MLK Shredfest

Boy am I glad I don't have work today!  Got a whole lot of shredding in this weekend and sleeping in this morning with maybe a bit of active recovery today is just what I need.

Ben and I got a very unexpected huge day at Cannon on Saturday.  The original plan was to hit Cannon early and then when the crowds showed up we would bail back south a bit and do a lap or two at Tenney and call it good.

Weather was perfect, cold but sunny and we got right to it.  First thing we noticed was the lack of crowds...did everyone forget it was a holiday weekend?  We figured everyone was just running a bit late and went about finding the goods.  I was on my new powder boards for the first time and I LOVE THEM.  Very well rounded and versatile.  Did much better on groomers than I expected but they do prefer to go straighter and faster on hardpack and are a little unpredictable at times at medium speeds on harder stuff.  They are much quicker than I expected and by the end of the day I was very comfortable on them in tighter tree lines.  We also found a few stashes of boot/knee deep powder and man do they float...so fun.  Great purchase, very pleased.  Also had two hilarious crashes because I forgot to turn the DIN up from the shop setting.  Clipped a rock or root on a traverse on our first Mittersill run, knocked my feet together and double ejected.  AWESOME.  Then about 3 mins later on that small snow field heading down to the Tuckerbrook area I literally just hit a small mogul and popped out of one ski.

Luckily no injuries, made it down in one piece and snagged a screwdriver and jacked that DIN up.  After our few Mittersill runs, that were ok...we got candyland and golden birches we noticed that the crowds had still not shown up so we ditched our Tenney plan and went about trying to hit every wooded line on Cannon proper.  Our kill list included:

• Go Green x2
• Global Warming
• Mushroom
• Lost Boys x2
• Banshee x3
• Snowmaker's x3
• Whiskey Jar

As you can see some of those warranted several hits.  Not sure what people have been doing since Wed but there was still lots of snow to be had particularly in Snowmaker's.  I think Ben and I were the only ones going in there.  Coverage is pretty great right now across the board...still a few things exposed here and there but very manageable.

Sunday Jomo and I hooked up with a small crew of some old friends from PSU...Dweeb, Mayo, Trevor and got off resort.  Met early and traveled north...I won't say where exactly because that is how the BC ski community roles on the east coast but if you frequent timefortuckerman.com and have seen TR's with a pic of Dopey from the Seven Dwarves as a hint that is where we were.

Had about a 2-3mi flat skin in and then you divert off the trail for another mile of more vertical skinning.  About half way up you get to the base of a well maintained birch glade and from there you can do as many laps as you please before skiing back down the skin track in.  The glade itself is about 700 vertical feet or so.  Nothing amazing as far as terrain goes but a great day trip, the snow was real deep and primarily untouched.  I believe Mayo took some pics and Dweeb was taking video...If I can get my hands on any of it I will post it up.

I learned a few more valuable lessons about the AT game.  I still suck at layering properly.  Overheated a bit on the initial flatter skin in, but I was able to get things under control while we were lapping the glade and was actually quite comfy.  It was actually quite cold yesterday which always makes it that much harder to manage temps.  Very weird feeling so hot and sweating when it's 10 degrees out.  Then stopping for 2mins and instantly being in a deep freeze.

I must have botched blowing the water back out of my camelback's insulated tube and it froze on me.  Going to have to really stay on top of that mentally in the future.  Loosing your water supply can end up ruining your day, luckily Jomo had a back up stash that kept me out of the danger zone.  Had some issues with the adhesive on one of my skins.  I think it was the one that got a bit wet on one of the harder stream crossings on the way up. 

Rule #1: never get your skins wet.

Snow and ice started sticking and with the low temps the stickyness went to shit.  The skin actually fell completely off the ski on the second lap up.  Mayo showed me a trick to strap the skin down towards the tail that worked really well and didn't really add a whole hell of a lot of extra drag...gonna have to buy me several of these in the near future.

I was thinking about trying to get some xc skiing in today but I am just sore enough that I will probably skip that.  I'm thinking some low angle snowshoeing with the pooch is a much better option.  Holiday weekend = owned.