Still Rocking Winter
by Amy Patenaude
Outdoor/Ski Writer
The Fat Lady has not begun singing yet.
There is still plenty of snow on the mountaintops and on the ski slopes.
Don’t give up on Winter!
Keep skiing, snowboarding, tubing and snowshoeing until the last snowflake melts. Join me in a snow-dance.
The days are getting longer and the mercury in the thermometer (or whatever that red stuff is now days) is on the rise. Spring is coming soon—the 2017 Spring Equinox will be at 6:28 am on Monday March 20th
Spring is fun and the proof is the goofy stuff people do on the slopes such as pond skimming. We dress up and try to ski or snowboard across a man-made icy cold pond. Sometimes with success but more often than not the result is a big splash. From now one you can pond skim somewhere every weekend.
Check with your local resort when they are hosting their Spring Celebration of pond skimming.
Pats Peak and Gunstock will be hosting their pond skimming contests on March 18th. Don’t forget to wear a costume to score the maximum points with the cheering crowds.
Bretton Woods’ Annual Beach Party and Slush Pool is being held on March 25th with live music and a lift ticket special pre-buy on-line $30 lift ticket.
April 1st, April Fools’ Day, Waterville Valley celebrates with $1 lift tickets (no joke) and hosts their Last Run Luau Pond Ski. Also on April Fools’ Day Mount Sunapee hosts its 19th Annual Mount Sunapee Slush Cup and Sunapee is famous for their very challenging long pond.
Loon Mountain’s Slushpool Party & Wet Tug-O-War and Cannon Mountain’s Blizzard Splash Pond will be both held on April 8th.
Yes, there is still snow on the mountaintops. You may start out bare-booting but please wear your snowshoes and not post-hole your way up the trail when you reach the snow. There is nothing like frozen holes in the snow to make for difficult travel up and down the trails.
I can forgive the moose but people’s frozen track traps are easily preventable.
We just recently snowshoed the Northern Presidentials—Madison, Adams, Jefferson, Washington and we summited Monroe too. What a sunny super day we had and the snowshoe track across the summits was in nice shape and in many places smooth like a sidewalk. But the Ammonoosuc Ravine Trail had seen a great deal of traffic and had quite a few post-holes.
I don’t know how people can stand sinking deep down as much as mid-thigh high.
We saw a few skiers skinning their way up along the railway tracks and then later descending down into the Ammonoosuc drainage and back to the Cog Station. Soon we’ll all make a trip to Tuckerman Ravine.
Enjoy the snow, summer lasts a long, long time.
Have Fun.
