My buddy Chris and I got an unusually late start on the hill yesterday. Usually we're on the road and drinking coffee while it's still dark out, especially if there's some fresh to be had. There was some debate as to which form of water we were going to play in. Frozen or liquid? The buoy's were 13' and cranking and the snow reports were at a solid 12"+. After some debate we both figured sliding down hill on some fresh pow was a better choice than taking 13'waves and 40 degree water on the squash. Fast forward an hour and a half ride and one stop at an Irving later, we roll up to Mt Abrams to see a quarter full parking lot and some deep looking pow carves on the hill. For anyone that skis or snowboards you understand the adrenaline you get just knowing what's on the hill waiting for you to play in. It's our Christmas, New Years and birthday all rolled into one. It just doesn't get any better. We gear up and make a run to warm up the legs, hitting some fresh on the edges and scoping out the woods for some stashes of untracked goodness. The second run in we find an opening at the edge of the trail and drop in for some fresh tracks and a whole lot of bush wacking. Most of the stuff we ride isn't "gladed" or thinned out woods. All the dead wood and small willy wack trees are still there and waiting to hook a ski or snowboard tip. If you're a skier and you're unfortunate enough to get your ski's on either side of one of these 4' trees it'll remind you why we call these little saplings the "willy wacks"! Painful if you're the skier. Hilarious if you're the skier's buddy listening to him get abused by a juvenile maple tree. After many bomb runs and more pow turns than we could handle we both spot a potential stash of fresh that looks better than anything we've hit so far. There's only one draw back, it's "out of bounds". Normally I have no problem ducking "the orange rope" or the equally scary "plastic pie plate on a stick" ski areas like to use to deter you from scoring a few turns, but some times the ropes there for a reason. You can get in trouble pretty quick by ducking the rope and ending up in waist deep snow a few hundred yards off trail. It usually results in 20 minutes of post-holing your way out of the woods while sweating through, and cursing all that moisture wicking long underwear you were praising 30 minutes before for keeping you so warm. We did the smart thing (for once) and took a run next to the potential stash checking to see if it ran out next to a lift or on to a trail below. It did and it was on for the next run. One chair lift ride later and we both drop off the trail and past the impenetrable pie plate barrier to score one of the longest untracked pow runs either of us has ever had. We popped out on to the trail at the bottom grinning like idiot's. Needless to say we rode the section for the rest of the day by ourselves scoring possibly the best hour and a half of snowboarding I've ever had on the east coast. Thanks for reading.
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