The ski quiver

This is not the full arsenal, but it is the cache of skis that I personally have used thus far this winter. It includes a pair of stone-ground Madshus, the grand pooh-ba of classic skis tucked in the ski bag. Conditions are still good, so come on up for a backcountry ski or an ice climb.

February: off the couch

Heading to Chicago on school business, but it has been a great month with no travel ... Yahoo! I logged 22 days on snow, over 5,000 vertical climbing, and 22 hours of skiing. Feels like the most
activity in quite a while.

Trap Dike on Mount Colden

The photo is from last week's 20K tour - reconnaissance - it is in great shape. This is one of the best moderate winter mountaineering outings in the Adirondacks. If we want something stiffer (NEI 3+) right next door is the climb called The "Adirondike," at 4 pitches it is also in great shape. Brian? Gary? Dave? Larry?

Fossil Gear!

Ski mountaineering 1970s style ... Getting ready to rip the hide, and point 'em downhill. My 202 cm Rossi Strato 102, with first generation Ramer randonee bindings, adjusted for my ice climbing boots! I spent two hours touring the newly cut logging trails at NCS which weave their way through open stands of sugar maples ... fantastic skiing, and great views of Pitchoff, Cascade, Wright, and Algonguin

Skiing bibliography

Click on this link to access an extensive bibliography of the subject including fiction and non-fiction, guidebooks, films and video, photograph collections, poetry, and assorted artifacts. (Over 7,000 items catalogued in this database.)

NCS Skimeister

Lucy participating in the nordic 1K event, then it was on to the 1K air rifle biathlon, and finally then to the ski hill for the slalom and jumping events. It was a picture perfect day. (Click on the picture to enlarge the photograph.)

NCS Ski Hill

It was a beautiful day, and I was out skating our nordic trails, including a trip up the lower portion of our ski hill. Tomorrow is our annual skimeister - nordic, slalom, aerials, and biathlon - so the kids are getting pretty excited! (Click on the photograph to enlarge it.)

Saranac Lake Winter Carnival

Lucy skated a good race against stiff competition on a 1.8K course. Her time of 8:41 averaged 4:48 per kilometer. (Click on the photograph to enlarge it.) On a totally different note, tonight we are having "Hugh stew" ... one of our bulls - Hugh Grant - is being taken out of the freezer. For those that are interested, Selden names all our young bulls after movie stars because they get lots of female attention in the barnyard but all come to an untimely end.

Fantastic Tour

A superb day! Ted and I toured 10k to the end of Avalanche Lake. The
conditions were hard and fast, with lots of side slipping and
snowplowing to get safely down "misery mile." We did the full 20k and
1500' tour in just under four hours.

Loppet finish

Hock striding it out in the last 100 meters. I had superb wax ... purple covered by layers of blue and extra blue.

Maputo

Fossil friends -Tori and Greg - have moved into their apartment in Maputo. Maputo, formerly Lourenço Marques, is the capital and largest city of Mozambique.

Tioga Pass Resort

A decade ago I did some phenomenal skiing in Tuolumne with Ben. I would go back in a heartbeat ... any interest this Spring or some other Spring. (I enclosed the chute, not because I have designs on skiing it but because Lewy told me he had skied the Ellery Bowl chutes.)

Last Loppet update

The enclosed picture shows "Team NCS" just before the start of the big race. Our team was composed of four staff, four current students, a recent graduate, and a former NCS mom. The times for this rugged 25K classic (1800') ranged from 1:57 to 3:10, with Hock skiing a relatively casual 2:10. (You may notice that his travel schedule and cultivation dinners seem to have thickened his middle a bit!)

Blast from the Past!

A picture of Yvon, piolet and ice dagger in hand, working out the secrets of the ice climbing revolution in the sixties. The other picture is from my library and is of the classic - and highly collectible - gear catalog with Doug Robinson's article on clean climbing. Two key alpine artifacts!

