Backyard backcountry

It’s been an excellent winter for out-the-backdoor nordic skiing. I've been kicking and gliding around the few hundred acres of woods that I call my backyard since before Thanksgiving, often solo at night with my headlamp. There's not a ton of vertical relief, but there’s one particular ridge with beautiful hardwoods and a perfect pitch that I’ve been waiting to ski until conditions were just right. Our 10-year-old son Daniel has joined me on some of my cross-country tours through the woods this winter, and with the lifts at Gore and Whiteface on windhold, Sunday was a perfect opportunity for a father-son backyard backcountry trek to earn some turns on the ridge.

Support Needed for Backcountry Skiing on Forest Preserve Land

The Adirondack Park Agency (APA) is soliciting comments regarding their plan to amend the Adirondack Park State Land Master Plan (SLMP), the document which governs management of the state-owned “forever wild” lands of the Adirondack Park. It’s the first time the SLMP has been amended in more than 25 years, and represents a critical opportunity for advocates of backcountry skiing.

Among the changes that are being considered is a proposal from the Adirondack Powder Skier Association (APSA) to explicitly allow for the creation and maintenance of designated backcountry ski touring trails on Forest Preserve lands classified as Wild Forest and Wilderness.

K-P night patrol

There’s a lot of things I love about skiing, but at the root of it all is the simple joy of being out in the woods, in the snow. The nicer the snow, the bigger my smile. And when the snow is good around home, my favorite thing to do is to head out the back door for a tour of the woods that surround our house on my cross-country skis. But the short daylight hours of mid-winter and my job in Albany make it difficult to get out in the snow as much as I’d like, so when the snow is good I grab my headlamp and go on night patrol.

Skiing the historic 1930s trails of North Creek and Thirteenth Lake

Skiing has a long history in North Creek, with roots in the early 1930s. Early “Ride Up, Slide Down” skiers arrived by train and then rode in flatbed trucks to the Barton Mines property on Gore Mountain where a network of ski trails led back to North Creek. The trails were immensely popular, with hundreds of skiers arriving in North Creek on weekends with good snow conditions to ski trails like Halfway Brook, Raymond Brook, Pete Gay and Rabbit Pond. Those early trails even gave rise to the first Ski Patrol, experienced skiers who assisted injured skiers with first aid kits and toboggans and swept the trails at the end of the day. Eventually World War II intervened, interest shifted to development at the North Creek Ski Bowl, and the old Ride Up, Slide Down trails fell into disuse. Until Steve Ovitt came on the scene.

Skiing Mount Marcy circa 1986

When I first took up cross-country skiing nearly 30 years ago, in the early 1980s, it was on wooden skis (Edsbyns) that I bought new at Morsan’s Sporting Goods (now Campmor) in Paramus, New Jersey. Around that same time I became an avid hiker and an aspiring 46er. The natural intersection of those interests led me to try my skills – such as they were - on ski tours like Avalanche Pass, the Whiteface Toll Road and Mount Marcy.

Cross-Country Season Preview

Ski season is just around the corner, and over the past couple weeks I checked in with many of the region's cross-country ski areas. My Adirondack Cross-Country Ski Season Preview appears here, on Adirondack Almanack. If the snow this winter is anywhere near as good as last year, the backcountry options look great too. Here are some additional resources for trip planning this winter:

• Phil Brown takes a look at new slide routes in the High Peaks created by Tropical Storm Irene in his article New Adirondack Slide Guide on Adirondack Exporer.
• New backcountry ski trails have been created in the Siamese Ponds Wilderness area around North River over the past couple of years. Bill McKibben writes about the new routes here in Adirondack Life.

Also be sure to also check out this interview with Ron Konowitz, the only person to have skied all 46 of the Adirondack High Peaks for some inspiration.

New slides in the eastern High Peaks

Without a doubt, any of us would reverse the course of events that devastated New York and elsewhere on Sunday if only we could. The losses and pain inflicted by Irene are real, significant and widespread, and nothing can detract from that devastation.

However, Irene is also the most dramatic and stunning example of the dynamic nature of the Adirondack environment in our lifetime. Literally overnight, dozens of new slides have been created in the eastern High Peaks region, dramatically altering the landscape.

Earlier this evening, John Warren reported on Drew Haas' overflight of the High Peaks region in Adirondack Almanack, with additional images on Drew's Adirondack Backcountry Skiing blog. Both posts, linked above, are sure to be of interest to readers here.

Photo: Trap Dike on Mount Colden. Courtesy of Drew Haas, Adirondack Backcountry Skiing

Stony Pond Ski Tour: 03/26/2011

This past Saturday all of the elements came together for a great backcountry ski trip: blue skies, packed powder, a great group of friends, and a point-to-point through trip that drops nearly a thousand vertical feet. At the end, instead of taking off our skis and climbing into our cars, we all skied into Jim Hanley's and Michele Quirk's Falls Brook Yurts for an end-of-winter celebration. The full trip report and photos are posted here on the Adirondack Almanack.

Additional photos are below...

Snow!

We woke up this morning to snow coming down at 1 to 2 inches per hour, and I wanted to get out on my cross country skis before the snow got too deep. I've been out on the Kalabus-Perry trail a few more times on skis and snowshoes since I wrote about it last month, and this morning I made a quick circuit past some interesting terrain that the K-P accesses.

Hardwood glade, about 150' vertical

Dual XC Tours: 01/23/2011

This past Sunday, family commitments kept us close to home. On days like that Beth and I sometimes each get in a quick nordic workout on trails near home by skiing one at a time, in shifts, while the other stays home with the kids: dual cross country ski tours. Beth did a 3.5 mile circuit of the groomed trails at the Wilton Wildlife Park and Preserve's nearby Scout Road parcel, while I opted for a woods tour through Saratoga County forestland that I can access right at the end of our block.

You can read more about my tour in a guest trip report here.

Whiteface and Esther: 11/06/2010

What a difference a day makes. We had originally planned this trip for Friday, the 5th, but the weather forecast for Thursday and Friday was so dismal we pushed back a day to Saturday. We couldn't have scored a more beautiful day to be in the mountains.

Just enough snow to ski from the Toll House

Away From the Lifts

New York state has more ski areas than any other state in the nation. But there’s more to New York skiing than just the lift-served areas. We’ll be publishing occasional photos and features of adventures away from the lifts, from groomed cross country skiing to ski mountaineering.

I took this photo a few years back on an adventure in the Adirondacks. Although it was relatively late in the season, the snow was pretty thin on this slide. Plus I was on ridiculously skinny skis and flimsy leather boots. I figure that gives me a reason to go back. Can you guess the location of this photo?