Gulf of Slides

Boo Yah Achieved.

In a big way. Yesterday was rare. A perfect storm of sorts, but with good conditions, not bad. Low 40's, blue bird, no wind, soft(ish) snow. Doesn't sound all that amazing but considering we were on Mt. Washington in March it's pretty damn awesome.

Bill made the call last week that we should try and get on the Gulf of Slides for this weekend and we immediately jumped on the chance. No one had been on that side of the Boot Spur to date and everyone was anxious to check it out. It can be more dangerous at the Slides when conditions are bad, but avy danger was low for the weekend, the only thing you had to watch out for was ice. Thanks to the abundant sun, ice wasnt too much of an issue.

The Usual Suspects (minus Irwin who took the shot)

The hike up was tough in spots, but to be expected when you are hiking up a trail designed to be skied down. I developed some hotspots on my heels about halfway up that ended up turning into some sweet blisters that I will be nursing for the next few days, but the pain was manageable and I was having too much fun to care. We made pretty good time getting to the basin in just over 2 hours. The closer we got to the basin you could start to see the signs of avalanches past...trees snapped off halfway up, piles of brush. Pretty cool to see first hand but also kinda sobering / scary.

You can see some of the broken trees in this little Gulley

Main Gulley. Where are the crowds? Oh yeah, they are all on Tucks. All 800 of them.

After a quick lunch at the basin we suited up for the hike up the headwall. We had about 1000 vertical feet to go. It was somewhat slow going, the slope wasn't scary steep but we all wanted to make sure we had solid footfalls and for awhile we were setting our own bootpack, which can be scary (Thanks Bill!). We took our time and topped out after about an hour.

The Final Ascent

Snow conditions at the very top were semi-boiler plate but we were able to traverse a bit to the main gulley where the snow was more manageable. The actual snow conditions were kind of hard to explain...hard in spots, softer in spots, a bit crusty. It was more mental than anything else, edges were holding, but you had to stay strong through the whole turn and really make sure you had your balance in control...one lapse and the snow would grab you for sure. No one had any issues and we all had great runs back down to the basin.

Looking South, Attitash/Bear Peak in the Distance.

And that wasn't all! After our run on the bowl we still had a 2 mile ski back down the Gulf of Slides Trail back to the cars at Pinkham Notch. Luckily we started heading back down before things had a chance to harden back up. A perfect long easy run out after a perfect day on Washington.

I also took my Garmin along, unfortunately I screwed up all the data. I had been planning to track our hike up to the basin and then stop recording there and start it back up for our ski back down to the cars. All was going well until I accidentally bumped the start timer button half way up the headwall. So in essence the device though we shot up 500 vertical feet out of nowhere, and then shot back down to the basin when I turned it back on for our ski out. So basically the data isn't accurate at all...the elevation graph is pretty funny, it is very easy to see where things get a bit screwy. Oh well, live and learn.

http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/7842583

Hamlin-Eames Conservation Area

Gina, myself and the pooch went to scope out the Hamlin-Eames Conservation Area in Meredith Sunday. We wanted to get the lay of the land seeing as this trail network is within a mile of the house we are in agreement to buy. And after this little walk in the woods I am happy to say that, in my mind, the property value of of our potential new home just skyrocketed...and Wylee loved it too.

if she had opposable thumbs they would both be up.

As you can see here there are lots of little pond / marsh areas and some really cool ledge lookouts to Lake Wicwas. We hiked out to Crockett's Ledge and then came back via the Pond Loop trail. Biking here will be interesting, a decent amount of short steep climbs and it looks like most of the trails weren't really cut with biking in mind but it is permitted in the area so I will check things out once we get through mud season.

Crockett's Ledge

Big 'ole dead tree

In other hilarious news, I decided to get to this area by cutting through some back roads in the region we are moving into. I found out recently that we are moving into what the locals call 'Chemungville'. It is a small region bounded by Rt. 104 to the North, I-93 to the West, Lake Winnisquam to the East and Rt. 3 to the South. Once you get into Chemungville things get pretty remote pretty fast. They also get very less paved. If you will be visiting us in the Spring, bring your rally skills or your mudding jeep.

TURBO.

Hubbard Brook revisited

I returned this weekend to Hubbard Brook with more appropriate gearing AND a GPS device to track my every move. This was the first field test of the garmin on a bike for me and I can quickly tell that I am going to love this little piece of gear.

I didn't bring the camera along this time but for pics of the area check my original post here. Conditions were similar to my first outing, sun was out, temps were cold but manageable and the snow/ice was perfect.

