Finally, snow in the Adirondacks

Fresh snow on Baker Mountain in Saranac Lake. Photo by Phil Brown.

We finally got a bit of snow in Saranac Lake. Not enough for backcountry skiing, but enough to get you thinking about it.

On my lunch hour yesterday, I hiked Baker Mountain and took the photo above. The few inches we got might be enough to ski on golf courses, the Whiteface highway, and a few of the easier trails in the region. I hope to check out the trail to Moose Pond later in the week.

This is a good time to remind people that the Adirondack Ski Touring Council regularly updates cross-country-ski conditions online. It reports that Nordic centers near Lake Placid have some trails open.

Here’s the report on backcountry conditions:

“Whiteface Highway skiable, although there will be short stretches that have been blown clear of snow. Marcy Dam Truck Trail possibly skiable with caution. Main Loop at Henry’s Woods on Bear Cub Lane just barely skiable. With 5 inches reported at Paul Smiths, the Hayes Brook and Fish Pond truck trails are finally skiable, although caution definitely advised on the first hill on the Fish Pond Truck Trail. Lake ice on Avalanche and Lake Colden crossable. No other ice should be assumed to be safe, although the cold Tuesday night has probably made many lake crossable. On the higher summits, finally enough for snowshoes above 3,000 feet; but with much ice under the snow, traction aids will be very useful, if not required, on steep trails getting to that elevation. Definitely be prepared for winter conditions on any of the higher summits. Meadow Lane, access to the Marcy Dam Truck Trail, closed to vehicles for the winter.”

One shortcoming of the council’s report is that it concentrates on the Tri-Lakes Region (Lake Placid, Saranac Lake, Tupper Lake), so you rarely see accounts of conditions in other parts of the Park, such as Old Forge or Cranberry Lake.

 Here’s the link to the full report.

Let’s hope we get some real snow soon. It is January, after all.

Help the world; watch a ski film

Want to do something good for the world? Then watch the new Teton Gravity Research ski film at the Lake Placid Center for the Arts this Friday night.

Proceeds from the ticket sales will benefit the Adirondack Ski Touring Council and the Barkeater Trails Alliance, two nonprofit organizations that maintain trails for cross-country skiing and mountain biking in and around Lake Placid.

The film, One for the Road, follows some of the world’s best skiers on the road and on the slopes, whether in Jackson Hole, Japan, Iceland, or Alaska.

The doors open at 7 p.m., and the movie starts at 7:30 p.m. There will be prizes and a raffle.

Tickets at the door cost $12 (or $6 for children under 12), but you can purchase them in advance for $10 (or $5) by clicking this link.

The harbinger of winter

Ron Konowitz, left, and Mark Meschinelli at the Lake Placid Turn on the Whiteface Mountain toll road a year ago. Photo by Phil Brown.

We had a brief snow squall in Saranac Lake this afternoon. No accumulation, but the cedars outside the office window got a nice dusting.

So I wasn’t too surprised when Ron Konowitz called to say he had just skied the toll road on Whiteface Mountain.

As the robin is to spring, Ron Kon is to winter. He is usually the first, or among the first, to hit the toll road in the fall and the last to put his skis away in the spring. Last season, he went skiing more than 160 times, mostly in the backcountry.

This season, he got off to a late start, thanks to a dearth of snow. Usually, he manages to squeeze in five or six trips on the toll road in October. After a freak snowstorm many years ago, he went skiing on Labor Day weekend.

“This is the latest I haven’t been able to ski,” he remarked.

On Friday morning, Ron and a friend, Katie Tyler, hiked 3.5 miles up the toll road as far as the Lake Placid Turn, where they put on skis for the remaining 1.8 miles to the summit castle.

Ron said there was five or six inches of snow up high. He and Katie did four laps between the castle and the Wilmington Turn (about 0.8 miles) and then skied back down to the gatehouse.

Ron said the skiing was very good for a few miles, on Styrofoam snow, but the cover became thin at the lower elevations. They would ski on the sides of the road, sometimes gliding over frozen grass. In a few spots, they had to walk.

“It was worth it, for sure,” he said.

Like many backcountry skiers, Ron is looking forward to skiing some of the new slides created by Tropical Storm Irene.

