeChef invited we "city folk" to drive up and explore some terrain he has been working on, specifically "Fire Tower Hill." Having seen the maps, I knew it was a bit remote but the drive in really made that point clear. We picked up LeChef at his house, about 20 minutes north of my house, then drove another 40 minutes or so into the back of beyond. We were pretty close to the western boundary of Algonquin Park, out of cell phone range and a long way from the comforts of home. Did I mention that it was effing cold?

Oh, yeah, there's parking - if you have a four-by-four.


We booted up, I shared the location of the truck keys with my ski partners (good ritual) and off we went, up the singletrack snowmobile trail, through the gravel pit, over the beaver dam, up the sidehill, up the the old fire tower road and finally down hill.

LeChef navigates the beaver dam.


We go up and up.


The first run was a good lesson in why it can be valuable to have skinner skis. After vaguely outlining the descent route, LeChef took off downhill, snaking his 80 mm skis through the shrubbery. TD and both found ourselves accelerating to mach looney on the fat Chargers (the skis trying to live up to their name) and then seeking opportunities to scrub speed on the narrow trail. We were pretty pumped at the bottom. I have no pictures of skiing, it was too cold and we were moving fast. Lots of pictures of climbing, since it is a good excuse to take a rest.

TD gets erratic on an erratic.


Up we went for another run in the cold smoke, LeChef halfway up the hill before TD or I had our skins attached. The guy does not stand around. We had agreed on trying his other zone, more open and lower angle he claimed. This was run of the day, nice open hardwood, the pitch getting progressively steeper with some intersting and fun undulations in terrain. Other than TD's slight mishap described above, this run much more Charger-friendly. But enough was enough and we were all getting a bit chilled.

On the hike out we enjoyed some stellar two-turn pow in the gravel pit.


LeChef's area has fantastic potential and we agreed that a pruning expedition would be on the agenda for next fall. I give it the SBR thumbs up:

Hinterlandian Weekend Update - part two:

Keeping warm on a frigid day takes a lot out of you. Then there is the skinning up and skiing down, which also takes a bit of energy. And nobody is getting any younger. As a result, today's ski did not start until three PM, although TD did go XC skiing with his wife earlier in the day. His Ibuprofen and Naproxen diet seemed to have cured any lingering side effects from yesterday's crash (more of a sudden stop, really), so off we went on a late afternoon jaunt to the Pipeline, our favorite local stash.

The base lodge at Pipeline is really cramped.


Up the 'line we go, tracks from last week nicely filled in.


The snow was beautiful, fast and supportive. We skied the first run non-stop, top to bottom, which is rare for me. Must be getting in better shape!

Up again. My favourite line here is just to skier's left of the skin track.


Second run I stopped for pictures. TD at speed.


Classic Pipeline view, it sure is nice to have this a five minute drive from home.


Skiing out in the late afternoon light.