Old school
Well, here we are, the 11th of January. We actually got a good couple of inches of snow on top of the 3 inches we had all last week and this new system moving in may just push us over the hump so we can get to grooming.
I walk our dog every morning and we go by two or three trail heads, depending on my mind-set, and I decided this morning enough was enough.
It’s time. I’ve been around enough to know that the 5.5-6” of snow is just the right amount to set a ski track.
Old school skiers in the 60’s and early 70’s set track with their skis. That’s what we decided to do today. We’re not talking the big hills and quick turns out there, we’re talking the novice loops and flat stretches we’ve got. We set tracks with our wide, Hok skis (from our sponsor Altai Skis) or the old rock skis we haven’t used in years. We skied around known rocks and on the edge of perineal water pockets; but we skied the ‘best line’ too.
No fumes, no noise. We didn’t have to worry about wrecking thousands of dollars of snowmobile or Gator tracks and suspensions. We opened some decent, well kind of decent, ski terrain for all of us that are just plain sick of cutting brush and doing work shop projects while we wait for real snow. Becky skied in some nice tracks on the east side of Montreal and had a gang of walkers with five dogs walk the skied in tracks. She didn’t say a word; they had Golden Doodles with them. The Chief skied in the Pence Loop and found, after 5 decades, it’s taxing to keep the tracks parallel when there’s not much snow out there. He’s a little worn out tonight.
The ski tracking will continue as needed, but hopefully next week we’ll be able to get the modern machinery chugging away too. The novice loop on Uller has been skied in, up to the new cabin too, FYI.
It won’t be pretty. It won’t be crisp and picturesque and old, rock skis are suggested; but by gore, a skier could get out and feel it once more. Winter.
The forecast will help but we just need to dance up a real snow storm and we’ll be right where we deserve to be after all this ‘too nice’ weather.
Get ready. Ski Freely. We’ll see you out there! Z