“It’s going to be an amazing winter,” he said. “All we need is snow—the magic ingredient.”

Ron is the only person to have skied all forty-six of the High Peaks. Click here to read an interview with him about this feat.

Winter is hanging on

Fresh snow on the Jackrabbit Ski Trail in Saranac Lake. Photo by Phil Brown.

Winter hasn’t ended yet. It has been snowing off and on since early Tuesday. Driving from Plattsburgh to Saranac Lake last night, I found myself in a blinding snowstorm.  

The new accumulation has amounted to only a few inches, but it was enough to inspire me go for a short ski through a pine forest in Saranac Lake on my lunch hour. The forest is at the start of the Jackrabbit Ski Trail. It’s a beautiful place after a fresh snowfall.

If you like snow, enjoy it while it lasts. The temperatures are supposed to climb into the fifties this weekend.

Ski festival this weekend

The Mountaineer in Keene Valley will host the ninth-annual Adirondack Backcountry Ski Festival this weekend.

As in the past, skiers can sign up for a variety of intermediate and expert tours. The most difficult outings entail skiing slides in the High Peaks.

As of today, there were still three openings for the High Peaks Traverse on Saturday, an end-to-end trip through Avalanche Pass. Cost: $90. All the other tours are full, but if you’re interested, you can get on a waiting list.

In addition, the public can demo gear and take part in free clinics for telemark skiing, skinning, and the use of avalanche beacons at Otis Mountain, a private ski hill near New Russia.  The Otis Mountain events will run from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday.

On Saturday night, Marmot athlete Heather Paul will give a slide show of her ski adventures, including a trip to the Altai Mountains in Central Asia. The show starts at 7:30 p.m. at the Keene Valley Fire Hall. Admission is $10.

Profits from the ski festival benefit the Adirondack Ski Touring Council and the New York State Ski Education Foundation.

Click here for more details about the festival.

Sliding off the Kilburn Slide

The March/April issue of the Explorer contains an article about skiing the Kilburn Slide outside Lake Placid. I went with Josh Wilson, a backcountry snowboarder, shortly after a big snowfall that prompted an avalanche warning for the region. One purpose of the trip was to test the avalanche conditions on the slide.

The greater purpose, though, was to ski (or snowboard) the thing. Josh went down in superb fashion, carving big curves in the snow and at one point gliding off a small cliff. I skied badly, however. I’m just not used to skiing slides. Most of my backcountry skiing is on trails or in powder-filled glades.

I returned to Kilburn yesterday to try to redeem myself. No one had been on the slide since our last big snowfall last week. I turned around a little short of the top and looked back at a white slope broken only by my ascent track.

Starting down, I fell almost at once, but I got my act together and made it down the rest of the slide without any trouble. The powder was heavier than earlier in the month, but it was still powder, and the setting was wild and beautiful.

Then I came to the top of the sixty-foot wall at the base of the slide. On our earlier trip, Josh snowboarded off the wall. He angled halfway down, made one turn, and glided to the base in a slough of snow. Click here to watch a video of Josh.

On my solo trip, I thought I’d traverse across the face and then try to side-slip down or do a kick turn and ski down to the base. Although there was maybe a foot of snow on the face, ice lurked underneath. In the video below, you can hear my edges scraping the ice as I step into position for the traverse. Watch the video to find out what happened.

The joys and perils of backcountry skiing

On Sunday, I skied the Marcy trail from Adirondak Loj with Mike Lynch and Chris Knight, two reporters from the Adirondack Daily Enterprise. We followed snowshoe tracks nearly to Indian Falls and then broke trail as far as the junction with the Hopkins Trail, 1.2 miles from the summit. We turned around there.

Nate Jeffrey needs a big pack to carry all his essentials. Photo by Phil Brown.

The 6.2-mile ski back to the Loj was fantastic. The week’s snowfalls had left plenty of powder on the sides of our skin tracks—so much that I felt comfortable bombing the Corkscrew, the steep, twisty descent from a ridge. During our descent, we saw only one party of snowshoers between the Hopkins Trail and Marcy Dam. Apparently, the High Peaks don’t get as much use on Super Bowl Sunday.

