Jisch
New member
- Joined
- Dec 15, 2008
- Messages
- 315
- Points
- 0
Tom and I have been talking about doing Thunderbolt for a few years, we used to do a similar type of skiing (not sure you'd really call it "back country") up at Mount Marcy in the 'dacks. Finally this was the weekend when weather, snow and free time all lined up for a trip up Greylock.
We are both on similar set ups with Karhu Catamounts, leather (or leather/plastic in my case) boots and cable bindings. I remember when I bought these skis the real AT bindings were just coming out. I knew we weren't using the latest/greatest stuff, but until we saw the others out today did I realize that we really looked the part of retro grouch - not in a bad way, but...
Given that I had gone on a mountain bike ride on Saturday, it felt a bit weird loading the BC skis into the car. We got up to the parking lot around 8:30.
It really is hard to imagine climbing all that way when you're in the parking lot looking up. Neither of us has really done a lot of skiing like this as most of what we have done is the backwoods CT type stuff where you're skiing on singletrack where it really is "survival" skiing.
We got to the Big Schuss before deciding that skins would be a good idea. The original plan was for my brother to join us, luckily for Tom he didn't because he was able to borrow my brother's skins - not sure I'd want to do that climb without skins.
This was steep climbing - I don't remember Marcy that well, but I don't think it's this steep!
Probably about 70% of our conversation on the way up was around "how are we going to ski DOWN this?" I really couldn't say how deep the packed snow is, but there were almost no rocks or anything sticking through. It was what I'd call spring skiing pretty far up the mountain, but packed powder at the very top.
After about 2 hours of climbing we hit the top. I would call our progress "steady", we had all day to make the trip and we were hell bent on enjoying the climb (as much as you can enjoy that much work!).
We found a good spot out of the wind and celebrated the summit :beer:
I'd love to say that our trip down was smooth, quick turns the whole way, honestly it took a little while to figure out the skis.
By the time we hit the bottom we were both carving some nice looking stuff. We got some good comments from everyone who was climbing while we were descending - the retro guys! I made a joke with someone who was climbing that we were practicing for the race next week in the vintage class - :razz: they thought I was serious!
As with the Marcy trips, the descent just goes by way too quickly. I think we were both thinking how much fun it would be to go back up and do another lap, but not sure I had another trip in my legs... I can see why they invented chair lifts.
We both agreed that we'd go back in a heartbeat, even on this vintage gear - it was a blast! I honestly didn't think Thunderbolt could live up to my expectations, it didn't, it exceeded them!
John
We are both on similar set ups with Karhu Catamounts, leather (or leather/plastic in my case) boots and cable bindings. I remember when I bought these skis the real AT bindings were just coming out. I knew we weren't using the latest/greatest stuff, but until we saw the others out today did I realize that we really looked the part of retro grouch - not in a bad way, but...
Given that I had gone on a mountain bike ride on Saturday, it felt a bit weird loading the BC skis into the car. We got up to the parking lot around 8:30.
It really is hard to imagine climbing all that way when you're in the parking lot looking up. Neither of us has really done a lot of skiing like this as most of what we have done is the backwoods CT type stuff where you're skiing on singletrack where it really is "survival" skiing.
We got to the Big Schuss before deciding that skins would be a good idea. The original plan was for my brother to join us, luckily for Tom he didn't because he was able to borrow my brother's skins - not sure I'd want to do that climb without skins.
This was steep climbing - I don't remember Marcy that well, but I don't think it's this steep!
Probably about 70% of our conversation on the way up was around "how are we going to ski DOWN this?" I really couldn't say how deep the packed snow is, but there were almost no rocks or anything sticking through. It was what I'd call spring skiing pretty far up the mountain, but packed powder at the very top.
After about 2 hours of climbing we hit the top. I would call our progress "steady", we had all day to make the trip and we were hell bent on enjoying the climb (as much as you can enjoy that much work!).
We found a good spot out of the wind and celebrated the summit :beer:
I'd love to say that our trip down was smooth, quick turns the whole way, honestly it took a little while to figure out the skis.
By the time we hit the bottom we were both carving some nice looking stuff. We got some good comments from everyone who was climbing while we were descending - the retro guys! I made a joke with someone who was climbing that we were practicing for the race next week in the vintage class - :razz: they thought I was serious!
As with the Marcy trips, the descent just goes by way too quickly. I think we were both thinking how much fun it would be to go back up and do another lap, but not sure I had another trip in my legs... I can see why they invented chair lifts.
We both agreed that we'd go back in a heartbeat, even on this vintage gear - it was a blast! I honestly didn't think Thunderbolt could live up to my expectations, it didn't, it exceeded them!
John
