granite
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- Mar 25, 2013
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Blizzrd of 2013, day one
New Hampshire's official snow fall records are recorded in Concord, the state capital. In January of 1888, 27 inches of snow set the all time state record. That same year a second storm hit the state in March and set the second biggest snow fall record with 20 inches. These two snowfall records stood for well over a century. The blizzard of 2013 is now the second biggest snow fall total ever recorded with 24 inches. The 3rd and 4th biggest snow fall totals ever recorded were in 2004 and the big October storm in 2011. The all time record though of 1888 still stands.
As predicted, the snowfall jackpot of the 2013 blizzard in New Hampshire stretched across the southern half of the state. The highest totals in this area were up to and over 30 inches of snow. The White Mountains to the north did not get as much, only about 10 to 20 inches. For days leading up to the storm, local and national news reports have been filled with reports of doom and gloom and a pending disater.
On Friday night the blizzard is well under way and I decide to stay close to home this weekend and enjoy the snow. We are in the storm's bullseye, and more importantly, Valerie is working this weekend and I am not going to let her drive to work in a blizzard. We are disappointed that we can't enjoy all this snow together. I wake up at 3:30 am on Saturday and spend an hour and half snowblowing the driveway during the onslaught of the blizzard. There is well over a foot of snow. After finishing the snow removal, I go inside to the coffee and breakfast that Valerie prepared. We leave the house at 6 am. It took about an hour to drive east on the main highway to her workplace, it’s usually a half hour drive.
I then head west, into the eye of the storm; destination is Crotched Moutain Ski Area. It’s still snowing hard, an inch or more an hour. After leaving the main highway, the drive through the old towns on secondary roads is classic, Goffstown, New Boston, Francestown, and into Antrim. Many of the old brick homes, clapboard farm houses and barns along this route were there during the 1888 storms. New England rural life is on display during a massive snow storm. New Hampshire and I are embracing this blizzard. There's a traffic ban in two states to the south with a $500 fine and a year in jail in Massachusetts if you drive your car. Not so in New Hampshire, the roads are snow packed, the driving is fine as long as you take it easy, visibility is fine and wind is not a factor. There's hardly any traffic, just a lot of snow plows and a lot of people out snowblowing and shoveling their driveways.
Listening to the radio I hear that Francestown is reporting 28 inches of snow, the most of all the towns in the report. Crotched Mountain Ski Area is in the adjacent town, this is going to be good. I arrive at the ski area ten minutes before the lifts open and purchase a lift ticket, the mountain is reporting 29 inches of snow. I quickly put on my equipment and just miss the 9am first chair. The mountain isn't all that big with a 1,000 foot vertical and summit elevation of just over 2,000 feet. I ride the high speed quad to the top in about 4 minutes, skiers are hooting and hollering on the main slope just below as they make first tracks. I get off the quad and head straight down the main slope. The snow had drifted up on skiers right under the quad and I hit the first drift, about 4 feet deep. The snow sprays up high and I get my first chest shot of snow in years. I continue down the right side hitting drift after drift of a light, dry, sugary powder. No one had skied the drifts yet and I think to myself that there is only way to ski powder.....first!
I continue making run after run, it has been so long since I've had a powder day like this. I can feel my thighs burning, I have forgotten how much an effort it is to ski deep snow. I stay on the main run under the lift for about two hours as it’s the steepest and best run on the mountain, it is getting tracked up making it a little easier on the legs. I then go and ski for about two more hours on some easier trails that had been tracked up and also some of the groomers and a glade too. I ride up the quad with a ski instructor in his twenties, I asked him if he ever skis first chair in the morning to last chair of midnight madness. He replied that he does when ever he can, as long as he has friends with him for company to get through so many hours of skiing. On Fridays and Saturdays, Crotched Mountain is open from 9 am till 3 am, it’s called midnight madness. First chair to last chair means skiing for 18 hours.
I won't be able to make the 18 hour ski attempt, and leave it for the young. I reluctantly leave to pick up Valerie at work. As I pull out of the parking lot, I see an SUV with Mass plates and 2 feet of snow on its roof. I wonder if they defied the driving ban. It continues to snow and finally stops as I approach Valerie’s work place. We get home and I break out the snowblower again as more than an additional foot of snow has fallen since 3:30 am. Furthermore, about eight feet of snow has drifted up around our roof dormers and eaves and front porch roof that could not be left like that. I spend the next three hours snowblowing and using roof rakes and ladders removing the snow from the roof. Removing all that snow from the roof is not easy and my body is telling me so. I finally finish and go inside at 8:30 pm totally exhausted after the long day. I get a fire going and a cold beer (Yuengling) is opened as I collaspe into the recliner. It's not long before we go to bed.
