3 hours of skiing

I went skiing for 3 hours at Wachusett today. I didn’t stay longer because I wasn’t well rested, and started to feel tired by noon. Probably would have been better not to go ice skating the day before.

I started around 9 am with Ralph’s Run, a blue trail. At first everything went perfectly! I was carving some beautiful turns and the trail felt great. Then I noticed it began to get a little bit icy. Not solid ice, but there were sections where the powder was wearing thin.

So I went over to the green trails, Indian Summer and Sundowner (my photo was taken at the top of Sundowner). Sundowner has hills which make it a little tough to practice turns, so I mostly went down Indian Summer. The only problem with this area is that the lift is slow. It’s a nice ride though, and gives you time to rest. The snow conditions were better here, but the trail is pretty short, unfortunately.

I also took a few trips down Conifer, another blue trail. This has some sections which are slightly steeper than Ralph’s Run, and in addition it had more scrape-y icy spots. I wound up on my butt more than once!

For my last run I went down Challenger, and somehow managed to invade a “NASTAR” training race. Oops! I wasn’t the only one who was confused, so I didn’t feel too bad. This area was getting icy too so I decided enough was enough, and turned in early.

Nice thing about Wachusett, if you leave before 12:30 you are refunded $10. It seemed wise to leave and get the discount, since my form was getting progressively worse as I got more tired and the conditions were clearly not getting any better.

I think my skiing technique has continued to improve. Lito Tejada-Flores' video is a really big help, especially if I watch it the night before a ski trip. Also, it feels like my ice skating work has helped my skiing technique – the pumping motion is similar, and my balance is better.

I need more practice. I also think I need to get more specific advice about how to deal with icy conditions, since I encounter them too often.

See more progress on: learn how to downhill ski better

I want to ski the black diamonds

I’ve been skiing for about 20 years, but just a few times a year, and not every year.

I’m still not very comfortable on skis. I can ski down blue and green slopes but the reds and blacks are pretty much off limits. (Of course it’s all relative; I have skied down some black slopes on very small mountains.)

Tomorrow I’m doing a little skiing. So tonight I’m pulling out Lito Tejada-Flores' video “Breakthrough on Skis”. Watching this helped me improve in the past. Hopefully it will be help tomorrow.

See more progress on: learn how to downhill ski better

snowboarding!

I went snowboarding for the first time last weekend. It was great! The snow conditions were just about perfect. I'll definitely be trying this again.

matters of life and death

matters of life and death
Originally uploaded by wereldmuis.

The Rubin Museum is currently showing two exhibits about death. One is called "Remember That You Will Die" and the other is "Bardo". Both were quite interesting.

view from the chelsea hotel

NYC view from the Chelsea Hotel
Originally uploaded by wereldmuis.

Lazed around NYC on Saturday. Nice day!

beautiful

beautiful
Originally uploaded by wereldmuis.

Did I mention the terrain in Val D'Isere is magnificent?

I have to figure out a way to take an entire winter to tour the towns in the French Alps and get a good sampling of all the skiing available. I'm pretty sure Val D'Isere is some of the best available (at least at my level), but I'd like to know what I'm missing, too.

polo

polo
Originally uploaded by wereldmuis.

In a weird coincidence, there were a few games of a winter polo match being played during our visit. It was fun, and we wound up standing around in the cold to watch for much longer than we thought we would.

petit dejeuner at chevallot

petit dejeuner at chevallot
Originally uploaded by wereldmuis.

In addition to the wonderful skiing in Val D'Isere, the town has a lot of old world charm.

For the best breakfast, you must go to Chevallot (the one on the main road). Their "petit" dejeuner is huge, and every bite is mouth-watering.

glorious

glorious
Originally uploaded by wereldmuis.

I took another ski vacation in Val D'Isere a few weeks ago (I've been there twice before, in 2007 and 2003). This has got to be some of the most glorious ski terrain in the world!

granary burial ground

granary burial ground
Originally uploaded by wereldmuis.

We took a walk along part of the Freedom Trail. There are several old cemeteries along the trail, in which rest some historically important people. This is a tombstone at the Granary Burial Ground. The tombstones here are really neat, many of them engraved with skulls of some sort.

cemetery on boston common

cemetery on boston common
Originally uploaded by wereldmuis.

