LaPlatte River (not skiing) 4/27/14

It rained most of yesterday and was raining today. By 9AM I was thinking about interior painting. I knew I was in trouble. I checked the weather and decided things were not that bad. I decided to go for the first kayak of the season. The LaPlatte river is a nice paddle starting in Shelburne Bay. There are a lot of birds here a little later in the season. Heron's, Egret's, King Fisher's and a lot of other birds nest and hang out in this area. This time of year I only saw geese.
The current picks up slowly in the stream as you get closer to the Falls past Shelburne center. Sometimes there are trees and other debris that prevent you from going all the way up the river. This time the river was clear and the current is what eventually turned me around. It gets to the point where you can't paddle hard enough to make progress. When you turn around it is a nice high speed glide for a while.
Someone built a bridge across the river last year. This is nice since it allows you to access a lot of walking trails on both sides of the river. The Town decided they didn't want to allow the bridge. The bridge is still up but it is wired together so you can't use it to cross. Unfortunate.
I did get out skiing after work Friday at Bolton. Hike and ski. Sunny and 50. Perfect snow conditions. That was 4/25. We will see how much more of that there is.

Beaver. Also check out the frog on the log.

Shelburne gang activity

Closed bridge.

Current picks up

Bolton - End of April

Not sure what date this trip was. Sue sent a few pictures from a Spring skiing trip to Bolton sometime toward the end of April...

Caption by Sue: Carolyn is saying "let's take the Blue Circle trail to the bottom". Ken is saying "let's take the quadruple diamond trail named Death Wish to the triple diamond trail named It Was Nice Knowin' Ya. How bad could it be??

Bruce rides the mini donkey

Last ski day? 4/21/14

If this is the last day then the season ended well. Perfect Spring skiing yesterday, for last day at Smuggs, and today at Sugarbush. Sugarbush will be open another few weeks but I think I am done with lift skiing for the season. There will probably be a few more days skiing recently closed mountains using the hiking method to go up.
This was a good season when all was said and done. Rough start. Good early season skiing up until Christmas and then nothing good until Feb 1. Feb, Mar, and Apr were very good. Three months of good skiing is nothing to complain about! I was talking to someone who worked at the mountain on the way up and he told me Christmas/New years is 1/3 of their business. We both talked about how that is probably the worst time of the year for good skiing if you were going to pick a week. But we agreed that having everyone come up then and keep the ski areas going was a good thing!
Next season will be more back country skiing. I got out a lot this season but there are still many trips I thought of in the Fall I never made it to. Next year...

Smugglers Notch 4/12/14

And the Spring skiing continues. This was a perfect Spring skiing day. Went with Paul, Kris, and Julie. Julie showed me a woods area I had never been in before! Very close to the end of lower drifter, past shakedown. Speaking of Shakedown we went down that one on this day also. In great shape the whole way which was a little surprising since it faces SW. Docs was probably the run of the day and the woods after it were in fine shape also. This could be the last day? Probably not. Pictures taken by Paul.

Doc Dempseys trail

Julie in the woods

Bolton 4/11/14

More perfect weather for Spring skiing. This time to Bolton ski area. Bolton is closed but there is still plenty of snow both on the x-country trails and on the downhill mountain. On this day we went up on the x-country trails, to Stowe view, and then out onto the downhill trails. The downhill trails were fun to go down on the x-country skis. The conditions were just about perfect with 1-2 inches of corn snow on top for easy turns.

Mansfield from Stowe view trail. JJ's trail in the foreground.

Bolton downhill trails

Camels Hump from top of Bolton

Plenty of snow still

Smugglers Notch 4/3/14

More Spring skiing. This time at Smugglers Notch. This is the mountain I go to most often when downhill skiing. There have been some great days there the past few months. Spring skiing isn't as good as a mid winter powder day but it is close. There was a lot of snow in March so the base is deep. Smugglers Notch will close this year April 20 but more from lack of interest than lack of snow. The mountain has great views of Mt Mansfield and the notch. On a clear day you can see Mt Washington and the Lafayette range in NH.

Spring skiing 4/2/14

Spring is here! It took a while this year. Went for a two hour x-country ski after work 4/1. Fun snow. Deep base with 2 inches of the top soft for good turns. Went to Carse road again which is my new favorite place. Should be more of that over the next few weeks.
Took the day off Wed 4/2 to go to Cannon mountain in NH. I haven't been there in a very long time. Great Spring conditions and the mountain is more interesting than I remember. Not that I remember much from what was probably a 1972 ski trip. They have an ungroomed area called Mittersill in addition to the regular trails. They call it "back country" which it isn't but it is a lot of fun and the whole area was good Spring snow. You have to ski uphill a little to get to it which probably keeps some people away. There are some woods trails at Mittersill and also at the regular mountain. Great views of Lafayette from this mountain. I think it gets very crowded on a mid winter weekend but mid week in April there was no one there.

Looking down at Echo Lake

Riding the lift

Lafayette mountain from one of the trails

Good woods trails in this area