Great Gulf update 05-05-10

[sfmornay]

Having only experienced a small portion of the Great Gulf, I thought Wednesday would offer a good opportunity to expand my horizons. After plying through the usual fog along the Winooski River vallley, I emerged above Marshfield into a bluebird day, with a few intermittent clouds sweeping over Mount Washington in a mild wind.

The snow along the cog railway began just above the shed that's halfway between the water tower and the halfway house. A little ways above Jacob's Ladder, it faded fast, skinning was over, and it became a matter of either scrambling over lots of rocks, heading over to Burt Ravine (and then scrambling over lots of rocks at the top), or walking up on the railroad ties, which clearly was the easiest alternative.

I crossed paths with a group of a half-dozen guys, who were making any number of negatory comments among themselves about how the Internet was ruining all the backcountry skiing. I thought about asking them where they were from, and whether they considered themselves "locals", but I just kept quiet and confined myself to "Hi," and "Have a good day." None of the following photos show anything that hasn't already been ruined.

Conditions are changing almost daily, but the snow was about as good a specimen of spring corn as one could desire. Predictably, most of the traffic was concentrated on Airplane, with Mother-in-Law a close second. Both routes offered top-to-bottom skiing. Spacewalk had a smaller number of cusomers.


The only impediment in Airplane was a cluster of bowling-ball-sized rocks in the mid-section, seen at the top of this photo. Of course, while I was standing here with my camera, someone came by and sideswiped one of the rocks, sending it careening down to the bottom, as several people were skiing or climbing up. Maybe Airplane was sending me another message....


From Airplane, I traversed over to Mother-in-Law.There was a narrow section of somewhat brown snow halfway down. Visible and audible water was flowing off to skier's left. But I didn't find any major crevasses or undermining.


The upper section was superb.


There were a number of routes which didn't have any traffic at all.


At the end of the day, I skied down Burt Ravine to the level of Jacob's Ladder, and then traversed back to the railway and skied down to the dirt. The walk down was a bit long, but relatively easy on the soft dirt and grass.

[icelanticskier]

ya, coverage in gg looks like early june last year cept for mil. airplane can and usually is a $hitshow, especially when you mix in large groups of folks that complain about the interwebz, ski at the same time, kick rocks around..... maybe they should stay at killington

nice report!

rog

[andyzee]

Originally Posted by sfmornay

I crossed paths with a group of a half-dozen guys, who were making any number of negatory comments among themselves about how the Internet was ruining all the backcountry skiing. I thought about asking them where they were from, and whether they considered themselves "locals", but I just kept quiet and confined myself to "Hi," and "Have a good day." .

Funny, Monday I was at the base station just checking out the summit and saw a number of guys booting up getting ready to hike up. I asked one of them about the conditions and he stated that I would be better off going to Tux. When I asked why, he said less people This was the only car in the lot, and it was just these guys. I said, sarcastically, you mean there's less at Tux than you guys? His friends just started laughing.

[boardman]

sfmornay:

The guys in Airplane recognized you! They mentioned seeing your tripod set up with nobody around on top of Spacewalk (they'd also done Spacewalk), until you climbed back up to retrieve it. They also mentioned you were the Doc at the Sugarbush clinic (they were Killington area guys). I was the guy who got first tracks on MIL -- the Vermonters all said they watched me get it -- and was booting up Airplane while you were skinning your way across to MIL. That MIL run was my favorite of the season - and you could practically take it all the way to Spaulding Lake!

[icelanticskier]

Originally Posted by boardman

(they were Killington area guys)

i knew it



roro

[RR]

Typical day in Paradise...

Way to get some!

[sfmornay]

Originally Posted by icelanticskier

ya, coverage in gg looks like early june last year cept for mil.

Thanks, Rog. To be honest, I was surprised with how far down Airplane one can ski - way further than I've been able to previously in the spring.

Originally Posted by boardman

The guys in Airplane recognized you! They mentioned seeing your tripod set up with nobody around on top of Spacewalk. ...was booting up Airplane while you were skinning your way across to MIL. That MIL run was my favorite of the season - and you could practically take it all the way to Spaulding Lake!

They were patrollers at Sugarbush. I was hoping to have company on my excursion, foregoing the need for the tripod, but ended up having to solo. I gave up on the skins over to MIL - too much sidehill on slippery snow. It was easier to sidestep. MIL indeed was awesome; you could really rip all the way down.

[natron]

way to get after it!! way to grab action shots of yourself solo! love the pix!!

[sfmornay]

Originally Posted by natron

way to get after it!! way to grab action shots of yourself solo! love the pix!!

Thanks. I wish there were a remote control that would work reliably over a distance - that would make it a lot easier.

[RR]

Originally Posted by sfmornay

Thanks. I wish there were a remote control that would work reliably over a distance - that would make it a lot easier.

I never did get the "data-back" for my old 8008s, but that was a marvel for motion detection and auto focus shooting as long as movement was detected. Weighed a ton!

[LPNH]

Originally Posted by icelanticskier

ya, coverage in gg looks like early june last year

Here is comparison to June 7th 2009
pretty close in coverage with this year right now-MIL was completely out before June last year

[M@]

Snobbery and entitlement seem to be popping up as problem topics in several domains lately.

Excellent TR: Would love to hear about your remote setup and success/problems you encountered.

M@

[JR's Eyeblack]

I was also struck by the narrowness of the middle sections of Airplane Wednesday. However, the top 50 or 100 vertical is more filled and seemingly mellower than last year at this point. Much of that may be because of the april storms.

On the up side, it looks like a mixed precip event coming for this weekend and then relatively cold with a snow chance middle of next week. Should lengthen the season, though probably not until June 7 as LPNH's picture shows. Amazing how low the snowpack in Airplane can be and yet still be skiable to the bend. Its very much grassy in the middle for a long ways down.

[sfmornay]

Originally Posted by M@

Excellent TR: Would love to hear about your remote setup and success/problems you encountered.

Thanks. I have a Nikon D80. They make a remote device, but the consumer reviews I've read are disappointing - particularly that it only works over very short distances. My Sony video camera came with a remote device, and in experimenting with it, I decided that I don't even trust it inside the house, much less over any distance while skiing.

The Nikon has a self-timer that you set for 10 or 20 seconds. It has a blinking light, which goes solid when you have 2 seconds to go. Sometimes it's hard to see in the sunlight, so I just have to count "thousand one, thousand two ..." and hope I get it right.

It's usually preferable to have someone else taking the pictures, but one advantage of a tripod is that it keeps the background perfectly steady, which is good for multiple exposures, or for cross-fading when you're editing video footage.

[yuckster]

Originally Posted by sfmornay

The Nikon has a self-timer that you set for 10 or 20 seconds. It has a blinking light, which goes solid when you have 2 seconds to go. Sometimes it's hard to see in the sunlight, so I just have to count "thousand one, thousand two ..." and hope I get it right.

Is there any way to put it on a timer and then have it go into burst mode for some duration?