Too Little, Too Late

... winter really disappointed this year - three decent snowfalls that coated the ridge with maybe six inches of morning powder - each instance fading to wet slush by early afternoon as the air warmed from above and the unfrozen, warm wet ground thawed from below - and each occasion we're bridled by prior commitments ta' boot - so any snow excitement was limited to two brief broom sweepings of the front sidewalk - never even broke out the snow shovel... we personally consider the first day of trout fishing season to be the official last day of winter in this neck of the woods (we've occasionally fished in some near blizzard conditions years back) - that's five weeks away - so there's still hope yet... but if not who cares - bring on springtime...

... we came across a few old photos that we forgot about - these two images are from Bear Run Nature Reserve (BRNR) around 1990, skiing with a young Muscle Girl Sarah and Strong Man Matt - we used to have a batch of XC ski photos for this place but they all disappeared - we're sure that all the 35mm film negatives still exist within the negative archive files - however, a recent "mandated" upgrade to our Mac OS subsequently quit supporting the operating system to a great film scanner that we functioned with for years, rendering it useless - so that's where they'll stay... we're pretty fed up with everything computer controlled - come spring we'll be spending the majority of our time outdoors as usual, where we don't use any of that crap, so who cares... we find that all this "computer automation" just makes the dumb even dumber, anyway... at least nature is a final design and build - done...

... "God looked upon his world and called it good, but Man was not content - he looked for ways to make it better and built machines to do the work - but in vain we build the world unless the builder also grows"...

- 'I Robot' (The Outer Limits - 1964)

... that ain't happenin'... anyway, we digress...

... here's a old BRNR trial map... under optimal snow conditions (say a foot plus) that is great backwoods ski area - around twenty miles of trails with nearly 1100FT topographic relief spread out a little over 5,000 acres traversing creeks, spruce/rhododendron thickets and hemlock groves - pretty rocky and steep in spots so the deeper the snow cover the better for skimming rocks and downhill control - wouldn't call it a beginner XC area as it can be a real workout and the steeps are just that... used to ski here a lot back in the reliable snow days as it's only about twenty minutes from the front door - some great late evenings were had...

... we were lookin' for a reason to even handle a pair of skis a few weeks back (it was a January day and nearly sixty degrees) so we photographed this image... we been gliding around on a pair of Rossignol BC 110's (2) with Voile HD 3-pin hardware/Alpina Alaska 75's (1) drivers, for the past couple of seasons - Black Diamond adjustable poles (3)... we got pretty fond of skiboards (4/5) for quite a few years - we originally bought 'em as approach skis for ice climbing as they come mounted with ratchet strap bindings that accept mountaineering boots - we liked their performance navigating dense woods and steeps so much that we souped 'em up a bit with 3-pin hardware for just plain old backwoods trails - we wouldn't recommend 'em for much more than powder snow as they're pretty sluggish in any snow that you can form a snowball (particularly for breaking trail) and if crusty you're all over the place - we also would prefer a fish scale pattern base (not available for some reason) as opposed to the built in climbing skins which hold a lot of moisture and balls up with snow - we usually spray the heck out of 'em with 'Macs 8300 Silicon Spray' available at NAPA Auto Parts... for fun (and to clean off the dust and cobwebs) we included an old school pair of nordic style Trak Glide "No Wax" skis (7), souped up with old Voile Plate style 3-pin bindings, non adjustable bamboo poles (6) - don't know how many pairs of those we split -  and ASOLO Glissade 310 boots (8)...

... came across a few more old stills from Ohiopyle SP from around '87-'88 - hangin' out with the "Good-Man" and a young Strong Man Matt... the upper three photos are along a "secret trail"...

... 3-pin equipment seems to be coming scarce with most everything we see nowadays being toe-bar style drive... we've never skied 'em so really can't comment... we tend to be a bit rough on equipment (at least that's what we're always told), but have broken more bones than (durable) 3-pin gear - that's good enough for us... we don't get out that much anymore, anyway...