So I broke my promise, but let's be honest. I'm ok with it, and so are you.

After one of my longest fun-droughts ever, getting a flat tire, and working full time at a real job, I was pretty sure the apocalypse was actually just around the corner.

Despite these conditions, morale was high, and there was just enough snow to convince us to strap the skis and snowboard to our backs and begin hiking up. That's when we discovered we were way out of shape.

Fun-droughts will do that to you. At some point we started questioning whether the shredding would be worth the hike, and I think that's something we always do, but this time was way worse. We were hiking in t-shirts and still sweating, and the snow was crunchier than the girls in the Rubenstein School at UVM. Not a good sign...

Then again, maybe I was the only one focused enough on the snow to worry about the hiking.

After several breaks and much complaining, we reached the top, which isn't actually the top. An extra 5 minutes of hiking along the ridge followed before we finally switched over to descend mode. That's kind of like when Optimus Prime transforms, except less noisy, quickly, and not cool at all. After nearly descending into super dense spruce hell, we cut out into some open glades and had a generally fantastic time.

Since the slope was north facing, the snow was significantly less crunchy, and in some cases even powdery.

There was a heavy (if thin) base beneath the fluffy stuff that kept things covered well enough, and I didn't even fall. Well, not on my first lap. Stepping into the backcountry in uh, variable snow conditions is always a little sketchy, at least for me, since I'm not any of these people. I took a few diggers on the second lap, but nothing consequential.

After a long hike back to the top, we began hiking along the ridge towards our initial trail up, but soon realized we were very, very far away.

I'm not exactly sure how we did it, but things got very strange, very quickly

Taylor saved the day, spotting a nice cut line that we followed down straight to the cars. And by straight I mean traversing for a long ways and then kind of zig zagging for a while. The snow was super fast, crusty, and hard to carve into. There were also bare spots, which are not to be confused with bear spots.

"Guys, I spotted Bear Grylls and he's drinking his own.. Don't make eye contact!"

So overall, conditions weren't great, but I'm just glad I made it out this winter with some good friends.
(Even if my snowboard's base hates me for it)


Shred on my friends!

For the last month I've been working on an online magazine I've come to call "The Dirtbag's Guide to Whitewater." With the help of several contributors and lots of free time, I managed to pull it all together.  Truth be told, it's got be more nervous than most big rapids. Future issues will depend on reader's reception, so if you like it, let me know and a new issue will follow sometime near the end of May! Comments are welcome, as are emails to the address on my blogger profile. 

Big thanks to all the contributors,

we hope you enjoy!

Happy New Year!!!

But not in that order...

As a few of my faithful readers know (Hi Cory!), I went to Burlington, VT for a few days to celebrate my... the...well, just to celebrate really.

The whole thing was inspired by a Phantogram concert at Higher Ground. I've seen 3 shows there, and the artists always seem to really enjoy the scene. Exitmusic opened the show with a chill and melodic blend of post-rock and pop. In other words, fine music for listening to while reading a book, but not the kind of stuff that will get you pumped for the rest of a concert.

Fortunately, Phantogram brought it back with some pretty incredible beat drops. Their best song live is without a doubt Futuristic Casket, and When I'm small takes a close second. The best part of the show was finding out we had stumbled on the last show they plan on playing in quite some time. Oh, and it was 13 bucks!

Most of my time in Burlington was spent catching up with friends, but Cory opted to multi-task, so we went for a hike to Milton Falls.

The first time I'd heard of this place was from Scott Gilbert who has a photo with probably 20 times the flow shown here. Seriously.

This huge set of cascades is just north of Milton and can be accessed by turning off Rt. 7 onto Ritchie Ave. There's a small gravel lot about halfway down the hill with a lookout over a small piece of the falls. Better views can be accessed by canoe or kayak by driving another 0.2 miles and launching into the pool there.

The following day I finished my novel for nanowrimo, although that's using "finish" rather loosely. I hit the target word count and the whole story line is completed, but no editing or revision has been done. If anyone wants to take a look and put in some serious editing time, drop me a line!

When I decided to head home, Winter struck.