Blizzard of 2013, day two
I wake up at 6:30 am and as I knew the night before, my body is hurting from the previous day. I have coffee and breakfast with Valerie before she leaves for work, again we are disappointed that we can’t be together. She has a new schedule working every other weekend, a policy begun by a new administrator. Valerie had weekends off before he arrived and disrupted our weekends. I was thinking about going to Cannon Mountain, up north in the White Mountains but I wasn't up for another early morning drive. I decide to stay local and enjoy the record snow fall close to home.
The sun rises and lights up a cloudless blue sky. It's warmer and there's no wind. I grab the snowshoes and head to Tower Hill Lake just minutes away, it's part of a massive watershed corridor surrounded by woodlands. There are miles of multi use trails around the lake. I snowshoe in about a mile on a marked trail that goes around the lake. I break trail as I was the first to hit the snow covered path. I take a turn off the trail and into the forest, an uphill bushwack to the top of Tower Hill, about a 45 minute trek. In this area, a selective timber harvest had been completed a couple of years ago. The woods are healthy, the trees are spacious and the snow is deep. With this much snow, the hill would make a good place to back country ski. Even with snowshoes I am sinking down into the snow about a foot and I am getting another work out. Upon reaching the top, I can see the lake below and off to the west the snow covered minor mountain range of Southern New Hampshire that includes Crotched Mountain. I loop around to the right and descend to the marked trail that leads back to the trail head. Before heading out, I look back up the hill and I see the snowshoe tracks that I left behind. Maybe someone else will see them and follow in my tracks.
I return home and start a fire and open a Yuengling. Valerie arrives home and she prepares a Tourtierre, a traditional Quebec meal of ground pork, onions, celery, rolled oats, herbs and spices in a pie shell. It's served with peas and apple sauce and makes a healthy and hearty meal to celebrate the end of the snow filled weekend. A Yuengling will go good with it and I open another one.
Blizzard of 2013, day three
A new storm has arrived from the west and it’s snowing hard at 9 am. Valerie has the day off and we are leaving soon to snowshoe in the forest across the street. We will finally enjoy this winter storm together, the snow is starting to cover the trees again. Several inches of fresh snow is expected today and even more is forcasted up north in the White Mountains this week.
We like all this cold, winter weather and snow. The past few weeks its been staying below freezing almost every day, even below zero on some days, especially at night. Up north in the mountains it’s been even colder with at least some snow almost every day the past two weeks. We have reservations for Valentine’s Day weekend at the Mountain View Grand Resort in Whitefield. Conditions for all outdoor winter activities should be fantastic. We are going to rent alpine touring skis and see what it is like to ski in the back country.
In 1888 two seperate winter storms set the record for the most snow fall totals ever recorded in Concord, NH, one in January and one in March. Over a century later, between 2004 and 2013 new records were set for the second, third and fourth biggest snow fall totals ever. I can only hope, as was the case in 1888, that New Hampshire will again be blasted with a second record setting snow fall in March, just like it was in 1888. Is it possible that we will surpass the 27 inches of snow in 1888 and 125 years later set a new all time record? I sure hope so.
In the first week of March there was a southern New England storm. New Hampshire received over a foot of snow along the southern border. In Massachusetts, there was up to 24 inches of snow reported. Concord never did set that new snow fall record. Had that southern storm just to the south been a mere 50 miles north, the record could have fallen. Needless to say, there was certainly no lack of snow in March. On the last day of winter, parts of New Hampshire received well over a foot of snow. Cannon Mountain Ski Area received over five feet of snow in February and over three feet in March. Pat’s Peak, a ski area just north of Crotched Mountain reported that the winter rivaled one of their best ski seasons ever. On the last day of winter, all of New Hampshire received up to a foot of snow. Snow remained on the ground well into spring. Most of the ski areas in the state extended their ski seasons.
The Blizzard of 2013 will be remembered, and I will never forget how much fun I had in all the snow.
