Jisch
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- Dec 15, 2008
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Crazy times this weekend in the CT Backcountry.
Saturday and Sunday I hit up Bigelow Hollow in Union, CT. Great conditions with a bit of crust under 4-5" of powder. The trails that were packed in before the most recent storm were largely packed powder surface. There were minor issues with pole plants - the crust would sometimes resist penetration or worse your pole would dive under the crust and it would hold onto your basket. All in all excellent skiing with a real backwoods feel - really once you leave the parking lot you feel like you crossed the border in to backwoods Vermont or something. An excellent lake crossing in the middle - nice. I did a couple of runs off trail through the trees and the snow was ok, but if you leaned hard into a corner your ski broke through the crust, which never ended well.
Saturday night we donned lights (and a mountain bike helmet for me) and did some crazy downhill runs at Salmon River in Colchester. If you haven't experienced it, I don't think my descriptions can do it justice. These trails are as steep as anything I've ridden my mountain bike on. They are narrow and slither through dense forest with mountain laurel everywhere. The conditions were much like Bigelow, though the crust was a bit thinner, so we had fewer poling issues. The descents were fast, I mean FAST! The thing is there is usually no room for turning outside of the track. So you get in the track and start cruising down, accelerating with every second that goes by, then a sharp turn comes up - if you miss the turn you're off into the scrub off the side of the trail or into a tree. As you go down the trees are whizzing past you like some kind of weird picket fence. Talk about adrenaline rush. Its two days later and I still can't wipe the smile off my face. I got new BC skis this week and they are so much faster than my old skis, it made the descents even better/scarier. Turns were largely alpine style, with a few telemarks thrown in on some of the slower hills.
Amazing once a decade kind of conditions.
John
Saturday and Sunday I hit up Bigelow Hollow in Union, CT. Great conditions with a bit of crust under 4-5" of powder. The trails that were packed in before the most recent storm were largely packed powder surface. There were minor issues with pole plants - the crust would sometimes resist penetration or worse your pole would dive under the crust and it would hold onto your basket. All in all excellent skiing with a real backwoods feel - really once you leave the parking lot you feel like you crossed the border in to backwoods Vermont or something. An excellent lake crossing in the middle - nice. I did a couple of runs off trail through the trees and the snow was ok, but if you leaned hard into a corner your ski broke through the crust, which never ended well.
Saturday night we donned lights (and a mountain bike helmet for me) and did some crazy downhill runs at Salmon River in Colchester. If you haven't experienced it, I don't think my descriptions can do it justice. These trails are as steep as anything I've ridden my mountain bike on. They are narrow and slither through dense forest with mountain laurel everywhere. The conditions were much like Bigelow, though the crust was a bit thinner, so we had fewer poling issues. The descents were fast, I mean FAST! The thing is there is usually no room for turning outside of the track. So you get in the track and start cruising down, accelerating with every second that goes by, then a sharp turn comes up - if you miss the turn you're off into the scrub off the side of the trail or into a tree. As you go down the trees are whizzing past you like some kind of weird picket fence. Talk about adrenaline rush. Its two days later and I still can't wipe the smile off my face. I got new BC skis this week and they are so much faster than my old skis, it made the descents even better/scarier. Turns were largely alpine style, with a few telemarks thrown in on some of the slower hills.
Amazing once a decade kind of conditions.
John