Between 11 pm Tuesday night and 6 am Wednesday morning, 4-5 inches of snow fell in Burlington. Snow continued to fall as I drove south behind a line of flashing redlights as far as the eye could see. Tractor Trailers were stuck on hills, snowplows hadn't been out yet, and a slippery layer of extra wet snow was on the pavement beneath the ever accumulating snow. I was going 10 mph, and I WAS GRIPPED.

Not only were there Massachusetts license plates both in front and behind me, I also didn't want to come to a complete stop because my poor front wheel drive car probably wasn't going to be able to regain the momentum necessary to start moving back up that slick hill. I mean, I was in Vermont after all...

Roads improved greatly in NY, although only briefly. I dismissed my better judgement which was fearfully pleading me to take the roads that weren't covered in snow and didn't go through the mountains. Instead, that's exactly what I aimed for for these important reasons:

• Re-routing would cost a lot of gas money.
• Re-routing would be really boring.
• And most importantly, driving on terrible roads in the middle of the mountains sounded like an adventure, and I love adventures!

So, with solid reasoning (or at least mislead priorities) behind me, I turned onto the not-recently-enough plowed road and began my tire spinning ascent up the first mountain pass. By now I was probably going 25 mph and way less gripped. These are good things. Every once in a while I stopped to snap a few pictures.

Well, as promised, there is an accident in this story. Suffice it to say that I got a little too pleased with myself about defeating Better Judgement. Taking this route almost seemed like it was better than Better Judgement. That's right, we're talking about Best Judgement.

Unfortunately, that's the common disguise of Bad Judgement, and the little voice I thought was Best Judgement told me that I didn't need to slow down too much for the turn that had a suggested speed of 35. In fact, if I just slipped into the other lane for a second I wouldn't need to brake at all.

Well, that worked out great, but what I forgot was that turns can come in pairs (sometimes more, but that's not important). So even though I sailed through that first turn perfectly in control and without needing to brake, I was approaching the next one a little too quickly for my taste. 

Now at this point there was probably 2 inches of fresh snow on the road and another 10 in places unplowed. Such a layering of snow is not conducive to stopping on short notice, nor is it conducive to maintaining traction in a sharp turn.

As the tires locked up, I also noticed the oncoming snowplow that would soon be entering the same turn. At this moment, I recognized that Best Judgement was indeed an impostor.

 There was no good way for this to end. 

Fortunately, I ended up in the ditch. This was preferable to being the snowplow's new hood ornament, and also better than skipping the ditch and hitting the giant boulders just beyond. By the time the snowplow stopped, the logging truck behind me had caught up and also got out. They spent a brief moment good-naturedly chiding me, then talked about the rather large number of other vehicles that have gone off the road in that exact spot, and then mentioned that they could help me out. I was happy to wait for them to finish their chat before they decided on this. Besides, it's not like I was going anywhere.

The (very nice, super awesome) trucker dude tied a giant piece of webbing to his truck while I hooked it  onto the convenient eyelet in the back of my car and he dragged me out. I thanked him and continued on my merry Thankful way. It was the day before thanksgiving, after all.

I stopped for a quick hike up Bald Mountain, between Inlet and Old Forge.

And as soon as I passed Old Forge the roads were bare. Which is better than the roads being Bear.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

This year I'm thankful for truckers and chains!

(and of course all you readers out there as well)

No, I haven't found a job yet... instead, I went to the Green River Flow Study in Vermont.

The Green is a dam controlled river just outside of Morrisville, VT. Ryan McCall and Dave Packie found it 2 years ago and inspired the flow study. There were almost 30 participants and a handful of really great volunteers that made the study a huge success. Although the weather was downright unpleasant, the river was busy enough to keep me warm. I had a great time, and based on the raves on NPMB and elsewhere, I think everyone else did too.

Brian Murphy volunteered as a photographer and got some killer shots! Some of his work will be featured in an upcoming AW Journal along with my write-up for the trip.

The river had some great waterfalls (like the one above), but was mostly class IV boogie, with lots of boofs and technical moves. Classic VT creeking!

Here's a video I threw together real quick documenting some of the rapids at 2 different flows. The general consensus on this run is that more water=more better.

More misadventures soon...