New Hampshire's official snow fall records are recorded in Concord, the state capital. In January of 1888, 27 inches of snow set the all time state record. That same year a second storm hit the state in March and set the second biggest snow fall record with 20 inches. These two snowfall records stood for well over a century. The blizzard of 2013 is now the second biggest snow fall total ever recorded with 24 inches. The 3rd and 4th biggest snow fall totals ever recorded were in 2004 and the big October storm in 2011. The all time record though of 1888 still stands.
As predicted, the snowfall jackpot of the 2013 blizzard in New Hampshire stretched across the southern half of the state. The highest totals in this area were up to and over 30 inches of snow. The White Mountains to the north did not get as much, only about 10 to 20 inches. For days leading up to the storm, local and national news reports have been filled with reports of doom and gloom and a pending disater.
On Friday night the blizzard is well under way and I decide to stay close to home this weekend and enjoy the snow. We are in the storm's bullseye, and more importantly, Valerie is working this weekend and I am not going to let her drive to work in a blizzard. We are disappointed that we can't enjoy all this snow together. I wake up at 3:30 am on Saturday and spend an hour and half snowblowing the driveway during the onslaught of the blizzard. There is well over a foot of snow. After finishing the snow removal, I go inside to the coffee and breakfast that Valerie prepared. We leave the house at 6 am. It took about an hour to drive east on the main highway to her workplace, it’s usually a half hour drive.
I then head west, into the eye of the storm; destination is Crotched Moutain Ski Area. It’s still snowing hard, an inch or more an hour. After leaving the main highway, the drive through the old towns on secondary roads is classic, Goffstown, New Boston, Francestown, and into Antrim. Many of the old brick homes, clapboard farm houses and barns along this route were there during the 1888 storms. New England rural life is on display during a massive snow storm. New Hampshire and I are embracing this blizzard. There's a traffic ban in two states to the south with a $500 fine and a year in jail in Massachusetts if you drive your car. Not so in New Hampshire, the roads are snow packed, the driving is fine as long as you take it easy, visibility is fine and wind is not a factor. There's hardly any traffic, just a lot of snow plows and a lot of people out snowblowing and shoveling their driveways.
Listening to the radio I hear that Francestown is reporting 28 inches of snow, the most of all the towns in the report. Crotched Mountain Ski Area is in the adjacent town, this is going to be good. I arrive at the ski area ten minutes before the lifts open and purchase a lift ticket, the mountain is reporting 29 inches of snow. I quickly put on my equipment and just miss the 9am first chair. The mountain isn't all that big with a 1,000 foot vertical and summit elevation of just over 2,000 feet. I ride the high speed quad to the top in about 4 minutes, skiers are hooting and hollering on the main slope just below as they make first tracks. I get off the quad and head straight down the main slope. The snow had drifted up on skiers right under the quad and I hit the first drift, about 4 feet deep. The snow sprays up high and I get my first chest shot of snow in years. I continue down the right side hitting drift after drift of a light, dry, sugary powder. No one had skied the drifts yet and I think to myself that there is only way to ski powder.....first!
I continue making run after run, it has been so long since I've had a powder day like this. I can feel my thighs burning, I have forgotten how much an effort it is to ski deep snow. I stay on the main run under the lift for about two hours as it’s the steepest and best run on the mountain, it is getting tracked up making it a little easier on the legs. I then go and ski for about two more hours on some easier trails that had been tracked up and also some of the groomers and a glade too. I ride up the quad with a ski instructor in his twenties, I asked him if he ever skis first chair in the morning to last chair of midnight madness. He replied that he does when ever he can, as long as he has friends with him for company to get through so many hours of skiing. On Fridays and Saturdays, Crotched Mountain is open from 9 am till 3 am, it’s called midnight madness. First chair to last chair means skiing for 18 hours.
I won't be able to make the 18 hour ski attempt, and leave it for the young. I reluctantly leave to pick up Valerie at work. As I pull out of the parking lot, I see an SUV with Mass plates and 2 feet of snow on its roof. I wonder if they defied the driving ban. It continues to snow and finally stops as I approach Valerie’s work place. We get home and I break out the snowblower again as more than an additional foot of snow has fallen since 3:30 am. Furthermore, about eight feet of snow has drifted up around our roof dormers and eaves and front porch roof that could not be left like that. I spend the next three hours snowblowing and using roof rakes and ladders removing the snow from the roof. Removing all that snow from the roof is not easy and my body is telling me so. I finally finish and go inside at 8:30 pm totally exhausted after the long day. I get a fire going and a cold beer (Yuengling) is opened as I collaspe into the recliner. It's not long before we go to bed.