Taking Home Hardware

One of our 9th graders - Meg - won the 13-17 age group in the 25k.
Betsy and Liz on the NCS staff also won medals. Kyle just missed
breaking the NCS with a 1:57 in the 25k classical.

Kudos to Gary

The fossil outhouse has a special new Finnish seat that is warm on the
butt in sub-zero weather. Thanks Gary.

Gary at the start

It is 9:00 am and the gun is about to go off. Gary skied a snappy 3:56
for third in his 50k age group. Of course, little does he know that
his top layer of blue wax (which I changed on my own skis shortly
after this picture) is going to be too slick to get him up the Porter
Hills.

Course profile

As you can see from the course profile enclosed with our race packet, we are going to do a lot of climbing tomorrow ... 1800'. Snow conditions are perfect, and it seems that the very warm temperatures are going to hold off until tomorrow afternoon when we are done! (Click on the photograph to enlarge the course profile.)

Tuning Skis

The NCS nordic team getting ready for the 25K loppet. We glide waxed with CH-8, and tomorrow we are going to check out a variety of kick wax combinations including grip tape, as the temperatures may change dramatically on Saturday.

Another blast from the past!

Hock competing in the 1986 Biathlon World Team Trials. Later in the following season he would qualify for the Olympic Trials. He passed up on that opportunity to help coach the US Disabled Ski Team in Seefeld, Austria where he guided a blind skier to 4th place in the World Championship 10K.

Stowe Derby

After I finish the Lake Placid loppet 25K, there is one more race to do on February 22nd with the NCS students ... the Stowe Derby ... 3000' descent from the summit of Mount Mansfield and then a 7.5K skate into the center of town. Can we put together a fossil team? (Click here to see the details about the Stowe Derby

Loppet Training

I just went out for an easy 45 minute ski on the campus trails. Later today 2-3 laps on the "Ladies Five." The enclosed picture is from yesterday, when half of my nordic team, heading out for practice. My Lucy - the littlest - had her first ski tour of the "Ladies Five," while Kyle the furthest to the right is getting ready to break the 1984 school record (1:49) for the 25K loppet ... no small feat with its 1800' of climbing. (Of course, the hardest part of the possible record breaking will be to get the chaperone - me - to go fast enough.)

Inca Mummies

The book I am reading (The Ice Maiden) is fascinating. In 1995 this well preserved 500 year-old girl was found on the summit of Nevado Amapato (20,702'). Click on this link to watch a National Geographic video that talks about the wide range of research into Inca mummies.

Lake Placid Loppet

One of the premier distance events in America. Climbing over 3000' in the 50K course. We have superb snow conditions, come on up and stay at the cabin and ski the race next Saturday. (Click on the picture to enlarge the course map.)

Nordic Ski Racing

The Lake Placid Loppet is fast approaching. Gary is definitely coming up ... Brian? Mark? The painting is a historic one, of an artist rendition of the original birkebeiner skiers taking the baby prince to safety a 1000 years ago in Norway.

NCS Crag ... icing up

As I skinned up and over the top of the NCS ski hill this afternoon, I was amazed at how much ice the crag has collected. The photograph shows full winter conditions on "Hock's Blessing" a summer 5.6 that may get its first winter ascent tomorrow.

Africa: fossil friends

Tori and Greg exploring the Drakensburg mountains in South Africa, as they wait for their apartment to be ready in Maputo. A different part of the continent but is this really "Out of Africa" redux? Is this Karen Blixen (aka Isak Dinesen) and Denys Finch Hatton as played by Tori and Greg?

Telemark Tips

Today I was working on tip #74 in Allen and Mike's Really Cool
Telemark Tips. Keep those hands pointed down the fall line during the turn ... thanks to John D for the reminder. (Click on the phorogaph to enlarge the picture and read the informative text.)

NCS ski hill

The enclosed diagram is our tail map; click on the photograph to enlarge it.

