I woke up at 3am Saturday morning to bright light shining through the windows. I was wide awake, and thinking that I'd overslept, I got out of bed only to realize it was the full moon and I had another hour to sleep.
The alarm went off at 4am Saturday morning. I slammed down the snooze button and crawled slowly out of bed, barely awake. After the usual morning ablutions, I got in the car to go meet Meri. I was, remarkably, only a few minutes late, and that was directly attributable to the time in line at Dunkin' Donuts. We met up with Marshall along the way and soon were heading into Vermont to meet up with Tramper Al at our endpoint, the northern end of Section #7 of the Catamount Trail in Landgrove.
We left a car there, then drove around, past Bromley Mtn. Ski Area, to the current starting point of Section #6 (there's a gap between 5 & 6 at the moment) on Upper French Hollow Road. We geared up and hit the trail.
This portion of the Catamount is shared with snowmobiles, and in the cool of the morning was still frozen glaze, making for a bumpy, slippery glide. It was a little tricky to control - watch out for the little gullies that appear every so often in the belt track. Make sure one ski is in the runner track or you're likely going down!
The trail soon left the snowmobile route and the sun and warm air were nicely softening the top layer of snow over crust. This section was an extremely nice ski, following an open trail then meandering across a knob with fine views of Bromley. There were some neat little windings through the woods as well as crossings on fine bridges built by UVM and trail voluteers just a few years ago. I had a few issues here and there (read: I fell down), which I realized were due to my still thinking in an alpine/parallel-turn mode. I needed to rediscover my snowplow and it would take some effort (and bruises ... falling and planting your knee on the metal edge of your ski hurts).
We made some shorter, but steeper ascents and descents. The trail is beautiful through here and highly recommended. Good control for short stops and turns is a must. The snow was soft and provided nice resistance and glide, but Marshall, on waxable, needed to klister to get any kick. I had trouble when I'd try to take a different route through the trees (it wasn't so much an open trail here, more of a follow-the-blazes through the trees), because the crust beneath me would fail and drop me to a dead halt (read: I fell down). We would eventually come to South Road, marking the end of Section #6.
The next section was our first with a yellow caution triangle. It actually didn't seem that bad. While there was a decent grade off the road and down to a low point, it was very open woods. My snowplow had finally clicked back into place and I felt great. Tramper Al was of course already at the bottom waiting for us along with "I'm not a good skier" Meri, who was again proving herself more capable than she thinks. Marshall's super-long (210cm) skinnies were a bit vexing, but not as much as my skis (Fischer Outbound Crown 189cm) which suddenly seemed to grip me every now and then. My snowplow would suddenly shift and grind to a halt (read: I fell down). At the bottom of the descent Marshall noticed my boot didn't seem to be in my binding, which would definitely have caused those problems. In reseating it I noticed one of the pins didn't seem right. Hmm...
We continued on further and things got worse for me. I stopped and checked the binding again and this time it was apparent the binding was loose. I caught up to Meri, who had a multitool, and tightened it down. This had me concerned, because though the woods here were very beautiful, there was a definite roll to the land (never skins or hard-core equipment, just the ups and downs you'd get on the blues or maybe an occasional black at a cross-country center, but ungroomed) and I needed good control. Plus, I felt confident having just gotten alpine turns back out of my head, I didn't want something else to worry about. The snow was still in excellent shape, even with the warm (short sleeves) temperatures and sun. It was soft but in a good way; no sticking.
As we came up one more incline, I went to herringbone and the ski didn't go the same direction as my foot. Looking to see why, I saw that my binding had come right out of the ski. Only one screw was really holding it in. After shouting a few epithets, I carefully made my way to the top where folks were waiting and showed them the disaster. Immediately, Tramper Al went into doctor mode and came up with a duct tape solution to hold the front of the binding down. I managed to screw the rear screws in but now only had two of the three pins, the other being lost in the snow.
Remarkably, even with duct tape wrapped around my ski, I glided well and with even a bit of control made it all the way to Rock Bottom Road where the duct tape finally failed. At this point, it would not have been wise for me to go on. Even though I finally had retaught my legs to think cross-country, not alpine, with the binding the way it was it was unskiable. I said goodbye to the threesome and started walking up to the center of Peru, where I got pizza and a soda, then started up Hapgood Pond Road towards the finish point, hoping to meet up with everyone. I was an amusing site clomping down the road in my plastic Garmont ski boots, skis and poles lashed onto my pack in a big "X". I got most of the way there but was concerned that they'd be making much better time than me, so when a car stopped to offer me a ride (a fellow xc skier, based on the gear in the back), I accepted. That ride lopped about a half-hour to forty-five minutes off the end of my walk, and I was at the car at 3:00pm. Unfortunately, I left my gloves in the car of the ride - he's got a nice pair of almost-new inner gloves. Consider it karmic payment. And thank you, whoever you were, even though as it turned out, and you will read in a moment, I could have walked the final couple miles with time to spare.
You see, the thing is, even though I spent time lounging around eating pizza, apparently the group was lounging around at the Macartney House. So in spite of being on skis, they didn't get to the finish until 5:00pm. I used the waiting time wisely, though - I opened my foam pad in a sunny spot and took a nap.
I don't have the pictures ready yet - I have to go visit family for Easter. I'll hopefully post them and a GPS track tonight. The TopoZone links above are from actual GPS waypoints I took along the way. I skied about 4-1/2 miles, walked about 4 miles, and rode about 2 miles.
The Catamount Trail was beautiful. It goes through great areas and was a lot of fun. I, however, now need to do some ski shopping and I think I'm going to get something a little beefier than the Outbound Crowns. Karhu Pyxis, Fischer Outtabounds, or maybe even Boundless. We shall see.
