Training Log Archive: CleverSky

Skating at Trapp Family Lodge, with Alan and Geneva, using gear borrowed from Alan. Well, with them for part of the first loop, anyway, then they went up to the cabin while I noodled around near the lodge by myself. Several inches of snow fell last night, and conditions were basically ideal, quite a surprise for April.

Willard Brook SW, In The Dim. Leaving work and most of the way home, I was encouraged because the snow was almost entirely gone. In Lunenburg there was still some snow, but I figured that as long as I picked a place that drains well, I should be okay. Drove a few more miles to the state forest, and I was postholing the whole way around, sliding around on the downhills and having trouble following the trail. My original intent had been to do the loop I had in mind last week, if I hadn't made a couple of wrong turns, going all the way south on the twisties and then over the big knoll. But I got sick of the trudging and decided to take the low road like I did last time. But... I could have sworn I took the same turn, but I did end up doing the climb. Worked out okay, as there was a little less snow higher up. I did finally wimp out by doing the last little bit on the road, as it was getting hard to see.

Nice close flyover by some kind of owl, probably barred.

Sugarbush, with Nancy. Spring conditions, generally pretty nice, warm enough that I had to have my gloves off half the time, and I probably would have been considerably happier without the helmet, but I already had it on and didn't feel like going back to the lodge to ditch it. Mostly we skied together, though when she wanted to break for lunch, I did one run alone, Organgrinder top to bottom, before joining her.

After lunch, one run together, then separately for an hour, and one run together at the end. On my own, I went to Castle Rock for some harder stuff. First time I'd been here since sometime in the early 1980s. GPS tracks, because that's what the cool kids do when downhill skiing these days. The watch battery lasted until almost the end of the final run, and probably would have made it if I had paused it sooner during lunch. (And yes, I really was skiing through the woods at the end.)

While skiing I overheard a guy talking to his son, who appeared to be about 10 years old, and he addressed him as Acer. Whoa. I told the kid that I had never met anyone with that name, but that if I had ever had a son, that's what I would have named him. I had a brief chat with his father a few minutes later, he asked me how I knew what the name meant, and I said that I had a passing knowledge of botany (it's the genus of maple trees). Pretty cool, though I got the impression that his dad had actually named him after a laptop.

C • Laptop 6