Winter Worth the Wait

Winter was late in coming this year. The week after Christmas (when it rained), I was still walking through the snowless woods in low boots, and we were only skiing thanks to the wonder of manmade snow. We haven’t really had a big storm yet this season, but the woods – behind our house and on the mountain – have slowly filled with snow. Many days over the past two weeks, I’ve looked up from my desk to see it snowing on the other side of the window – sometimes big, fluffy flakes swirling casually toward the ground, sometimes a fast-falling wall of white.

To someone who loves skiing, all those snowflakes are really distracting.

Skiing on weekends is a given in our house. But twice in the past week or so, I’ve loaded skis into the car on weekday afternoons and chucked the kids’ boot bags in on top of the skis. One of these outings was pre-planned and involved springing the youngest from school a little early. (I’ve called family powder days on occasion in the past, and since we live in a place where lots of people – including the principals at both schools – are skiers, I just straight up tell them we’re going skiing. Or I say we’re working on “outdoor education,” but they know what that means. And we’ve never been scolded.)

Tuesday, every time I glanced up from the keyboard, it was snowing. I had planned to just take the dog for a ski through the woods between meetings and other work tasks, but when I went out to run an errand mid-day, I brushed a couple of inches of fluff off the car, and then it snowed a good bit more. My two 8^th graders were at the mountain that afternoon for ski team practice. A friend sent a photo of a glade filled with fluffy, untracked powder. My distraction level was high.

So, I did what any ski-loving girl with a little scheduling flexibility would do. I donned my ski bibs, tossed my skis and my daughter’s into the minivan, and we headed up Three Mile Hill to the Mittersill Double straight from school pickup. There was hardly anyone on the hill, and we found plenty of untracked snow, even late in the afternoon. It was a sweet hour and a half on the slopes. Just the right number of runs to adjust my attitude, the break I needed to focus back on the work left to do at home.

Winter was late in coming this year, but it was worth the wait. 

Original content published by Meghan McCarthy McPhaul. This essay appears as Meghan's February 11, 2021 Close to Home column in the Littleton Record. 

Anatomy of a Snow Day

There was little better as a kid during winter than waking up on a snowy day and learning school would be cancelled. Of course, during my school years, that meant rising at the regular early hour and turning the T.V. to the local station to stare at the list of delays and cancellations scrolling up the screen, hoping to see my school there.

If it was, the day unfolded happily in my mind. Extra time in PJs. Reading by the fire. Sledding with friends. Wet mittens, hot cocoa, rosy cheeks.

My kids feel the same sort of snow day joy, although they don’t have to stare at the television to find out if school is off. Now, we receive the message in multiple ways – by text, email, phone call. And a snow day often means a powder day at the mountain, which makes all of us happy.

Here’s what a snow day looks like from this snow-loving mom’s perspective.

4:45 a.m.: Wake up and turn phone on to see if school has been delayed. No text. Lie in the dark, partly trying to go back to sleep, but mostly wondering when the text will come in.

5:16 a.m.: Phone buzzes with two-hour school delay message from superintendent, followed one minute later by house phone ringing with two-hour delay message, then cell phone call with same message.

5:18 a.m.: Check WMUR website to see what other schools are delayed. Notice some have already called a full snow day. Wonder about the likelihood of that happening here.

5:30 a.m.: Give up trying to sleep. Get up, turn coffee maker on, head to office and attempt to meet the day’s deadlines before the kids wake up. Continue to be distracted by the chance that school will be canceled.

6:47 a.m.: Check online snow report for the mountain to see if it’s worth calling a family snow day, despite what school is – or is not – doing. Report not updated. Resume attempts to work.

6:55 a.m.: Check snow report again. No dice. Repeat above attempt to work.

6:56 a.m.: Receive email from school regarding breakfast for students. Assume this is a sign that school will not be cancelled. Feel a little sad.

6:59 a.m.: Bedroom door squeaks as first kid emerges and creeps up to the office to confirm school is delayed. Check snow report again. No dice. Back to work.

7:02 a.m.: Repeat above step with second kid to wake up. Both go downstairs to enjoy the no-rush morning.

