Handlebars as an ice ax

Had a sublime ride today with Jake and Buck. All other folks were probably skiing so we three scored the primo conditions by ourselves. The first hour or so, the ride was incredible: I was understanding the slickrock references folks were talkin' 'bout on the front end of this ice storm. Yes, 11 days after the Valentines Day ice storm, with a warm period in between, and the crust was still hard and ridable with great purchase. Sticky love was flowin'.

We dropped this no-name twisty gully (known as the gully that knocked Buck out once), and it was off the charts. I couldn't stop laughing and grinning the whole way down.
Bobsled-like,
banked turns that you could really rail.
Apparently this trail isn't that fun when it's dry; it's real rutty and rocky, but the snow had it completely filled in and we rode on top of it, as fast as we wanted.

We tried a descent called Asscrack Trail. A steep, hard to follow, off-camber drop off Piney Mountain. The crust was slick, too hard to walk, but easy enough to ride, until the trail started slanting sideways.
Then it got interesting
Many tire slip falls had us in "slide for life" situations, sliding on down until we hit, or could grab a tree. If we still had our bike with us, we could jab the handlebars into the snow and do a self-arrest. Then we'd have to kick steps to get back up to the trail.
Sketch City.
Jake took a fall, did not have the bike with him. He slid quickly downhill, far below his bike until he met a tree. That sketched him out pretty good. He'll be taking a big bruise to Peru next week. Lucky he's not taking a cast.

The snow had picked up by then and was giving us a few inches of freshies, and no more great purchase. Jake took the quickest way home, and Buck and I continued on searching for some more fun. It was still fun at that point. The many off-camber sections of Community Service started squeezing some of the fun out for me, but the rest of the trail was sweet. Deeper snow after that, and it turned the usually mild Log Sled climb into a hike in several sections.
Yes, walking up Log Sled,
starting to get a little workout in now.
trying not to sweat

I got back just in time to get the Subaru up Jake's long steep driveway before that became sketchy too. Thanks to Mrs. Gettier for the fine turkey chili to top off the day!

keyword: michaux

moguls

I know some peeps will be quite surprised to find a pic of a mogul field here. I've never been a fan of moguls, mainly cuz I've always sucked at skiing them. I couldn't ski them in my alpine years or snowboard years, and now I'm trying to ski them in my telemark years. I'd rather ski anything instead of a mogul run; corduroy, ice, a cat track, a golf course, hell I'd even rather skin uphill than ski down moguls.

I've always known though that skiing moguls is the key to being a good skier. If you can ski moguls, you can ski anywhere. And by anywhere, I mean the steep and tight trees of White Grass and any other Eastern woods shots. I want to learn how to ski them. I figure, I learned how to telemark ski at age 40, so maybe I can learn to ski moguls at 45 right? I mean, the knees oughta be in fine shape from the years mashing around on a single-speed eh?

Yesterday was warm and sunny, and I had an hour or two free, so I book it to Whitetail with a plan to head straight for the mogul run and try to learn something. I like soft mushy corny snow. It's almost like powder, only it's not. But it isn't ice, and that's what I like about it. You can lean hard into your turns, and the variable depth and consistency tend to keep you off balance so you have to work to keep from flipping over the bars. If I'm gonna learn moguls, soft snow sure beats icy snow.

Pull outta the alley here at home at 1:17, and am ready to hop on the chairlift just after 2:00. I go to adjust my poles back to resort length, and what's this? The flicklock cam is gone from one of them! Hmmm, maybe that's what I heard rattling around in the back of the Suby. Ran back to the car in my loosely-buckled T2s, luckily I'm only parked 4 cars from the front. I find the missing part and use the only tool I happen to have in the car, a multi-tool from my road bike kit. Run back up to the area, this time noticeably slower up the stairs.

Onto the chair and head straight for the mogul run with a confident attitude. I know you have to be aggressive in skiing moguls. And it's that aggressive stance, quick thinking, and quick feet that you need to ski the trees, steeps, and any other challenging terrain.

Now, here's where my story breaks down. My mogul runs were spectacularly unspectacular. No different than any other mogul run I've had in my ski life. I was simply trying to link 5 decent turns together in the fall line. I think I got to 5 once, and I think I even hit 7 once. Two runs and a ball of sweat later, I bail and head for some confidence-building groomers on Far Side. Maybe I progressed a hair. This is going to be a really long road.

missed this boat, big time

OK, so you folks have been reading about me telling you all how great it is here in PA, and how I've been scoring on all these epic rides, snow rides, and ski sessions. Well, it's become pretty clear that I definitely missed the conditions of the year for both skis and bikes. Who the hell woulda thought that the same weather event would cause both to go off the charts?? I guess that thick, solid, sleet crust that everyone south and east of Chambersburg got was great for biking on trails, because it was so solid, that you didn't bust through. And apparently the snow north and west of Chambersburg was a lot better than my 2 days at Whitetail would lead me to believe.

