Month 33: Mount Washington, NH
Every month previous to month 33, have been completed west of the Mississippi.
Mostly in Colorado but also Oregon. Back in February, I made the decision to spend the summer on the East Coast where I grew up. One of my first thoughts about this decision was if the ski streak was going to continue. Where will the snow be? Do I need to go to Canada? How hard will this be? Will I meet anyone that will want to go with me? Despite all of my questions, I stuck with my decision to go to New Hampshire and that I would figure it out when each month arrived.
When I was 6 years old, I learned how to ski in New Hampshire at a small resort called King Pine. Knowing what I do now, I would hardly call King Pine a mountain, let alone a resort. Its peak elevation sits at 850 feet, has 17 trails, and 3 snail pace chairlifts. Growing up we were weekend warriors. If you aren’t familiar with the ski world, it means that you only ski on the weekends. Because of this, we stayed pretty local to the Lakes Region. We skied in Maine once or twice but never left the state. When I remembered this, I thought to myself, hey why don’t I try to ski Vermont?! It’s only a few hours away and I’ve never skied it. I hopped online and began to look at live cameras of different resorts. Killington? Nope, not enough snow. Stowe was out too. A friend of mine suggested a mountain called Jay Peak, which I had never heard of. I went to their website and looked at their live camera, and oh my gosh! THERE WAS STILL SNOW! WOOO! I looked at the calendar and chose an adventure date a few days later. My dog Rudy and I would make the scenic three-hour drive up to Jay Peak, get some turns and return to NH.
Fast forward to June 17.
The weather was perfect, no traffic predicted, everything felt like it was on our side. Maybe the ski streak in the Northeast wouldn’t be so bad. The drive was everything I needed. Narrow winding roads, green rolling hills, and a bluebird day. As my GPS said we were about 15 min away Jay Peak came into sight. Oh no. Ohhhhh no. There was no snow on the hill at all. HOW COULD THIS BE?! I just drove 3 hours for turns. Was the camera inaccurate? What went wrong?
No snow at Jay Peak, Vermont
Rudy and I continued on down the road and pulled up to the resort. Hesitant, I got out and begin walking toward the ski lifts. I found a few groundsmen and spoke with them. I said something about how the camera online had snow and I don’t see on the front aspect, is there any on the backside? Is there even a backside to this resort? They confirmed that there was not one pile of slush left on the mountain. It had been gone for about a week. Ughh.
To be honest, I paced around at the resort base for a little bit. Asking the Universe if this was real and if I was being Punk’d. I indeed was not being Punk’d. I didn’t have the correct information about the snow/conditions and now I was going to have to come up with a plan B. Luckily for me, Rudy is very good at keeping my spirits up during times like these.
I knew for a fact,
an actual fact, that there was still snow on Mount Washington. So I said to myself, Okay, what’s done is done. Pouting won’t change what just happened so if we are going to make this streak continue we have got to try something else. Let’s just drive 3 hours back to NH and drive up Mount Washington. Rudy and I put our hands and paws together…1, 2, 3, BREAK! And off we went.
We rode the rolling hills 3 hours back to NH, but instead of going back to my hometown, we drive to the base of the Mount Washington Auto Road. If you have ever been to New England, you have definitely seen the huge white bumper stickers that read, “THIS CAR DROVE UP MOUNT WASHINGTON”. I never could have guessed that I was going to be an owner of one of those stickers. Before we began the vertical trek from 4,618’ to 6,288’ I said to Rudy, “this will be just like when we drive up the pass to the mountains back home in Colorado Bud!”
Twice in one day, I was wrong.
The road was skinny, windy, steep, and lacked any type of guardrail. As we approached the summit of Washington, we saw two people with snowboard gear on their backs walking down the road. NO WAY! THERE’S HOPE! I immediately pulled over and talked to my fellow shredders. They told me if I drive up another 300 feet on the left side there are a few parking spots. Park there and then walk 5 minutes over to the ridge, when you get to the edge you can’t miss it, two huge snowfields. I was thrilled. Although I had driven over 6 hours to get to a place 1.5 hours from my house, I was going to get some turns.
Rudy and I pulled up, geared up and began the long, grueling, 5 min trek to snow. Low and behold, when we got to the edge, there it was! SNOW!
If I could have run I would have,
but being in a rock field in the Alpine Zone of Mount Washington, that probably wasn’t a good idea…nor really possible. Inside myself, I was running. On the edge above the snow, the wind was whipping. I layered up with a flannel and raincoat to keep myself warm. Once Rudy and I began our descent down to the snow we were almost completely protected from the wind, that was a blessing! It made it much easier for us to keep our balance.
By the time we touched the snow, it was about 2:30 pm. It was unexpectedly soft and forgiving. Something you should know about Rudy is that he loves the snow. When he touches it he begins to prance and dance. Bounding from one place to the other with a huge grin on his face. After a few minutes go by, he begins to get the zoomies. This is when his stoke levels get so high he completely loses composure and zooms around on top of the snow back and forth. Tucking his tail under and thrashing across the snow, biting at the pieces that fly up around him. Although today we were on the northwest aspect of Mount Washington, the highest peak in New England, on a pretty good slope, he made it look easy. Although we had traveled a long way for these turns, we were both ecstatic.
While Rudy played I put my boots and skis on.
The visibility that day was incredible. A bluebird day on Mount Washington are hard to come by, we were lucky enough to have one. I clipped into my Colorado made skis and began my descent. Now in a tank top and shorts I was digging my edges into the soft slope. About 15 turns later, the snowfield had come to an end. I stopped, looked up from where I had come from and looked down below. There was a third snowfield! This one was bigger than the other two combined.
Unfortunately, I had left my hiking boots at the top of the snow thinking I would just be lapping that single snow field. If I wanted to go to the third, I was either going to have to go in socks or be really careful and traverse in my ski boots. As you can imagine, firm plastic boots don’t have very good traction on hard rock. Taking my boots off and lugging everything over to the other field seemed like a lot of work, so I figured I would go very slow, be careful with each step, and try traversing. If for some reason it was too dangerous or hard, I would take them off.
Traversing the 25 feet felt like f o r e v e r.
I was okay with that because it meant more turns and a safe landing. Let’s be real, the 6 minutes it took to traverse was nothing compared to the 6+ hours I had driven to get there. The third field was so long and so good. With each turn, I felt the light begin to erupt within me. Whenever this happens when I ski I usually let out a “YEWWW” or a “YA YA YA YAA!”
When I got to the bottom, Rudy was close behind me. He started to yelp with excitement too. We are definitely meant to be together.
When I turned around and looked up the slope, I thought to myself, it’s going to be another month until I get some turns…hopefully…so let’s do another lap. I looked over at Rudy and said, “Wanna do another lap bud?!” He didn’t say anything, but I thought it was fair to assume he was a heck yes.
I clipped out of my skis and began to boot pack up the edge of the slope. Rudy kept running up and down, up and down again and again because his stoke was so high. Once we reached the top, we (as in me) quickly clipped back into our skis and sent it down the slope for a second time.
To be honest at first I was really bummed
to have spent so much time in the car that day. I could have done 10 laps if I was on Washington earlier. A picnic on the mountainside would have been ideal. This month of skiing reminded me that everything pans out the way that it is supposed to. That there are always silver linings, you just have to allow yourself to let go of the bad or unfortunate, and recognize the good.