Saturday, March 14, 2009

Woodland, one last time

Going, going ...

... which describes my ski this morning, and the snow this afternoon. When I hit the trails at 9 it was still mostly powdery (yup, untransformed) with a couple icier sections (climbs up Top o' the World, Peeper, Scouring in particular). As the temperature climbed and I disrobed, it began to slow down. I noticed that it was significantly slower by my third lap, and my fourth (down to shorts) was wicked slow on my cold-base skis.

My good skis with faster bases are sitting in my living room, so I took out my rock skis, which were not necessary but had the requisite "induced structure" from meetings with rocks, sticks and asphalt. They were decidedly faster than the other skis, but that's like saying a Pinto is faster than a bicycle—there were no illusions of speed, just a little less suction-y lurching. With the temperature in the 40s and the snow transformed, my fifth lap was slow but nice, and from Thursday's 0˚ outfit of shorts, long underwear, pants, two shirts and a thick fleece I had subtracted everything but the shorts (and had thinner socks on to boot).

The slaves were out as sawyers in the afternoon (they were skiing earlier on) and will groom what they can tomorrow. My money is on about an 8k loop, losing Stony Rollers, Peeper Hollow and Wash Pond (which is already down a bit) with an icy/wet spot on Scouring Rush Run, but continuity elsewhere, with thin spots on Top o' the World and Scouring. I'd also say it's likely it'll be a short walk to the trails tomorrow from the lot (100m). But they'll work their magic, the low is forecast in the 20s (so ski early) and whenever you can ski on the Ides of March it's not a bad thing.

I can only get to two trails at most, on a good day! Check out all the trail reports at skinnyski.com

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