These various quotes from friends have brightened my inbox in the past several days. I was coordinating with some of these guys about a xc ski, but I never could pull the trigger on a decision, and just took the easy default, Whitetail.

It started off from Tomi (doesn't it always), who was the first on it Friday at Blue Knob,
"handful of runs with first/second/third tracks to start, then picked apart the edges.....

......some noiiiice knee deep stashes to make the day....."

from a western PA mountain bike friend about x-c skiing Laurel Mountain
"Larry, By far the best conditions of the year. There was 8 inches of new powder on a 2 foot base."

now for the biking crew,
from buddy Andy Neal about riding in his neighborhood
"...I just finished another insane ride here at the lake, so enjoyable, other worldly. I rode the lake for over a mile.. mid 20's psi and it was like slickrock.
......I've stayed local and having a blast, 4 rides in 3 days. I feel like a kid and bruised all over. "

from Scudamore, I guess even Wakefield has gone all time.
"Unbelievable!! The hookie ride this morning was surreal. It was like riding slickrock. I have never ridden the trail system at Wakefield so fast. The Jeep Road was like a superhighway. As was the non race course stream valley section. We also rode behind the ReCenter in the fields it was like I was a little kid again."

this from the understated, soft-spoken Joe Whitehair about riding the Watershed,
"Conditions have been crazy fun but will be gone by Tuesday."

oh yea, and how about White Grass?? Outta the freakin ballpark! How 'bout these few choice and painful words from Chipper. "every-few years epic conditions!"

"Every few years epic conditions..." Can you believe that? And what the hell was I doing but sitting on a chairlift with my thumb ....... Nuff said. Time to lick my wounds and figure out how to not miss the next "50-year storm" (name that cheezy movie). Yea, yea, I know I just wrote about how cool it was to ski the past couple days with friends, and it was. I just didn't know I was missing epic everywhere else. I sure hope this warm week isn't the end of winter.

And just for kicks, check out what else was happening from this storm. I hope my nephews scored this one.

downhill slide

Why does downhill skiing hurt so much more than uphill skiing? I can ski all day when I have to make my own way to the top, but only a few hours of lift-served skiing burns the hell out of the legs. The local x-c skiing hasn't been that great since our ice storm. I went back out to Sideling Hill for some more exploring and definitely found some trails which will be much better after this snow softens up or gets more fresh. Found a nice gradual descent into the Roaring Run drainage. A steep, smooth fall line doubletrack bisects this drainage giving skiable lines on both sides and both aspects. It's damn steep too, and would definitely require me to bring the heavy gear and helmet. A bit on the narrow side as well. That particular spot would be worth bringing the skins to, but the rolling trail in and out might be a pain with the skins.

I missed 2 good chances to x-c ski out in western PA and instead hit Whitetail the past 2 days . Whitetail is about as good as it gets right now, and it's the first time I've ever seen their half-pipe open (not that that matters to me). Yesterday I shared a couple chair rides and runs with a pair of telemarkers and their snowboarder friend. Turns out we know each other from the Wild 100 and other mtn bike scenes. Chad and TJ are damn fine tele skiers too. Today started off in a little snow squall which would've really made for a great day, but it didn't last long. Met up with Quigley, Buchness, Tom & Julie, and Dianna and skied a few hours with them. Good stuff, no rest, a few mogul runs. I think I want to spend some more time in those moguls before they melt away in March. Think I'll take my shorter, softer, and lighter Atomics on them and see if I can't learn something.

What to do tomorrow? Maybe Oliver and I can find some more snow somewhere.

crust

This is such a solid unbreakable crust that Oliver's scooter doesn't even sink through.


Sledding on this high speed crust was interesting. Do you how fast plastic sleds go when they don't break through? Sketchy sketch...

new trails

So I missed the Sunday Michaux ride from Jake's today, and missed a good chance to go x-c skiing too. Instead, I joined 7 other guys from State College and Huntingdon, and walked around the woods of Raystown Lake staring at a GPS receiver, trying to walk a line which had been loaded into it. This line is to be part of 30 miles of new singletrack mountain bike trails being planned for Raystown Lake by IMBA and the Corps of Engineers. The trail's designer, Clark, had digitized this line in his GIS software, and downloaded it onto several GPS receivers that we would use to follow it on the ground, measuring with a clinometer, and flagging the corridor along the way. Sometime in the future, the IMBA crew will come in with their magic trail building machines, and transform our flags into sweet singletrack, or bloggable flow trails as some would call them.

