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Visit with the Lucanders

This weekend we got to hang out with our good friends the Lucander’s, who were staying at a campground up in Rumney, NH.

On Saturday, Michele got to hike the Tripyramids with Ursula all day and I was on kid duty.

In the AM I took the boys to the Woodstock watering hole.  This spot has some awesome natural water slides.  The boys had a blast but the water was so cold their entire bodies were becoming number.  We went back to the lodge for lunch and then headed over to Rumney in the afternoon.  There we met up with Dave and Lily.  We played at the Baker River, which is a much warmer and sandy river.  We took Eli and Aaron over to Rumney rocks to try rock climbing outdoors for the first time.  Eli loved it.  Aaron wasn’t sure about the experience.

After rock climbing we grilled and had a fire.

On Sunday we met a contractor in the AM at the lodge and then headed back to Rumney to hang out for a  little bit before heading home.

Overall great weekend catching up with old friends!

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Exploring The Basin, before the tourists get to it

This past weekend we had my family up to visit for the weekend.

On Saturday morning we capitalized on the nice weather and took the kids to the Basin.  We had the whole place to ourselves and it was awesome!

Everyone arrived in the afternoon and we had Michele’s famous tacos for dinner.  On Sunday morning we just hung around the lodge, had a big fire, chopped down some trees, etc..

In the early afternoon we headed back home for Eli’s baseball practice.

Overall it was a nice, relaxing weekend and it was great to have my sister and her husband up to the lodge!

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More Winter Pics

I finally imported all our pics from the winter.  I tried to go back and upload pics to the relevant posts, but it was clear that I didn’t post enough this winter!  Here are some more highlights from the season:

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Tuckerman’s Ravine 2018

This weekend Eli and I hiked and skied tuckerman’s ravine!

On Sunday, we got up at 4:45am.  We ate breakfast, packed our bags, and got out of the house around 5:45am.  We arrived at Pinkham Notch around 7am.

Eli was so excited to do Tuckerman’s!

As we started to make our ascent we quickly shed off our outer layers.  The temps must have been in the 50’s at the base.  About a mile in Eli put on his Yaktrax and I put on my crampons.

At about 11am, we reached the Hermit Lake Shelters.  This is about 2.5 miles from Pinkham Notch.  From here we could finally see Tuckerman’s!  The view below is of some of the trails to the left of Tuckerman’s.

From the shelter, it was about 0.7 miles to the base of the ravine.  We started to get a glimpse of the Left Gully on the hike up.

Almost there.  We heard to avoid the lunch rocks this time of year, where there are giant ice falls the size of cars.

We made it to the base of the ravine!  Eli had a huge burst of energy and at this point and could tackle anything.

This is the famous Tuckerman’s photo.  If you look closely on the left you will see a person climbing up.

We agreed to go half way up Left Gulley to the ice fall and ski down from there.  We quickly changed out of our hiking gear and into our ski gear.  I’m not sure I’ve seen him this excited before.

We started our ascent of Left Gully.  Eli did a great job of digging into the snow and making sure he had good footing.  If you make one mistake here you are falling all the way to the bottom.

As we were ascending one of the people above triggered an avalanche that was headed right towards us!  We quickly moved to the side (not trivial since we were on a steep incline).  After most of the avalanche came through I snapped a pic and video.

Now we had no pre-made footholds and Eli had to dig in with each step since he was leading the way.  He was really reaching the end of his energy at this point.

So, we found a decent place to strap in.  I got Eli all geared up and then he waited for me.  Some of the dots at the bottom are people.

Eli and I both made it down to the bottom in a minute or two.  I found it a lot more challenging on the snowboard with the heavy pack.  There really wasn’t a ‘dryrun’ to see what it was like with all the weight.

At the bottom we had some snacks.  You can see some people hiking up in the left side of the pic.  The right side was filled with waterfalls and crevasses.

We skiied the line on the left starting at the waterfall.

We took a quick break, put our hiking stuff back on, and headed back to the shelter.

At the shelter we transferred back to our skiies and got to ski down the Sherburne Trail for about a mile. At that point we had to transfer back our hiking gear again and walk down to the bottom.