When we reached the dam, we encountered Nate Jeffrey, one of the caretakers at the forest ranger’s cabin on Lake Colden. The Explorer ran a profile of Nate in its November/December 2009 issue. On Sunday, Nate was on his way back to civilization after spending six nights at the cabin. He was skiing with a huge backpack that contained, among other essentials, his dog (see photo to the right).

Nate mentioned that the night before two skiers had to bivouac in the Dix Mountain Wilderness after getting lost the woods. Mike and Chris, being reporters, immediately recognized this as a good story. Sure enough, you can read about it in today’s Enterprise. Click here to see the online version.

Ski video: Powder to the people

More than a foot of snow fell in Saranac Lake. Photo by Phil Brown.

I shoveled my driveway four times in twenty-four hours, and I am a happy man. If you’re a backcountry skier, you understand.

Saranac Lake got more than a foot of snow in this week’s storm—enough, I imagine, to render skiable most of the backcountry trails in the area. Yesterday, my son and some friends skied a part of the Jackrabbit Trail west of Lake Placid, which includes a mile-long downhill, and found the trail in great shape.

Before work today, I climbed most of the way up a small mountain and skied down through the woods. The conditions were superb, with powder bunching up to my knees during the descent.

I shot the video below with a point-and-shoot camera strapped to my chest. I apologize for the abrupt ending. Not sure why the camera turned off.

Be aware that conditions can vary throughout the Adirondack Park. The photographer Carl Heilman II told me he got about ten inches in Brant Lake, but because there was no base before this storm, he thinks skiing in his area could be dicey.

Click here for updates on ski conditions in the Lake Placid region.

Holiday ski tours

Martha Brown at the outlet of St. Regis Pond. Photo by Phil Brown.

I’ve done several ski trips in the Saranac Lake region with my daughter Martha over the past week. Conditions are excellent if you choose the right trail.

Two that I can recommend are the Hays Brook Truck Trail in the Debar Mountain Wild Forest and the Fish Pond Truck Trail in the St. Regis Canoe Area. Despite a few hills, both are suitable for novice skiers.

Martha and I skied the Hays Brook trail the day after Christmas. I also did this trip earlier in the month for an Explorer story, which will be posted online next week. I’m happy to report that the blowdown we encountered on the first trip has since been cleared. (Click here for a related blog on the use of chain saws in the Forest Preserve.)

We skied the Fish Pond Truck Trail a few days before Christmas, going as far as the outlet of St. Regis Pond (the start of the West Branch of the St. Regis River). The cover was excellent except for a thin patch on the hill before the pond.

On Christmas, we skied a loop at John Brown’s Farm in North Elba, just outside Lake Placid. Most of these trails are flat, but there is one trail that climbs through the woods behind the farm that requires intermediate skills on the descent. All of the trails were in good shape.

We also skied the Bloomingdale Bog Trail outside Saranac Lake one evening by the light of our headlamps. This trail requires very little snow. Be aware, though, that it is used by snowmobiles.

I haven’t tried the backcountry routes that require more cover, such as the Avalanche Pass Ski Trail, but Tony Goodwin of the Adirondack Ski Touring Council recommends skiers stick to gentler terrain until we get more snow.

Unfortunately, there isn’t much snow in the forecast this week. In fact, we may get rain on New Year’s Day. So get out while the getting’s good. If you’re looking for other suggestions for early-season ski trips, click here.

Ski for a good cause

Skiers on the route of the Camel's Hump Challenge.

Backcountry skiers can contribute to a good cause by participating in the Camel’s Hump Challenge in Vermont on February 13.

At 4,083 feet, Camel’s Hump is one of the highest mountains in Vermont. In the annual Camel’s Hump Challenge, participants ski around the mountain on trails not normally open to the public.

Each skier must raise at least $125 from sponsors to take part in the event. The money will be donated to the Vermont Alzheimer’s Association. Fund-raising can be done online. Check the website for details.

The challenge is not a race. Rather, it’s a demanding backcountry tour through beautiful forests and glades, with elevations ranging from 2,500 to 3,500 feet. The fifteen-mile loop usually takes five to eight hours to complete.

I took part in this worthy event a few years ago and can attest that it is indeed a challenge, though an exhilarating one.