Practical skiing

 

Early winter has brought an awkward amount of snow to this part of New Hampshire. The temperature has kept undulating above and below freezing. The ground is barely frozen where it is frozen at all. But in some areas, notably the ones I have to cross on routine errands around the house, it's deep enough to make skiing on it more appealing than trudging through it. Not that it would slow me down much if I just stomped through it, but there's plenty to support a ski track, and a ski track ages better than a bunch of boot prints. It takes barely longer to lace up the ski boots and snap into skis than to put on ordinary boots and go make a stompy mess.

Skis are also useful for gathering kindling and emergency or supplemental firewood from the dead saplings and dried lower branches of the pines. A little bit of well-dried pine gets a fire going quickly.

Down in Wolfe City, the meager amount of snow was still enough to provide some sort of sliding conditions for skiers who had the time during the recent holiday week, as well as the usual determined locals who get their daily dose in the mornings before work. Grooming and heavier traffic both damage the snow, so there's barely enough for passage now, even on the best substrate, but it managed to survive, even with some warm drizzle soaked into it by storm systems at the end of the week. It's too thin to till up now that the temperature has dropped. Perhaps we will get a refreshing few inches on Friday.

Crunchiness is the defining sound of New England snow. The ungroomed snow around my house absorbed enough free water to freeze into a breakable crust over a variable few inches of frozen base. It's not full concrete, but it's not cooperative. With no particular hope or expectation, I set out to patrol my borders and read the news in footprints.

The deer herd has settled into its winter routine, which brings them to the woods near the house. They work this whole southwest-facing mountain slope. The extensive logging on the upper middle slopes has given them places to bask as the sun grows stronger. The uncut forest on my land provides cover in a storm. They also scuffle up fallen acorns and beech nuts, and bed down in the leaves. I saw lots of tracks as I crunched and clattered my way around the perimeter.

I wasn't planning to gain much elevation, but curiosity led me to start picking my way up the steeper rise at the back of the lot. This brought me to a line of boot prints. I seldom see human tracks. I don't post the land, because I like the tradition of zero-impact, exploratory trespassing. Once in a great while I see that someone has tried to enter on a motorized vehicle. That's when I pile brush and small saplings across the trails at entry points, just to give the hint. And the hint has always been taken. But any tracks alarm me a little bit, in case they're the first entry by someone who might not have that zero-impact ethic.

 New people bought a property with road frontage two lots away, but a back section that abuts my land. They have hosted ATV parties on the main part of their land, but have -- so far -- ignored the piece that would really bother me if they added trails to it for noisy, stinky, gratuitously Earth-raping toys. Between our properties lies another homestead, on a lot only subdivided in the last ten years. Those people have played from time to time with both ATVs and explosives, so I'm a bit on edge.

  When I first moved here, the forest was all well-grown, from the road edge to the far summit of Green Mountain, several miles away at the far end of the range. All of the houses were close enough to the road that I could go less than a thousand feet straight into the woods and then start a casually climbing traverse to the left, to make a broad, meandering climb to the nearest summit without seeing or bothering anyone. Now there's a house at the back of one lot, and a large cleared area on the next lot over. And something alarmed the nearest neighbor so that he put "no trespassing" signs around his entire perimeter, which I respect because I would want similar deference if I ever felt the need to bar entry to my land.

I don't own any camo, but I do dress in drab colors and try to stay near cover when possible. That's very difficult on the wide-open shaved areas of the upper middle slopes. The forest is uncut on the uppermost slopes, but you have to get there. I'm pretty sure that the neighbors on the other side are sympathetic to exploration. They have not posted their frontage. But they did build an impressive chalet up high. One of the most impressive things about it is how invisible it is. It's almost like a magic castle in the way that you can almost walk right into the side of it before you realize it's there. That's really nice, because it doesn't dominate the view the way the vanity mansions of many ridge-dwellers tend to do. But it means that I have to be extra-careful to find a climbing line that takes advantage of their uncut forest cover without letting them see me.

I didn't get into any of that yesterday, on the treacherous snow. I even took my skis off to track the boot prints, stepping into their tracks to obscure my own. I determined that the hiker had come from the side that I consider the safer bet that they will come and go quietly. Then I continued to carry my skis as I bushwhacked up along the stream to take a peek at the clear cut. Up there I saw a lot more deer tracks, but also bobcat, weasel, and possibly coyote. The possible canid tracks were mixed in with the deer tracks of similar size, and everything was a bit melted out. Two wild turkeys kept a wary eye on me from a hundred yards up the slope.

For the descent, I made my way back to the stream and across it on foot before putting skis back on. I was tired of carrying my skis, because I'd forgotten the strap to fasten them together. Skiing down was delicate, but still smoother than just crunching along on foot. I did a lot of stemming and sideslipping, but those are important techniques for the New England back-country explorer, especially alone.

Skiing leaves tracks in the snow, but the natural deviations that a skier makes will help obscure the trail if anyone is trying to track me. And on yesterday's crust I didn't leave much of a mark in a lot of places. The deviations were very wide, because the snow was too hazardous to get anywhere close to the fall line. The part I came down through is still thick with saplings from earlier logging regrowth, so the track at best is quite serpentine.

If we ever get good snow, the clear cuts beg for a some turns, but the cover has to be very good to cover the rough ground churned by massive skidders, and the slash and stumps, sweet fern and brambles. Since I'm always alone, any injury would be serious. In addition, I can't miss work. So I ski like a wuss. It's a great excuse, since I would ski like a wuss anyway. I hate getting banged up.