It was a cool learning experience, and another nice hybrid of my avocation and vocation. Not quite as much fun as riding or skiing, but nonetheless....

After the work, Darius and I took a short ride on some of the trails they built last summer, and messed around a bit on this section.

Now I'm off to Virginia for a couple days to work the predicted big snow event of 2007. Hope we get some of that around here so I can take a day off and get some local x-c skiing in when I get back.

9 degrees F

I have to say, that I think I just had my second best mountain bike ride ever tonight. Still my favorite ride by far was an unexpected treat about 10 years ago with Misters Quigley & Junkins down the Duncan Hollow Trail. A few inches of snow turned that otherwise ordinary 4-mile descent into a sublime experience. We probably only touched our brakes about 10 times in those 4 miles. Using snow-pillowed rocks as moguls to check our speed when necessary; and rest assured, we were quite safe.

And tonight, in Michaux, was a reaalll close 2nd. Darius and I got out to Michaux around 8:00 tonight, and rode Ditch Trail, LollyPop, and Heislers Campsites in 2"-3" of fresh, dry snow. The snow arrived overnight, and the temps all day never got above 22 degrees, so the snow was perfect dry powder, no crust at all, Just incredible.

I'm not a good enough writer to describe how fun it is to ride in perfect snow. Those who know, know.

I've been riding with Darius since Oct., and neither of us has flatted in all that time (other than a roll off). Tonight, we both flatted, no doubt from thorns somewhere on a trail. Changing a flat when it's 9 degrees adds a certain amount of calmness. Seriously. And surprising.

my 3rd best mountain bike ride might just be last week's snowy night ride w/ Darius, Heisler, and friends. What is it about snow rides.

the Massanutten range

Scott Scudamore forwarded this cool image taken from the Space Shuttle. It shows the entire Fort Valley and Massanutten range clearer than any similar image I've ever seen. Buzzard Rocks is there at the top, Little Crease, Signal Knob, and Short Mountain are easily recognizable. You can even see the slopes of Massanutten Ski Area at the southern end, in "The Kettle". Shenandoah Nat'l Park on the right, and the I-81 valley on the left.

I can't figure out why there's what looks like snow in the open valleys, but not on the mountainsides?? Maybe just the reflectivity of bare ground with the sensor being used??

PA x-c skiin'

Went out for a couple of local x-c skis in the past few days, in this marginal snow season. The first spot, Sideling Hill, is only an hour from town (as in, in my ski boots within the hour). Was barely enough snow, and I only had an hour to ski before I had to get back and pick Oliver up from school, but this place begs for further exploration. Lot's of smooth double-track trails that were skiable with a tiny amount of snow. Some good downhills too. Might even be more fun when icy. Might even need a helmet then. It looks like a perfect place to night ski. And night skiing might also be the best time to avoid the snowmobilers who claim this spot as their home. And they're certainly right, as sled-heads outnumber nordic skiers about 1000:1 in this part of Pennsylvania.

Checking the bases after the ski. No problems at all. What were all those scraping sounds???



I had the next day off after working snow-duty the previous night. Had thoughts of going to sleep for a couple hours after taking O to school, and then figured, why waste daylight with sleep? I could finish building some trail with Darius, or ride, or hit Whitetail where a couple of my nephews were boarding all day, or go x-c skiing. When I really broke it down, x-c skiing was the logical choice, since it's the one activity I have the least opportunity to do. So, I called Darius and talked him into heading out to this place with me. I've looked at Laurel Ridge's web cam every winter day for the past several years, but have never been there. Their camera is a great indicator of the snow conditions all over the Allegheny spine.

Laurel Ridge was about a 2-hour drive from town, on the always intense Pennsylvania Turnpike. The snow there was great, and was getting fresher and deeper by the minute. We toured for a couple hours, then I had to beat it on back home. Some nice trails there, and some fun downhills. Not bad for 2 hours away, and was another world from town.

Groundhog Day

I hate that movie. And I hope the critter is wrong again too.

southern invasion

A group from VA and MD came up for a ride today. Despite a big error in my directions to Old Forge, they all somehow found me. Pierre and Frank pulled together a small Bike Lane crew plus XTerra stud Roger. We had a nice 3-4 hour tour of the southern Michaux trails which Darius helped me lead. Darius threw in some extra singletrack that I wouldn't have known about, then, after assessing our group's technical prowess, gave us a run down his sweet new techy descent, straight into the Narrows via some nice rock features. This was a really cool trail, one that I'll be riding a lot more.