So without further ado...the goods.

So much awesome pertinent data and so easy to collect. The auto pause feature worked awesome while on the bike no issues like we had while walking the dog. I really like that it keeps track of avg speeds while ascending, descending and on the flats. Its also really cool to see the avg grade, seeing as this was a giant out and back climb...11% average, pretty gnar. Not sure I believe the 34.5% maximum though, probably some errant signals.

Unfortunately it can't measure how many sweet fishtails I did on the descent but I can tell you that there were a lot and they were all sweet.

Dog Walk Data Analysis

So last post I promised my readers unparalleled access to every single one of my bike rides from here on out thanks to my new Garmin Edge 205. Conditions in NH are no longer lending themselves to ice biking, or much of anything outdoors for that matter, except for maybe taking the pooch for a walk in the woods.

And seeing as you can't buy a new toy and then just leave it on your coffee table to stare at for months I figured, hell, I want to know all the pertinent data about this walk in the woods. I mean how am I going to know how to pace myself on our next walk in the woods with Wylee if I don't have the 411? So I strapped the Edge to my backpack and hit Chamberlain Reynolds Memorial Forest.

I was really surprised with the accuracy, especially because the signal strength was 'poor' during the walk. Chamberlain Reynolds has some pretty dense tree cover. The speed kind of jumped around but we were moving pretty slow, I had to turn the auto pause off because it kept thinking we were stopped for a fraction of a second or so and it would pause and resume over and over. I don't think I'll have that issue on a bike though. I think I'm going to like this new tool very very much...

I'll let the DATA speak for itself.

Hubbard Brook

Wow did it feel great to be biking outdoors again. And look at this place! It was beautiful out today, couldn't have asked for a better day. I was aware that this place existed because the Center for the Environment at PSU has been doing a lot of work in the area and its in publications on campus all the time. Hubbard Brook is a conservation area of sorts where they run watershed studies and the what not.

There is a big science center at the end of Mirror Lake Rd in Thornton and starting there is Hubbard Brook Rd. which is a dirt road that the scientists use for accessing various parts of the brook and the surrounding area. The studies don't stop in the winter so it turns into a perfect snow machine packed down trail that is great for winter riding. It had never even occurred to me to try riding here until Bill swung us by the place on the way home from Doublehead last weekend. He has skin'd up the road and skied down in the past.

You'll notice that I said Bill has skied here in the past. i.e. There is some vert to be had. Unfortunately for me my ice bike is geared 32:16 which is a bit on the heavy side for winter riding especially if you are going to be doing some sustained climbing. I figured I'd give it a shot anyway...and I paid for it a bit. Right from the get go things tilted up.

TILT

The grade wasn't too bad but it was more than I could handle for prolonged periods with my tough guy gearing. I was red lining about 1K in of climbing and had to stop and rest a few times to let the heart settle and the legs recover. So in essence it was like interval training, kinda. Not sure how far up I made it in total. I rode up/out for about 45mins and then decided that was about as much as I could take. The high torque / low cadence was starting to do a number on my knees.

you can see the hurt

After turning around the ride back down was AWESOME. and cold. Luckily I was smart and packed extra wind proof layers in my new Camelbak M.U.L.E. The descent was fast, probably took me 3-4 mins to get back down to the bottom. 45 mins up, 4 down...sweet. Snow was in perfect shape to rip but still be in control. Probably didnt even really need the studs, but its nice to have them there for peace of mind.

at rest after a hard days work

Speaking of my new M.U.L.E, it's very nice (read like Borat). Picked it up on Chainlove recently and I'm glad I pulled the trigger on it. Big resevoir, lots of different sized storage for various types of gear, all while managing to be not that bulky. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up.

I had originally planned on spending more time out on the trail so when I got home I decided I would re-gear the ice bike so I can come back here again and get farther up without my knees exploding. This simple re-gear project exploded into a giant manarea session with no less than 3 bikes being worked on. I was a man possessed. How possessed you might ask?

This possessed.

Things I got done:

• Ice bike is now geared 32-21 running a Surly Singleator held with zipties (chopper lives again!)
• The goofed 9 speed cassette that I bought to put on Shaun's 8 speed bike was installed on to my commuter
• Shaun's bike is cabled, has the right cassette, and is good to go (minus a seatpost).

AND!

This came in the mail! I haven't been this excited for a new piece of gear in a long time. I can't wait to figure out all the little in's and out's and get it dialed. My 3 blog readers are going to have access to incredible levels of detail of every single bike ride I go on from here on out. You're welcome.