In keeping with the Halloween theme, we visited some cemeteries in Boston on Sunday. This is the Central Burying Ground on Boston Common.

drum column

drum column by cal lane - detail
Originally uploaded by wereldmuis.

This sculpture by Cal Lane has some fun Halloween-ish details.

red berries

red berries
Originally uploaded by wereldmuis.

It was looking very autumnal at the DeCordova.

eternal presence by john wilson

eternal presence by john wilson
Originally uploaded by wereldmuis.

Last weekend - Halloween - my sister came for a visit. We went over to the DeCordova sculpture garden. The weather was fantastic, nice and warm, except for some insanely blustery winds.

appalachian trail view

view
Originally uploaded by wereldmuis.

On our third day of hiking, we did 7.1 miles along the Appalachian Trail in CT, between Rt 341 and Bulls Bridge Rd. We kept a good pace, 1.8 mph or so. My sister has a Garmin Forerunner, and it was fun to try it out.

highest point in connecticut

ma ct
Originally uploaded by wereldmuis.

After passing over Brace Mountain, we followed the red trail blazes to Mount Frissell and on, coming to this little pin which marks the highest point in CT. It reads "MASSACHUSETTS - CONNECTICUT - STATE LINE - 1803 - 1906".

From there we hiked on out to Mt Washington Rd, where we'd placed another car.

view

view
Originally uploaded by wereldmuis.

The following day, we did an end-to-end hike over Brace Mountain and Mount Frissell, which turned out to be shorter than expected. We started our hike from the South Taconic Trail trailhead off Quarry Hill Rd in Millerton, NY. The trail up this way is pretty steep, with a few scrambles up rocky ledges, which can be fun, although I wouldn't want to try it in the rain

tory den on tunxis trail

tory den on tunxis trail
Originally uploaded by wereldmuis.

I took a short vacation with my sister this weekend. The first hike we did was along the Tunxis in CT. This is a look at Tory Den.

smith walton

smith walton
Originally uploaded by wereldmuis.

I started out skiing Ralph's Run, a green trail. After regaining my "ski legs," I tried the blue Challenger a few times.

While riding the lift up to Challenger, I asked a perfect stranger on the lift how bad the black diamonds were. He assured me that I'd have no trouble with them whatsoever! (Funny how people can be perfectly confident in this kind of snap judgment). He told me I could take Mass Pike on over to where the black diamonds were, and if necessary I could always come down a blue trail. That was true, as I verified it on my trail map before trying it.

Anyway, it turned out he was correct, sort of. I actually took Mass Pike over to Salamander Cutoff, which I thought was a blue trail, and skied down that. I thought it was a little difficult.... When I reached the bottom, I saw that on the trail map it is listed as a black diamond, although when I turned onto the trail I thought the sign was blue.

I decided that having taken a black diamond unknowingly, and survived, I would try all the rest. So I did Smith Walton a couple of times, and then tried 10th Mountain. Both were very reasonable. They were about the same difficulty as some of the more difficult blue trails that I've taken in the Alps, but were by no means the most difficult trails I've ever skied.

I also did some practice runs down Indian Summer, which is a short green trail. To get there, you take the Monadnock Triple Chairlift, which is very leisurely. And I interspersed my black diamond runs with some skiing down the blue Conifer Connection to Lower Conifer, meandering through some of the smaller trails, like Lower Balanced Rock.

It was a great day! I only spent about 3-4 hours skiing, because I got tired. I wish I'd gone skiing earlier in the season. I'll be bummed if I only get to go once this year. Everyone I talked to seemed to think that the "end is near." I'm hoping for a few more giant snow storms, though.

It's especially fun skiing where you know that you've been hiking over the summer. Although I honestly didn't recognize a thing!

my skis

my skis
Originally uploaded by wereldmuis.

I always get rentals. Usually they don't fit my feet very well. I should probably get a pair of ski boots custom made. It just seems like too much expense for something that I don't do all that often.

If you zoom in on the snow, in this photo, you'll see the corduroy-like tracks made by the groomers.

Usually after I've been skiing for a while, my feet start to freeze. Especially my toes. But today the weather was perfect. I didn't get too cold at any point. I'm not sure exactly what the temperature was, something like 30 °F at the base. It was slightly windy, too, but nothing that I really noticed.