We started out as a group of 8 with 3 single-speeders among us. One of these guys would become a single-speeder before the ride was over.

Dr. Kathy goin' for that leafy opening while hubby watches on.

Roger in the Narrows

Darius cleans the last pitch to the Chimney Rocks overlook.

Eric finds his mojo at the overlook after losing it early in the ride.

Thanks for coming up guys. It was great to see you all again and good to get some quality rock time in.

White Grass, finally

Tomi on the skin track at White Grass on Saturday.

Skiing at White Grass is always a good time.
Tom and I spent the day trying to get all the continuous vert we could, and I came away totally worked. It is immensely easier riding a single-speed in Michaux than climbing up White Grass all day on burly gear. Actually, my gear wasn't really all that burly, I guess I'm just not fit enough for that yet.

We had a couple of great runs down Springer, a cool run on some singletrack off the top of Weiss Knob, and we eyed up a sweet looking glade hiding right there in plain sight. Untouched. Now, I'm kicking myself for not touching it. Yeah, it meant another climb, but was probably worth it. How much more tired can ya get anyway?

day into snow into night

Darius took this shot on our exploratory ride this afternoon. Some friends from Virginia are coming up on Sunday for a ride from the Old Forge Area. I have a fairly decent loop in mind, but any loop can always use some more singletrack right, so we went out to check out the status of the Spooge trail, which has recently been logged, heavily logged actually, and in more than one spot. Spooge would be a real sweet descent to finish the ride on, and would surely send the southerners home with grins on their chins. But the last time I rode it, it dissolved into an explosion of damaged earth and trees, and we couldn't re-find the trail, so I wanted to scout it today.

We get there and get rolling at about 4:30, it's about 25 degrees, and snowing a bit. We have about an hour of daylight to work with. Darius brought a 3-watt LED, I brought my new eBay HID, just in case. Our goal isn't to ride Spooge in the normal way (meaning, down), but is more just to find our way through it now that the loggers are doing their thing to the mountain. So we park near the bottom, and climb up a steep, bisecting doubletrack, find the singletrack, and climb up to the first of the logging craters. We bushwhack and drag our bikes though this, and actually ride a fair amount of it. Darius finds the trail on the other side, and we climb on up some more to the next giant scar on the earth. This one takes a little more huntin' & peckin' around to find our way out the other side. Somehow Darius comes through again and finds the singletrack which leads us up to Rothrock Rd. Mission accomplished, more or less.

We decided to turn around, and see if we could easily re-trace our snowy tracks in the same direction we'd be riding on Sunday. By the time we get to the lower mess, it's snowing and blowing pretty good. It's 5:55, and we both needed to be home at 6:30. It's way past sunset, but with the reflective snow, we can still see a bit. My man Darius is a bit of a gambler. He wants to find another trail, not the one we came up on, but another one that he knows will drop us out onto Staley Rd. He bushwhacks around below the ridge for 10-15 minutes. It's gettin' real dark now. And the the wind is blowin'. I can't see him anymore, and if he were to shout, I wouldn't hear anything with the wind, even if he was 10 yards away. I'm bushwhacking too, also below the ridge, but I can see the clearing on the top in the fading light, and presumably, there's the loggers road up there as well. I decide to get up there while I can still see it. Because, even with a high powered HID light, if you don't have an actual trail to follow, you might as well be lost. It's pretty hard to find anything bushwhacking with a light.

Darius eventually gave up his search, and joined me on the logging road, we then dropped down to Swift Run Rd, and then took a right back up a log road to try to find some more of Spooge. This time, we score quickly, and start descending Spooge proper in the snow and dark. Sweeeet is all I can say about that. I'm not a huge fan of night riding, but I do love it when snow is on the ground. It's quiet, it's soft, sublime. Nothing beats a technical singletrack descent in the snow in the dark. Not even the cold beverages waiting to warm us up at the car.

visitor's ride

Finally, some guests from my old homeland. If you don't count Andy, who's practically a Michaux local, this was the first visitor's ride. Le homies Nick, Steve, and Joe met me this morning at Old Forge Picnic Area for whatever amount of singletrack I could piece together in 3 or 4 hours.

