More skin tracks than you could shake a stick at!

With conditions like this it's hard to stay home. Sarah and I have have a hard time staying home anyways never mind the snow that has befallen our beautiful mountains this past week.  As one happy Vermont BC skier said yesterday " The snow conditions are unbelievable, best yet!"  as he smiled and went on his way on  210 cm skis.  People love to ski here, hell people love to ski here even when conditions aren't well, less than ideal!  But right now we have some great snow and when you find yourselves in good company and deep powder turns in the middle of beautiful mountains things just don't get any better.  We did find ourselves a little turned around as the skin tracks seemed to run just about everywhere as we skinned our way up the mountain.  In the end we found our way and made some new turns, with more to come next time. So as we find ourselves in the mountains remember this- our time in the mountains right now are good, they could get better!, or they could be worse and no matter what you find, its time well spent!

Saturdaynight single speed smackdown- Three penny shinnanigans.

No one ever knows where a Saturdy singlespeed smackdown night ride will lead you, just so happens we ended up at our favorite bar; the Three penny taproom.

Cheers

Three Penny Taproom;You guys rule the day!

The Three Penny Taproom, the one and only place to get a beer and where I asked my beautiful girlfriend Sarah to marry me! Check em out on Were here for the beer!

Cheers!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNtqdMHnUUM

Sunday after work; enough said.

Who needs shoes? Enter the barefoot revolution?

I had never ever had a foot problem, blister, hot spot, swamp foot, etc....until, that is, I was invited on a sunset hike up Mt. Hunger. All it took was a pair of new boots and a poor sock choice and there they were: not twenty minutes in half dollar sized blisters on both my heels - excruciating! However I took this in stride and decided I would not keep my hiking partners - especially Lauren who would make this her first hike up Hunger - from the summit. So I took my boots off, freed my feet, and proceeded to barefoot hike up the rest of the way to the summit of Hunger. What little mud there was I found soothing and cool between my toes as sweat dripped from my nose and forehead the whole way in 90 degree heat. As I reached the top no worse for wear, my feet bare, I think I might have learned a thing or two about my feet and myself. There is nothing better than good hiking company on a hot day with a beautiful sunset, PBR and you never know you might just forget your shoes.....

Ahhh. This is the life.

I'm sure of it.

Good friends, skiing, mountains, PBR; what a time.

Fun with PBR in the Worchester range.

What a night for a hike up Whiterock with good friends and good spirits, It was a night only to be had in september. Welcome Ryan and Lindsey youve clearly upgraded from Number four to three! and Sylvia the newest and greatest adition to ORS! As always a good time is had by all.

Life is so damn fun!

Soda Can Stoves 101

T and I subscribe to lightweight backpacking. We've each been known to carry less than 20 pounds on long-distance trips, food and water included. One of our secrets is to hike with a pal (you only carry half the gear). Another is this awesome little soda can stove. We've had ours since 2005.

These are also called denatured alcohol stoves because they burn isopropyl, or denatured, alcohol. You can get the fuel at a hardware store, or in a pinch you can burn 90% rubbing alcohol from a pharmacy.

We bought our stove (and a pot stand) on eBay for $10 from some guy in Canada who was making them. Since then, T has learned to make them himself: a necessary skill in case you step on yours while out on a trip. Last week we had a few friends over and made some stoves.

Step 1. Drink 2 beers.

Step 2. Make the cans into a stove.

OK, so there's several more steps than that. If you want to know them, guess you'll just have to attend the next workshop. Until then, happy trails.

I'll second that.

I've been asked by GreenMountainLines to make regular contributions and hope my first post below is a good start.

Several Montpelier friends and I headed up to a portion of the Catamount Trail in Stowe with three dogs and four pairs of Karhus, evenly divided between Guides and Tenth Mountains, right after noon on Tuesday. Though it was pretty cold out we were all venting on the way up and maintaining a steady pace. We stopped at the top for thermoses of tea, Clif bars and dried fruit at a great spot where someone had taken the trouble to rig up several porch swings facing Southwest into the sun, overlooking the Mansfield range. We could see the slopes of Stowe from where we sat munching and the sun warmed us until we began moving again. We made a quick loop around the summit and headed down. It was a pretty quick trip on the way back with a detour at the car to check out the ice in a small gorge that is a popular climbing spot in the winter. There were several pumps going that constantly spray water on the cliff face and had produced some pretty impressive ice for climbing. By this point I was pretty cold and beat and struggled back up to the car, looking forward to some Alchemist food and brews.


The Alchemist is worth the fifteen minute drive and arranging of a DD: they rotate through a variety of high quality microbrews that they produce themselves, coupled with an interesting and eclectic mix of appetizers (try the sweet potato fries), entrees and desserts. The dining room is a little small and the wait for a table can be significant (usually worth it) towards the weekends. But on a Tuesday night apparently we can start with a table for 5 and end up with one of 10 without much trouble.

Once the word got out, we had a lot of takers for dinner and drinks last night: LN and Katy showed up post hip hop class and best buds Sarahbear and T cruised up in the new sled to join us. Pretty good for a random Tuesday night...

The place

If you happen to be skiing or riding anywhere in the general vicinity of the Alchemist in downtown Waterbury this is "the place" to be afterwards. Trust us..... Good beer+good skiing+good friends= Good times. Check em out http://www.alchemistbeer.com/