Blizzard of 2013, day two
I wake up at 6:30 am and as I knew the night before, my body is hurting from the previous day. I have coffee and breakfast with Valerie before she leaves for work, again we are disappointed that we can’t be together. She has a new schedule working every other weekend, a policy begun by a new administrator. Valerie had weekends off before he arrived and disrupted our weekends. I was thinking about going to Cannon Mountain, up north in the White Mountains but I wasn't up for another early morning drive. I decide to stay local and enjoy the record snow fall close to home.
The sun rises and lights up a cloudless blue sky. It's warmer and there's no wind. I grab the snowshoes and head to Tower Hill Lake just minutes away, it's part of a massive watershed corridor surrounded by woodlands. There are miles of multi use trails around the lake. I snowshoe in about a mile on a marked trail that goes around the lake. I break trail as I was the first to hit the snow covered path. I take a turn off the trail and into the forest, an uphill bushwack to the top of Tower Hill, about a 45 minute trek. In this area, a selective timber harvest had been completed a couple of years ago. The woods are healthy, the trees are spacious and the snow is deep. With this much snow, the hill would make a good place to back country ski. Even with snowshoes I am sinking down into the snow about a foot and I am getting another work out. Upon reaching the top, I can see the lake below and off to the west the snow covered minor mountain range of Southern New Hampshire that includes Crotched Mountain. I loop around to the right and descend to the marked trail that leads back to the trail head. Before heading out, I look back up the hill and I see the snowshoe tracks that I left behind. Maybe someone else will see them and follow in my tracks.
I return home and start a fire and open a Yuengling. Valerie arrives home and she prepares a Tourtierre, a traditional Quebec meal of ground pork, onions, celery, rolled oats, herbs and spices in a pie shell. It's served with peas and apple sauce and makes a healthy and hearty meal to celebrate the end of the snow filled weekend. A Yuengling will go good with it and I open another one.
Blizzard of 2013, day three
A new storm has arrived from the west and it’s snowing hard at 9 am. Valerie has the day off and we are leaving soon to snowshoe in the forest across the street. We will finally enjoy this winter storm together, the snow is starting to cover the trees again. Several inches of fresh snow is expected today and even more is forcasted up north in the White Mountains this week.
We like all this cold, winter weather and snow. The past few weeks its been staying below freezing almost every day, even below zero on some days, especially at night. Up north in the mountains it’s been even colder with at least some snow almost every day the past two weeks. We have reservations for Valentine’s Day weekend at the Mountain View Grand Resort in Whitefield. Conditions for all outdoor winter activities should be fantastic. We are going to rent alpine touring skis and see what it is like to ski in the back country.
In 1888 two seperate winter storms set the record for the most snow fall totals ever recorded in Concord, NH, one in January and one in March. Over a century later, between 2004 and 2013 new records were set for the second, third and fourth biggest snow fall totals ever. I can only hope, as was the case in 1888, that New Hampshire will again be blasted with a second record setting snow fall in March, just like it was in 1888. Is it possible that we will surpass the 27 inches of snow in 1888 and 125 years later set a new all time record? I sure hope so.
In the first week of March there was a southern New England storm. New Hampshire received over a foot of snow along the southern border. In Massachusetts, there was up to 24 inches of snow reported. Concord never did set that new snow fall record. Had that southern storm just to the south been a mere 50 miles north, the record could have fallen. Needless to say, there was certainly no lack of snow in March. On the last day of winter, parts of New Hampshire received well over a foot of snow. Cannon Mountain Ski Area received over five feet of snow in February and over three feet in March. Pat’s Peak, a ski area just north of Crotched Mountain reported that the winter rivaled one of their best ski seasons ever. On the last day of winter, all of New Hampshire received up to a foot of snow. Snow remained on the ground well into spring. Most of the ski areas in the state extended their ski seasons.
The Blizzard of 2013 will be remembered, and I will never forget how much fun I had in all the snow.
