All for 5 dollars

In case you haven’t heard yet, Rumford does not have good skiing right now and interestingly, seems to be one of the few places that doesn’t have good skiing. I drove over there the other day to find the snow wind blown and very dirty apart from a few sheltered spots in the woods. On the other hand, despite some misfortune on the mountain that happened to make headlines http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12087306 (which I fortunately avoided despite being on the mountain for some tele skiing), sugarloaf has incredible skiing right now. I’ve gone just about every other day and the trails have only gotten better over the last week. On top of that, a half day there only cost me 5 bucks. That’s a small price for great skiing and spectacular scenery (the sugarloaf outdoor center is more or less surrounded by mountains). Of course, the low price might explain why their groomers have all broken down this week. On my last trip there on Thursday, one of the loops I skied absolutely reeked of diesel oil after the piston bully sprang a leak somewhere. With their snowmobiles broken too, who knows what things will be like after the warm up forecast for the weekend.
Enough bad news, the skiing really has been great, even at my old high school where I skied with some UNH kids today and in Augusta on the new race trails there.

For good measure, here are some pictures

Snow place like home

One of the benefits of being an English major at SLU is that you often have lots of essays to write in lieu of finals. For the first semester ever I got away with that this fall, and packed up my stuff yesterday morning (Monday) and headed back to Burlington. In reality I could've left Thursday afternoon, but I'm never THAT on top of my assignments. Still, by leaving yesterday I guaranteed myself an extra week of break and access to really solid skiing. I thanked my car Big Red for the Christmas miracle of not breaking down this trip, carried my skis inside and found a giant platter of York peppermint patties which I proceeded to immediately do work on. This morning I woke up to my dog barking at the snowplow, which is always a good sign. Sure enough there's a few fresh inches out there and a good forecast. Eric will be home later today, and we have a good crew to train with up at Trapps and Sleepy Hollow so the start of break is looking good. See you all at those Eastern Cups!

Steve's way of saying goodbye

Oh, here are the pictures from Higley a few weeks ago per Ethan's request. As you can see, the first snow dump in Colton was a big one, chest high in some spots. We even ventured out onto the new trail we cut this year for Higley Trail Day. We did train that day, but couldn't help throwing tele turns down all the hills.