Rio de Janeiro & Buzios, Brazil - April 12-20, 2013

After some soul searching, I decided this blog is really more about "getting out there" and "doing interesting things" rather than just skiing, hiking, and mountain biking.  So to that end, I'm going to start documenting some of my more interesting travels.  First up: The trip Kelly and I took to Brazil from April 12th to 20th.  Rather than writing a chronology of events, I'm just going to write some blurbs about a few of our adventures in no particular order.  Necessarily going to have to leave some stuff out (a blog entry can only be so long!) Hopefully this format is agreeable with the huge number (roughly 3) of loyal followers that I have :-)

- Kelly and I on Sugarloaf -

 



 



 

- Scenery Video.  Really captures what Brazil is like! -

Gulf of Slides and Ammo Ravine - April 6th & 7th, 2013

Last weekend Scott and I (and Jon on Saturday, making his New England backcountry season debut!) headed up to North Conway.  Jon and I drove up to Portsmouth the night before, met Scott, and we all headed up together first thing Saturday morning.

Lots of weather discussion on the way up - we hoped to spend both days exploring the west side and/or Oakes Gulf and save Tuckerman and/or the Gulf of Slides for a later spring day.  But Saturday was going to be cold with a strong NW wind, and we thought skinning up the Cog wouldn't be very pleasant under those conditions (very exposed).  So we headed to the Gulf of Slides. 

On Sunday, the prediction was for clouds, a chance of rain or sleet, and an even strong wind, but coming from the S or SW.  We thought if we just went up the Ammo trail, rather than the Cog, and stayed below the treeline in Ammo Ravine, we might be protected from the wind, get in a few turns and check out the area for the first time before heading home in advance of the precipitation.  Both plans worked out nicely.

North Tripyramid, NH - March 23, 2013

North Tri-what you ask?  North Tripyramid.  Where is - no, check that - what is that? North Tripyramid is a 4,000+ foot mountain off of Rte 49 in NH, just down the bend from the well-known Waterville Valley ski area.

On March 23, 2012, North Tripyramid also happened to offer some of the best turns I've ever enjoyed in New England, and I've been skiing here since the Regan administration.  Scott, Ryan (first time on skins!) and I met at our usual spot, the Concord Trailways in Concord, NH at 7 a.m. and headed north from there. 

Mt. Lincoln - March 10, 2013

Happy slide season!  With the arrival of March, we had ambitions of checking out a couple of slides that we have been reading about for a while.  First up was Lincon's Throat, a slide running down the face of Mt. Lincoln in New Hampshire.

Scott, Justin, Dean and I headed up the morning of March 10, a blue bird day with temperatures over 50 degrees in Lincoln.  We were a little nervous at the start as Justin was attempting to make the approach on snow shoes, and Dean was using Scott's newly finished split board.  Fortunately both the snow shoes and the split board held up fine and the trip was successful.

We skinned up along the brook, and found the snow cover to be decent, but not spectacular.  Slowly, the terrain became steeper, and the climb became fairly challenging, expecially for Justin on snow shoes.  Somewhere around 2900 to 3000 vertical, we shouldered the skis and started the boot pack, eventually reaching an bulge (presumably the result of a slide down Lincoln's Throat earlier in the winter).  At that point, we were pretty tired, so we stopped for lunch and basked in the sun for a while. 

Jay Peak - March 2nd and 3rd, 2013

Slight delay in getting this post up - but I think it will be worth the wait, pretty confident this is the best video so far.  Probably not a coincidence that it is also the first time I've used Pearl Jam for the backing soundtrack. 

No pictures to share - this was straight resort skiing action.  As much fun as the backcountry can be, sometimes there is nothing better than heading to Jay, finding some trees, and just ripping down with 4-5 friends.

We did attempt to head over to Big Jay on Sunday - but no dice.  The weekend also doubled as a bachelor party, so we didn't get up very early on Sunday thinking we could buy a single tram ride pass to the top for $15 (we thought this because customer service told us that it was possible on Saturday).  Turns out customer service spoke the truth, but neglected to tell us that you can't carry any of your ski equipment with you.  Lame.  Anyway, by the time we sorted all of that out, it was after noon, and a bit late in the day to just skin up.  So we opted for another half day of resort skiing before heading home.

Enjoy the video.  Hope to have pictures and footage from our 3/10/13 trip to Mt. Lincoln up later this week.