Angus

Another day yesterday at WaWa. From last weekend, equivalent # of skiers but more hikers and the hikers were definitely families; and if had to speculate, groups of multiple families or couples not practicing good social distancing. Definitely shaking my head. Really no snow loss higher up mountain. They have pushed snow at base up the hill to facilitate melting? Basically took multiple runs on a couple different bump runs. Came home and roller skied around my neighborhood. Expect I will be back again. My son said he expects his next skiing will be the auto road on mt. Washington but I doubt it opens until the pandemic is in better place.

I hope it is a BIG THIRST!!

Had fun at WaWa this afternoon. Fair # of people hiking with skis, skinning or just families hiking on the slopes. Going up to the summit between noon and 1, there wasn't much softening. The east facing slope - Minuteman chair - had much nicer and softer snow. There was even a bump line to be skied. May go up early Tuesday for turns if weather forecast is correct. There is quite a bit of snow on trails as reported.

i will probably do this a bit just to get outdoors close to home.

I'll be interested to hear any reports from ski areas about how the skiers followed the guidance provided by the resorts...example an excerpt from Vail properties that I've received multiple times now..."We will ask guests to ride on chairlifts and gondolas with their parties only. We ask for our guests’ patience while we implement this new protocol. We will post signage with social distancing reminders and our employees will be on site to help encourage safe protocols."

I assume my ski season is done. I honestly don't understand how packed onto a ski lift even in the open, moving air is not going to cause transmission. The profit at this point is minimal to the areas - PF could confirm. I just worry about the seasonal labor being terminated 3-4 weeks early. I just finished reading an article in the NYTimes about some of the modeling the CDC has been doing and it is scary stuff.

What was striking yesterday, driving south on 89 from the border was the little snow even in the hills around the Bolton/Waterbury exits. My attention will now turn to ice out on our lake in NH!

drove up to Tremblant on Friday and nordic skied Friday and this morning (Sunday) before heading home. Downhill skied on Saturday. A couple of observations, the mountain skis much bigger than the vertical. Couldn't quite figure out why other than it has a bunch of subpeaks and a 'north' and 'south' side. It is a fun mountain. A good amount of tree skiing for all abilities, all of which is very well cleaned out - mostly hardwoods anyway - and the coverage was deep enough that we never encountered any stumps or rocks and tree limbs sticking out of the snow. Lot's of uphill lift capacity but also big crowds. Skied with daughter and son and we mostly just hopped in single's line to maximize our vertical. They have a lot of snowmaking capacity and they appear not to be shy about using it. They have a good base but hadn't had any recent snow and maybe a little bit of rain but as I said to my son, 'it's still eastern skiing.' on the main routes down the hill, there was a fair amount of boilerplate and the steep trails had man-made boilerplate interspersed with powdery bumps - definitely should have sharpened my edges before heading up. The nordic trail network was tremendous. Having skied essentially a 600m loop on a golf course all winter, getting out into the woods for kilometers of well groomed trails was awesome. We stayed at what I guess would be described as a boutique hotel adjacent to the 'ski village' and was able to access the nordic network from my hotel with less than a 1/4 mile walk The Laurentian region is beautiful. The other thing that was very cool was all the smallish sized ski areas north of montreal - all looking very busy.

Need to add my two cents to this public health policy debate, IMO the whole cannabis legalization impetus has been a combination of growing social acceptance - your original, widespread, regular user cohort is now in their early 70's and municipalities/gov't looking for new sources of revenue. With that said, the police are sick of busting otherwise 'upstanding' citizens on petty possession violations; but IMO, the real motivator for states and local gov't is the concession/franchises are a source of much needed revenue. My libertarian view (one I don't subscribe too regularly), is government just wants in on the racket - just like gambling. With that said, what amazes me is the lack of really good science that has been conducted on the effects of marijuana use. Until recently, the federal government tightly restricted the study of the drug.

"Live Free or Die!" What a chucklehead, especially if he/she is healthcare worker and should really understand the risks.

I was observing the same thing here a few weeks back. This winter has stunk further east of you on rt. 2 but it has strangely had snow coverage, albeit very thin. In other weird occurrences, my wife is in Portland this weekend visiting friends. I woke up this morning to find a social media post of her watching the sunset last night in front of the NWS in Gray??? I'm guessing she was at Pineland Farms shopping.

