mbike-ski

from sunday - moved on

nice! why u get 155 ladies skis? ;-P

killer trip with all the right ingredients - mad skis, mountains, family, beer and friends!

After 3 years of failed plans to ski tuckerman ravine it was time to get off the seesaw of deliberation. Reports of rain, snow, moderate avy danger had me reconsidering the trip, but worse case alternate plans of a test hike with the packs to ski the sherbourne trail or a lift served day at wildcat or cannon didn’t seem all that bad. The adventure was on The forecast snow never really materialized , Saturday’s reports weren’t as crusty as expected and the avy danger was posted as low Sunday morning – it was time to go! Junior and I set out in intermittet sun and snow showers and it didn’t take us long to work up a sweat with mild temps in the mid/upper thirties. As we neared hojo’s the snow was coming down harder. After a quick break and chat with one of the rangers we continued on. The sun shined for one incredible moment as we emerged from the pines exposing the spatial glory of the rising walls of the bowl, then was gone. No words or pics can communicate seeing the awesomeness and pitch of the bowl for the first time Visibility and skier numbers were low. we observed the various ski routes through the windy mix of snow and balls of packing peanut foam as we booted up before deciding on right gully. It was slow going trying to get a foothold in the soft snow and crusty surface below with no real boot ladder. Crampons definitely would have been the way to go for the upper elevations. Youth had the advantage as I peeled off right just before the rock entrance to the gully, telling my son to go as far as he felt comfortable and to remember he still had to get his skis off the pack and click in. He quickly caught up to a group ahead and followed in their boot tracks. He disappeared up into the gully to reach about 3/4 of the way to the headwall. It felt like a lifetime in the wind and snow waiting for him to emerge before following him down. His smile best describes the ski down through bootish deep cream cheese. (There was no way I was fiddling with a camera for any action shots – it was hard enough managing the pack and skis). The sun shined for another brief moment to see our tracks. We toasted with sly fox and a&w before heading down the little headwall The sun came out again for lunch and hydration at hojo’s before setting off down the sherbourne trail. The sherbie ski’d nicely top to bottom with soft spring snow and bumps and took us right to the car. It was amazing that an hour later I had gone from full on winter to sitting on the hotel room deck having a beer in shorts and a t. Certainly a great first tuckerman trip, the un-crowded and variable conditions provided more of the alpine adventure that we were looking for vs. mountain party shit show. Since we didn’t reach the top of the headwall, I guess we’ll just have to give it a go next year for the full tux experience On the way home Monday we stopped at killington. No better way to end a ski season than 50 degrees, great coverage, and bumps, bumps, and more bumps!

wow crazy pic! was thinking of ya when i saw the weather this morning!

ending the season yesterday with the kid killing it at killington

fiberlene doesnt provide enough hockey viewing and beverage sipping time - i prefer scraping

she' a blue cruiser plus for sure - but gets intimidated easily by big mountains. she skis better than her confidence allows and is limited by that unfortuntaley

after seeing all the great pics and tr's this, year a montana tour has definately moved up on the must do list i just need to convince mrs snobunski - she is somewhat intimidated by the terrain

looking good! (doesn't wan to embed?) even looks doable on my current rig! cool article about the builders; http://www.fattirefests.com/interview-dave-king-the-mastermind-behind-dirt-sculpt/

Bummed they closed - was headed up this morning when I saw your nyskiblog post and jr and I headed to platty instaed

quick TR (better late than never): Stratton Pond 3.29.13 After two days at Kmart the group we were skiing with wanted to ski Stratton. Based on info from goodman's book i decided to do an xc out and back ski to Stratton Pond first thing in the morning then catch up with mrs snobunski and the group for lunch and some afternoon turns. I got to the arlington-stratton rd lot just before 9:30 to a balmy 35 ish degrees under cloudy skies. i headed up kelly strand rd about a .25 mi to the catamount trailhead, 300 miles of ski trail that runs the entire lenght of vt. the first 1.5 mile is a gentle logging road climb, the soft but fast snow warmed me up pretty quickly and had me looking forward to the return glide back down. the second leg starts about half the distance to the pond and is where the real fun begins. you turn off the logginig road into some twisty, winding, roller coaster singletrack type trails. lots of little ups and downs but no real major elevation changes make for a challenging but by no means grueling ski. the epoch/3 pin setup is probably a little overkill for the terrain but was a lot of fun working on linking my glides and turns. a few miles later you cross the long/at trail to a fun drop down to the pond. the sun was just starting to poke through i ski'd a little more around the pond before seeing it was 11:00 and figured i'd better head back if i was gonna make lunch. the singletrack was just as fun and fast in the opposite direction. however once i got out of the forest cover and on the now sunny logging road the snow quickly slowed down and was compressing under my weight, slowing my anticptaed fast glide back to a crawl. the long trail doublebag was a fitting de-booting beer before heading to stratton ski area. i parked in the parking garage and found mrs snobunski in the loud crowded bar just before 1 - quite a contrast to to the morning's beauty, peace and solitude enjoyed just before on the other side of the mountain gps track & stats from my tracks: https://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF-8&hl=en&tab=wl

very cool trip and TR, would like to do some of tthat stuff one of these days! anyone doing tuckerman this year?

Stratton pond yesterday

They had blast, tons of pow with some bluebird! They hit whitefish, disco, big sky and maybe bridger. I need to stop looking at yours and their pics - as good as conditions have been here it seems so lame....

damn another nice report there vinny! lots of good times and memories from a few years back skiing thos trees with my son!

great report! i love the bush especially castlerock etc. never got into the slide brook area, sounds awesome. you used to need a guide or at least some local knowledge, is it marked now?

some friends are out there now and posting some great pics as well. stop 1 on a whole montana tour - gonna have to put that on the must do list!

i'd love to make it up for some tunk bumps to use up my kids warrren miller voucher but were running out of time!

i miss pizza shop mussels marinara. that's about it for me. pa pizza's not bad but i do make a stop for a seaside heights boardwal slice whenever i'm in the area. hope it there this summer...

i think salters will ONLY mount markers

Cool pic, surreal looking

nice report, we keep saying were gonna check it out on one of our pittsburgh trips but it hasn;t happend - one of these days.

also check and see if they have any womens workshops or clinics - usually pretty reasonble way to get good group instruction and maybe some new ski buddies. mrs snowbunski started doing these years ago and now gets more days on the snow than me!

looks like a great day! congrats to the wife on kicking sno's ass!