Tuckerman Ravine, NH 8/4/01

So I'm lying in bed Friday night trying to sleep. It's close to 90 degrees, I'm sweating and I'm thinking to myself "I can't believe I'm going skiing tomorrow. In August. In the east..." Sure, we knew the snow would suck. That it would be suncupped, undermined, prone to collapse and have a runout that could charitably be described as "bony." So what? It's turns man! August turns!

Saturday morning JM, his girlfriend, and myself headed up the trail. Many people looked at the skis on our backs and gave us strange looks, but very few people made comments in our hearing. The snow came into view at the Connection Cache.


The snow came into view at the Connection Cache

Okay, so it wasn't much. Once we reached the patch, we took a few minutes to check out the general stability of the patch and plan our descent. Skiers right was a 10-15 foot drop onto rocks. Fortunately the patch was tilted to the left which had a much more forgiving 2-4' drop. JM went to work cutting a step at the top of the slab to access the goods.


cutting steps

JM went first. The first turns looked really sketchy due to some rather solid suncups.


solid suncups

He decided to sidestep back up rather than removing his skis, in order to cut up the surface into something a little more forgivable.


sidestep grooming

The skiing was still unforgiving on his second "run." By this time we had attracted a fair sized crowd, and keeping the required focus was difficult.


JM's second run

Then it was my turn. The view down the patch of snow was more than a little imposing to someone who hadn't been on skis for three months. I tried to keep a good tele form.


trying to keep good form

This degenerated to parallel rapidly...


degeneration

And then to a sprawling self-arrest...


self-arrest

JM took another couple runs, finishing up with a triple-twisting dismount onto the rocks. Full marks for style.


stylish dismount on the rocks

We finished up the hike by tagging the summit, getting caught in a hail storm on the Alpine Garden trail, and going on a Leprechaun hunt on the Lion Head trail.


on the summit


Leprechaun hunt

All-in-all, it wasn't a bad experience. The patch is going to collapse into two pieces in the next few days, but the larger piece should last for a while longer, it is probably 10 to 15 feet thick at its deepest point.

sweet post.. thanks for the effort , man

Nice photos...I went up on August 5, and skied the same stuff. Not bad for August. The ranger at ho jo.s was still talking about you guys!!! Hey what do we do for Sept???

skibp - September? Either the auto road, or one of the mountains in the Chic Chocs. Mt. Hogsback, maybe. <BR> <BR>There's always Timberline at Mt. Hood, but flying out west is cheating, I think.

My 14 year old son and I made a total of 20 "runs" in the afternoon of Sunday Aug 5. Each run allowed 4 turns, as long as they were quick. Some of them felt pretty good, we almost had made moguls by the time we quit. Don't expect it to last much longer! A boarder was headed up as we headed down, I suspect he might have gotten the very last, but perhaps we were the final skiers of the season.

skibp -- Just out of curiosity, what was the ranger saying? It seems like everyone else thinks we're lunatics... Was the snow bridge still intact on the 5th? We're all taking bets on it. <BR> <BR>Chromer -- flying west IS cheating. As is snowmaking and shaved ice. Sept turns will come, but they will have to be hard earned.

If you go skiing from now on I hope you have someone that knows first aid. Unlike our friends who skiied on the 4th who also didn't even look at the snow before skiing it, or should I say falling off of it.

actually what the ranger said was just that there were a couple of skiers here yesterday...he said that sunday, so presumably it was you guys saturday...the snow arch was still there...the question is: will there be anything on september 1???

Based on what I saw on Sunday, no way will there be anything at Sept 1.

I dømt beleven dit.