I just checked the sugarloaf twitter account and they said King Pine was off-line due to maintenance. Again, I would never advocate compromising safety but that is aggravating! That's the new lift that replaced the lift that had the catastrophic failure a few years back. I skied Cannon today and the regulars said mountain ops had to put the place back together last night after the weather left trees and branches down all over the mountain. There was considerable boilerplate under the 3" that fell during the day. I skied Kinsman Glade which should not have been open IMO given the natural snow depth...dodging stumps and other obstacles the whole way down. Again, the regulars said they had lost a lot of snow over the week. I'm kind of ho-hum about the snowfields but I think the Brackett Basin thing is great - I was very much a doubter too until I skied there last April

Our neighbors on Winnisquam sent me pictures of themselves out on the ice in our cove this afternoon. What a spectacular day. They had been skiing for a couple of days at BW and those pictures looked great too. Winter in the NH lakes region is under appreciated.

Oregon is a beautiful state. Between the mountains and beaches - which are incredible - it is outdoor persons paradise.

They were hosting an alpine touring race this weekend. Following on Instagram but I believe the guy who won ended up skiing & skinning for 33+ hours. Good mountain.

Skied Crotched yesterday PM into the evening with my 9-yo nephew from DC. Talking to folks on the lifts, lots of NYers doing the Crotched, Sunapee, Mt. Snow loop over the 3-day weekend with their "Vail" pass. Thank goodness for snowmaking. Crotched doesn't have the most character but the snow product is consistent and it's a real nice asset in the local community. Noticed the nordic races went off in Dublin NH - just southwest of Crotched - yesterday with enough natural coverage. Only 3 days of alpine this season but all have over-delivered based upon expectations.

for immediate metrowest boston, this has been a weird winter, just based upon unscientific observation. We began with the December storm which isn't terribly uncommon but most of December felt like what mid-November normally should. Then winter deserted us completely with the crazy above average temps in January. But with that all said, I would be willing to bet we are just bit above average right now if we were to measure winter by any amount of snow/ice on the ground. We get an inch, two inches of snow, slush - it hangs around for a few days, followed by bare lawns and then repeat. It's been weird that way. Nothing I've been able to recreate with - a few days of nordic skiing on natural snow in early December but nothing since. I haven't skated on local ponds (or lakes), probably could have but ice was marginal at best. It's been a crappy winter here in Concord but doesn't compare to 2011-12 which was all time bad.

I move west to east looking at webcams, last evening around 9, I started at MRG, then Wildcat and finally Sugarloaf. It was pouring snow at MRG and Wildcat but couldn't see a flake at Sugarloaf. Found a webcam at Sunday River's base and it looked to be coming down pretty good there, too. My son drove up early this morning to ski either Attitash or Wildcat.

For sure, Sugarloaf especially got skunked.

There was a mill in Mexico but it was pretty modern. I don't think it is open any more though. I think you are thinking of Rumford.

Like many things, going across Knife Edge by yourself is fine if you don't have a fear of heights. You just step carefully and there is typically a 3-4' of crown most of the way, you definitely use your hands for scrambling; however, when I took my then 14 year old across - it freaked me out. Kept grabbing him or telling him to be careful - which started us arguing with each other half way across! Probably not best time for that sort of thing. We summitted Kings Peak (Utah's highest peak) when he was 11 - a huge physical effort - and he kept approaching and trying to look over what was essentially a sheer several thousand foot drop - that was horrifying as a parent! That whole part of Maine is magnificent and remote. I find the whole lumber ecosystem - maine timber going to Canadian mills to be fascinating. I've heard that they import Quebec crews to harvest the lumber b/c the Mainers no longer want to spend time out in the logging camps - not sure if this is true.

Skied at Bretton Woods today. Good size crowds and they stayed all day. Chose BW instead of Cannon and was the right choice. Very good coverage on man-made trails. Even skied some lower angle wood and natural snow trails and they were manageable. The gondola is nice - took two trips up at end of day after lines had abated. BW isn't my thing terrain wise but they do a really nice job for their customer. Fun day.

Quarry Roads , Waterville Maine Friday Brunswick Maine around just opened trails cut on the old Naval base Saturday Weston Ski track today... Just reinforced what a tough winter it has been for everyone.

I need to get out to BEast this season.

Strangely, I have no recollection of that storm living in Lexington. The video of Nantasket Beach reminded me of a storm my father drove me down to when I was a young kid - probably early 70's - standing right around where the waves were breaking over the sea wall in the video and the storm surge was almost to the top of the wall. I can recall being both in awe and a little frightened. My grandparents had a summer home on the other side of the hill on Atlantic Ave in Hull towards Cohasset. There was a hurricane in the late 60's which resulted in the fortification and essentially the destruction of a beach that ran parallel to Atlantic Ave called Crescent Beach. I dimly recall the beach but it now all rock and cement. This area is a favorite for the Boston news media to capture waves breaking over rooftops during big storms. Great video.