At the bottom we saw an awesome waterfall.             

Once we got the bottom we had an amazing dinner at Moat Mountain Brewery, ice cream at Friendly’s, then drove home.

Overall I was so proud of Eli today.  He didn’t complain the entire trip, and was so determined to make it to the top.  I’m sure we will both remember this trip forever.

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End of the ski season – Cannon Splash Pond and Wildcat 100% Open

This weekend we ended the Ski season.  Since all other mountains are closed, we headed to Wildcat.  They had just received a ton of fresh snow and were 100% open.  Tuckermans got 1.5 feet.  The skiing was great, with temps in the mid 40’s.  After skiing all day we went to Moat Mountain Brewery for dinner.

The previous weekend we went to Cannon both days for their last weekend.  On Saturday we watched the splash pond, which the kids got a big kick out of.  On Sunday the conditions were horrible after an ice event, so we skied to lunch and then went back to the lodge.

 

Overall the boys skied 47 days this year, must be a new record!   We are looking forward to bringing out the hiking boots and playing in the mountains this spring!

 

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2 more great weekends and Eli does DJ’s Tramline!

The past 2 weekends have been awesome thanks to the 3 feet of snow at cannon and 4 feet of snow at bretton woods so far in March!

Last weekend was the big powder weekend after all the big snowstorms hit during the week.  DJ’s Tramline (one of the toughest trails in the east) was open for only the second time of the year.  Eli had been begging us to do it but neither Michele or I wanted to.  Eli and I took the tram up and inspected the trail.  We decided to do it.

Overall DJ’s was tough but I was able to survive it.  I had to do one section on my butt and a bunch of other sections weren’t great form (not to mention a few falls), but the look on Eli’s face when we made it to the bottom was worth it.

This weekend included a bunch of firsts for us:

Cannon:

  • Echo Woods Glade
  • Lake View Glade
  • Idiot’s Delight

Bretton Woods (Sunday):

  • Among the Clouds
  • Dark Star
  • Lazy Man
  • Over the Fall’s
  • Snowmaker’s Gully
  • Cliff’s Cliff

The next weekend we continued the same pattern w/ Cannon Saturday and Bretton woods on Sunday.

At Cannon, we tackled “Go Green Glade”, “Golden Birches Glade”, and “Cannonball”.  At Bretton Woods, we did “Mr. Moose”.

 

 

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Lots of visitors and skiing continues!

I need to get better about regularly posting!

Since my last post in January, we’ve had tons of visitors to the lodge almost every weekend.  We sure are enjoying this place!  Unfortunately the skiing hasn’t been too good in Jan+Feb, little snow and lots of warm temps have left the mountains unable to make snow and lots of icey conditions.

Fortunately the past couple weeks have been spectacular!  The mountains have received 2 feet of snow in the past week and are expecting another 1-2 feet this week!  The end of the ski season is looking great and we may potentially be able to keep going until April if the temps stay low!

Here are a list of visitors we’ve had to the lodge the past couple months:

  • Jan 27 – Noone, I forget where we skiied
  • Feb 3 – Coughlins (Jim, Kate, Eric, and Trixie) visited the lodge and we skiied Cannon
  • Feb 10 – We took a week off from the Lodge and skiied Sugarloaf w/ the Coughlins
  • Feb 17 – ClearMotion ski weekend, had a bunch of former coworkers up at the lodge and we skiied Cannon
  • Feb 24 – Noone, I forget where we skiied.  This was the end of school vacation week.  Michele stayed up at the lodge all week with the boys.  Some warm temps kept them from skiing some days, but overall they had a blast.
  • Mar 3 – Ingalls ski weekend.  Lots of family from CA, FL, CT, and MA!  We skiied Bretton Woods both days
  • Mar 10 – Were planning on the Imbeault’s but the boys all got sick.

 

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More visitors, and warm temps

This weekend we had a bunch of people (12!) from Michele’s work over for a ski weekend.