Now for Tramper Al, Marshall, or Meri to fill in the rest of the trail!
The alarm went off at 4am Saturday morning. I slammed down the snooze button and crawled slowly out of bed, barely awake. After the usual morning ablutions, I got in the car to go meet Meri. I was, remarkably, only a few minutes late, and that was directly attributable to the time in line at Dunkin' Donuts. We met up with Marshall along the way and soon were heading into Vermont to meet up with Tramper Al at our endpoint, the northern end of Section #7 of the Catamount Trail in Landgrove.
We left a car there, then drove around, past Bromley Mtn. Ski Area, to the current starting point of Section #6 (there's a gap between 5 & 6 at the moment) on Upper French Hollow Road. We geared up and hit the trail.
This portion of the Catamount is shared with snowmobiles, and in the cool of the morning was still frozen glaze, making for a bumpy, slippery glide. It was a little tricky to control - watch out for the little gullies that appear every so often in the belt track. Make sure one ski is in the runner track or you're likely going down!
The trail soon left the snowmobile route and the sun and warm air were nicely softening the top layer of snow over crust. This section was an extremely nice ski, following an open trail then meandering across a knob with fine views of Bromley. There were some neat little windings through the woods as well as crossings on fine bridges built by UVM and trail voluteers just a few years ago. I had a few issues here and there (read: I fell down), which I realized were due to my still thinking in an alpine/parallel-turn mode. I needed to rediscover my snowplow and it would take some effort (and bruises ... falling and planting your knee on the metal edge of your ski hurts).
We made some shorter, but steeper ascents and descents. The trail is beautiful through here and highly recommended. Good control for short stops and turns is a must. The snow was soft and provided nice resistance and glide, but Marshall, on waxable, needed to klister to get any kick. I had trouble when I'd try to take a different route through the trees (it wasn't so much an open trail here, more of a follow-the-blazes through the trees), because the crust beneath me would fail and drop me to a dead halt (read: I fell down). We would eventually come to South Road, marking the end of Section #6.
The next section was our first with a yellow caution triangle. It actually didn't seem that bad. While there was a decent grade off the road and down to a low point, it was very open woods. My snowplow had finally clicked back into place and I felt great. Tramper Al was of course already at the bottom waiting for us along with "I'm not a good skier" Meri, who was again proving herself more capable than she thinks. Marshall's super-long (210cm) skinnies were a bit vexing, but not as much as my skis (Fischer Outbound Crown 189cm) which suddenly seemed to grip me every now and then. My snowplow would suddenly shift and grind to a halt (read: I fell down). At the bottom of the descent Marshall noticed my boot didn't seem to be in my binding, which would definitely have caused those problems. In reseating it I noticed one of the pins didn't seem right. Hmm...
We continued on further and things got worse for me. I stopped and checked the binding again and this time it was apparent the binding was loose. I caught up to Meri, who had a multitool, and tightened it down. This had me concerned, because though the woods here were very beautiful, there was a definite roll to the land (never skins or hard-core equipment, just the ups and downs you'd get on the blues or maybe an occasional black at a cross-country center, but ungroomed) and I needed good control. Plus, I felt confident having just gotten alpine turns back out of my head, I didn't want something else to worry about. The snow was still in excellent shape, even with the warm (short sleeves) temperatures and sun. It was soft but in a good way; no sticking.
As we came up one more incline, I went to herringbone and the ski didn't go the same direction as my foot. Looking to see why, I saw that my binding had come right out of the ski. Only one screw was really holding it in. After shouting a few epithets, I carefully made my way to the top where folks were waiting and showed them the disaster. Immediately, Tramper Al went into doctor mode and came up with a duct tape solution to hold the front of the binding down. I managed to screw the rear screws in but now only had two of the three pins, the other being lost in the snow.
Remarkably, even with duct tape wrapped around my ski, I glided well and with even a bit of control made it all the way to Rock Bottom Road where the duct tape finally failed. At this point, it would not have been wise for me to go on. Even though I finally had retaught my legs to think cross-country, not alpine, with the binding the way it was it was unskiable. I said goodbye to the threesome and started walking up to the center of Peru, where I got pizza and a soda, then started up Hapgood Pond Road towards the finish point, hoping to meet up with everyone. I was an amusing site clomping down the road in my plastic Garmont ski boots, skis and poles lashed onto my pack in a big "X". I got most of the way there but was concerned that they'd be making much better time than me, so when a car stopped to offer me a ride (a fellow xc skier, based on the gear in the back), I accepted. That ride lopped about a half-hour to forty-five minutes off the end of my walk, and I was at the car at 3:00pm. Unfortunately, I left my gloves in the car of the ride - he's got a nice pair of almost-new inner gloves. Consider it karmic payment. And thank you, whoever you were, even though as it turned out, and you will read in a moment, I could have walked the final couple miles with time to spare.
You see, the thing is, even though I spent time lounging around eating pizza, apparently the group was lounging around at the Macartney House. So in spite of being on skis, they didn't get to the finish until 5:00pm. I used the waiting time wisely, though - I opened my foam pad in a sunny spot and took a nap.
I don't have the pictures ready yet - I have to go visit family for Easter. I'll hopefully post them and a GPS track tonight. The TopoZone links above are from actual GPS waypoints I took along the way. I skied about 4-1/2 miles, walked about 4 miles, and rode about 2 miles.
The Catamount Trail was beautiful. It goes through great areas and was a lot of fun. I, however, now need to do some ski shopping and I think I'm going to get something a little beefier than the Outbound Crowns. Karhu Pyxis, Fischer Outtabounds, or maybe even Boundless. We shall see.
Now for Tramper Al, Marshall, or Meri to fill in the rest of the trail!
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