Tele-turns

Gorgeous day. My first turns of the season at Whiteface ... Somebody
has to look after the students! (Click on the picture to enlarge it.)

Video: Pathfinder

I am getting ready to show this film to my nordic racers as much of the action takes place a 1000 years ago on skis. This film, based on an ancient Sami legend, is a coming-of-age story about a boy who witnesses his family's murder by a brutal gang of thieves. How he deals with these murderers, while protecting the rest of his tribe, makes up the principal plot. The movie is simple--simple plot, simple dialogue, simple (but stunning) visuals, and this simplicity lends a great deal of strength to this work. Everything unnecessary has been cut away, much like the lives of the Sami people, a tribal group closely tied to an unforgiving landscape and climate (Lappland).
Although most of the film is action, there is a wonderful relationship that develops between the boy and the tribe's shaman, or "pathfinder." They have only a couple of conversations before fate separates them, but in those brief exchanges the pathfinder imparts all the knowledge the boy needs to take up the mantle of pathfinder himself.

This film is beautifully crafted, well-paced, and provides a wonderful portrait of a culture which has much to teach.Click on this link to see a two minute video clip.

The Mountain Library

I have logged about about half of the mountain library into the blog. FYI ... You may use the search function on the blog to find the books you need. This new title is the story of an extreme archaeologist whose career revolves around finding mummies and buried artifacts on the top of 6000 meter peaks in the Andes.

A Banner Year

On the drive back from four days in Manhattan - working with trustees - it was great to see all the ice dripping off of the Chapel Pond Crags. Pictured below are Chouinard's Gully, and Power Play, but know that everything else is in.

Chessler's 100 Best Books

Click here to access Michael Chessler's list of the 100 best and most important mountaineering books. (How many do you own or have you read?)

Video: Nordic Pre-Olympics

Click here to watch video coverage of the 1.6 K classical sprints at Whistler. Andy Newhall finishes in the top ten and several other Americans earn world cup points.

Video: Outside magazine's profile of Messner

Click here to watch a 45 minute profile of the alpine god, the focus of the film is his exploits on the Himalayan giants.

Video: The Nose speed record

Click here to watch this 90 second video about the Huber brothers.

Video: American Alpine Club Trailer

Click here to watch this short video ... guaranteed to get you motivated and off the couch.

C

Dean of Students

Or, maybe we should call him the NCS Dean of Skiing. Click here and watch a 15 second video of Nick taking time out from discipline and parent phone calls to rip it, on a slope near school. The conditions are great and so many staff and students have the tele-gear out. Lucy gets her first pair of tele-boards tomorrow.

More Humor

Another PenMen cartoon ... you can find them on Climbing magazine's website. (Click on the cartoon to enlarge it.)

Video: UIAA gear testing

CLICK ON THIS LINK TO VIEW A SOBERING 90 SECOND VIDEO.

Feb 8 ... Best of Banff Film Festival ... Shikashika

Coming to Lake Placid Center for the Arts ... In 2008 Huaraz Satyricon Cinema produced a documentary film about a Shikashika business in the Andean Highlands. Filmed in Peru, the documentary reveals the process of making a colorful shave ice called Shikashika. To make it one family must journey afoot into the Andes mountains where they cut enormous blocks of ice with an axe and bare hands. On the return journey they strap the ice blocks atop mules and lead them down steep granite canyons. The following day Shikashika is sold at the steps of a cathedral in the valley far below. The film offers a rare and focused glimpse into life and work in the Peruvian highlands

Out for Another Ski

This time a 7.5 k tour with Lucy on the biathlon trails.

-20 Last Night

The temperatures have risen thirty degrees as I return from my noon ski to warm up in the cabin.

Who Is Coming?

So far I have just heard from Gary? Brian is waffling a bit as he is still recovering from nordic skiing over New Year's. (Is he a whimp or what?)