It was the 3rd rainy day of the 3-day MLK weekend. Though this area has been under a green radar blob for 3+ days now, again, we did not get wet. A thick, fog cloud remained down low, but on the tops of the mountains it was almost clear. I showed the boys some of the descents I knew. Up Swift Run Rd to Snowy Mtn Tower, down to the Narrows, back up Staley Road & 4-Logs, past the tower again, a short detour out to Chimney Rocks, and then the sweet descent of the Chimney Rocks blue trail.

No good pics since I left the camera in the car, but it was definitely a fun ride for another rainy day in January.

Thanks for visiting guys!

B-day party ride

Awesome ride for Buck's birthday.
Fast pack, moist, dark at times,
Tomi has a few pics and words here

Some Virginians are due today, hopefully get some ride pics later.

a good exploratory day

OK, now I can begin to whine a little less about not learning the Michaux trails fast enough. Today was that unique Virginia holiday, which I call the north-south holiday weekend. The country celebrates the civil rights leader Martin Luther King on Monday, and Virginia celebrates the leaders of the confederacy, Lee and Jackson, on Friday. So, I always get a 4-day weekend, and since Oliver was in school, I had the whole day to ride.

Andy joined me, and we started from the Old Forge picnic area, as this is the closest spot to Frederick for Andy. I had a route in mind, with some trails I wanted to confirm and learn, and we definitely did pretty well. It was a lot easier to observe at a slower pace than usual, and we didn't hesitate to take plenty of study breaks. We also came into several junctions from different directions than we usually do, which really helps the orientation process.

We rode trail to the Snowy Mtn Tower (never again!), then Carumba, figured out how to get all the way down to Narrows, up Turtle and 4-logs back to the top. We found the entrance to Spooge, but quickly lost it in a huge ugly logging sale. We never regained the trail and dropped off the wrong side of that ridge, to the Swift Run Rd side. So, we headed up that road, and took Curran up & over back to Chimney Rocks Rd. Then descended blue, which was well worth any price of admission. Would've loved to find all of Spooge, cuz what we did ride was sweet, and there was a whole lot more downhill we missed. Gotta try that one again with someone who knows it after the logging destroyed it. But the blue downhill, especially the lower part below Hermitage Cabin was so sweet; wet, rocky, evergreens, almost Slatyfork-like. Soooo nice.

more on trails

Anyone who's looked at this blog since we moved to Chambersburg knows of my zeal to learn the mtn bike trails in Michaux. It would help greatly if I weren't always at the back of the pack. I'm lucky that someone actually waits for me at all the near-invisible turns and junctions. If I could get up front, then maybe I could stop once in a while and get a good look around. The locals here know the trails by name far better than they know them by map. I guess since the trail names aren't on any maps, that makes sense. I'm also learning that the trails are like "here today, gone tomorrow". They can be destroyed by logging, closed off for huge deer exclosures, ruined by ATVs etc.

The trail names are interesting and sometimes revealing, like they're named after who built the trail, or a certain scary creature found on the trail a few times, or so-and-so's career-ending crash trail, or someone's trail to town 100 years ago. Names like Spooge, Buckets, Black Andy's, Turtle, Heislers, Carumba etc.

A typical ride, like yesterday's, starts off late week with an initial e-mail proposing a parking lot to start at, and a loose outline of trail names to be followed. Then, a flurry of replies about the start location being too close to someone's house, or, we started there last week, suggestions concerning folks' sexuality, frequency of sexual activity, the type of sexual partners, and other humorous and important input. Somehow, a parking lot gets agreed upon and we all show up on time. Get dressed, conduct safety checks, and then, the "where are we riding" discussion begins, usually, as we're all just riding circles at the cars. It goes something like this (of course, these names are just random, cuz I still don't know how to connect any of these trails).

"Why don't we go down Turtle, over to this, do that, and then Buckets..."
"Why would you go down Turtle, what the hell would you take to get back up....?"
"Up Narrows??, who the fuck would want to climb Narrows..?"
"No one, but it'll piss the single-speeders off...."
"How 'bout Spooge?"
"Spooge has been trashed by the fucking loggers.."
"WHAT!!! "

Eventually, someone just starts riding away, with the others yelling, "where the fuck are you going...". And the ride is underway.....

holiday rides

Rode xmas-eve and new years eve with the Michaux crew,
once again, quite paced,
today started at the Teaberry lot and rode for 4 hours.
first part of the ride was on trails that most of our group of 12 had never ridden,
other trails that only get ridden once a year by this group,
this group, that rides Michaux every week, sometimes several times/week,
there are just that many trails here

holiday hikes

the "brave knight of history"

Tiffany on the rock

Tiff on the camera