On Saturday we split up, a bunch of us went to Cannon, and the rest went cross country skiing at Ski Hearth Farm in Franconia.  We really need to check that place out sometime!  Temps were in the lower 30’s.  Most of the conditions were man made, we are definitely due for a good dumping of the white stuff!

Dave, Eli, and Aaron both did the hike up the mittersill hill, which was a lot of fun.  It wasn’t as hard as we thought it was going to be!  In the afternoon conditions got very icey, so we headed home around 2:30pm.

For dinner we had chili, and just hung out, played various games, etc.

On Sunday everyone headed home and we went back to Cannon.  The kids had a blast on the terrain park and skiing the big ‘whales’ from the man made snow.  Temps were even warmer, in the middle to upper 30’s.

Overall another great weekend at the Lodge!

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Ski fun continues

So far January has been an interesting month, filled with multiple feet of snow, a quick couple days of torrential downpours and thawing, then more snow.  I think it can only be described as wild weather!

The first weekend treated us with -20 degree temps, without the windchill.  On Saturday, the weather was so cold we decided to skip skiing.  We spent the day playing games, sledding, shoveling the deck, etc.  On Sunday we went to waterville and had a great time!

The next weekend we had some friends over, the Smith’s and Reimers.  It was our first time hosting 8 people.  The drive up on Friday was pretty rough.  The weather was in the 50’s and the roads were complete mud pits.  They were barely passable.  On Saturday we skiied Bretton Woods.  Due to the ice, the main lift (Bethlehem) was shut down the whole day.  This made the crowds pretty overwhelming at the base.  Overall the snow conditions were pretty good considering it had just rained for 2 days.  Tommy was in a lesson all day.  On Sunday we did Bretton Woods again and it was pretty busy, but at least all lifts were functional.  On Monday we did Bretton Woods yet again, this time it was pretty dead.  The T-Bar was open, though only to a single glade.

Dave had to head back for a work trip on Tuesday, but Michele and the boys stayed behind and did Cannon on Tuesday.  Apparently that was very successful and everyone had fun in the terrain park.  Even Tommy was getting some air.

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A cold, cold Christmas vacation

We spent the week between Christmas and New Years up at the Lodge, and boy was it a cold one!  Temperatures ranged from -25 at night, to a high of -5 during the day.  Without wind chills.  And it was windy.

Christmas was on a Monday this year.  We spent the morning after cleaning up the house and packing for the week.  The big presents this year were, for Eli:  a sewing machine, xbox one, legos; for Aaron:  electric guitar, books, pokemon;  Tommy:  legos.

On Wednesday we headed to Cannon.  It was so cold we headed home after lunch.  Dave and Eli explored Mittersill for the first time, and they will be sure to head back.  In the afternoon Dave took Aaron and Eli to the skating rink in downtown Franconia.  Eli is having  a blast learning to play hockey.  Aaron is still learning to skate and is getting pretty frustrated by it.

On Thursday we just stayed home, played outside and did some sledding.  In the afternoon Dave and Eli went back to the rink.  This time we discovered it has a little shed that you can get changed and warm up in.  Also, the rink has lights so you can play anytime at night.  I love this rink, we’re so glad we found it.

On Friday, just Dave and Eli went to Cannon, and the rest of the fam stayed back at the Lodge.  We did a few runs and headed back around lunch time.  At night we went into Littleton for dinner and a Chutters candy run.

On the Saturday the whole fam went to Cannon and we made it a good way through the day.  The Tossup terrain park is open and in full effect.  This park is nuts with some epic jumps.  The kids love it.

On Sunday we headed to Bretton Woods.  I’m pretty sure it was even colder there then at Cannon, with some strong winds that didn’t help things.   We ran into our neighbors and had fun skiing a couple runs with them.

On Monday we skipped skiing, again.  We spent most of the morning cleaning and packing up.  Dave and Aaron went on a hike in the woods, and discovered a sugar shack nearby.

Overall we had a real fun week, even though we skipped a bunch of great snow days at the mountain, we made the best of it.  We had hot cocoa, went sledding, went for hikes in the woods, decorated the lodge, played board games, had movie nights, and relaxed.