7:08 a.m.: Look up from keyboard and notice it’s finally light enough to see outside. It’s dumping. Heart is happy. Seriously dumping. Check snow report again. Still not updated. What the heck?!?

7:13 a.m.: Phone buzzes with text that school is cancelled (and house phone rings, and cell phone rings). Hooray! Feel kind of like a kid. Also, happy that now I don’t have to make the call about a family powder day.

7:14 a.m.: Kid number three emerges from her room and finds me. We celebrate the snow day with a happy hug. Check snow report. Still nothing. Doesn’t matter, I bet we’ll ski.

7:35 a.m.: Give up trying to work – for now. Time to make breakfast, and a plan.

8:45 a.m.: Breakfast done. Dishes done. Ski boots on. Skis in car. Kids in car. Head to the mountain.

9:02 a.m.: Pull into ski area, a few minutes late for first chair.

9:14 a.m.: Slide off chair at the top. Goggles down, hood up. Push down the hill, slide through powder, yee-haw as snow poofs up with each turn, watch the kids weave down the trail, laughing all the way. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. 

Original content by Meghan McCarthy McPhaul, posted to her blog, Writings From a Full Life. This essay also appears as Meghan's Close to Home column in the January 11, 2019 issue of the Littleton Record.

Dance of the Groomers

I can see them when I sit at the living room window on winter evenings, or when I go out to take one last peek at the sky before bedtime, checking the stars, sniffing hopefully for the scent of snow about to fall, looking to the mountain for the groomers in their nighttime dance.

We've come a long way since this old Tucker Sno-Cat!

Sometimes there is only one on our side of the mountain, a solitary light moving slowly along. Often we can see two or three, and on rare occasions all four snowcats, working their different parts of the mountain, moving along trails disguised by night’s darkness. The bright lights seem synchronized in their slow up-and-down, to-and-fro motions, although surely the snowcat drivers can’t see each other as they work, cleaning up the day’s mess of bumps and ruts and uncovered ice, planting neat rows of corduroy as they go.  

A couple weekends ago, as I drove back up Three Mile Hill toward the mountain for an evening function, I watched one cat crawl up Middle Ravine (perhaps) and another down what I figured to be Skyline on Mittersill. I smiled at the glow of cat lights moving on the mountain I know, have known for as long as I have known anything, but only by day.

What do the trails look like in the dark, bereft of the skiers who congregate there for their daily bread, their freedom, a few hours of joy – all during daylight hours? The groomers know. They know a landscape apart from the one so familiar to so many: the same contours from a different perspective.

In mountains, as in life, perspective is critical – and constantly shifting. Have you ever looked at a familiar mountain from a different angle and not been able to name it? Or climbed to the top to see it up close, rather from the distance of town? Or considered a problem from a different potential solution, a sentence with a different twist, an opinion from someone else’s point-of-view?

Fluid and quiet from afar, I know the snowcats are noisy when close, that the hard blades of their tracks churn through the snow and ice as they move. Leaving well-swept snow in their wake, they are a juxtaposition of power and grace.

A couple of Sunday mornings ago, the temperature dropped after the trails had been groomed, creating a solid, slippery, and unsafe surface. Back up the mountain the groomers went to refurbish the trails. From below, the little ski racers I coach on weekends watched wide-eyed as the cats moved along familiar trails, fixing them up just for us.

Some evenings, my own children look for the snowcats during dinner, gazing from the dining room table, out through the early dark of winter, toward a light or two or three moving along the mountain. In the mornings, when the sky is pre-dawn slate, just lightening to peach along the mountains’ silhouette, we can usually spot a groomer putting on the finishing touches, making one last pass before the skiers arrive.

The cats leave the snow ready for edges to carve, for skiers to find their Zen moments – in short, quick turns or fast, sweeping ones across the fall line. A day’s worth of skiers marks the once-smooth canvas into countless cuts and divots, slices and ruts, leaving it muddled and choppy. And as night falls, the groomers take to the mountain again, and we watch their dance from afar.

Original content by Meghan McCarthy McPhaul, posted to her blog, Writings From a Full Life. This essay also appears as Meghan's Close to Home column in the February 9, 2018 issue of the Littleton Record.

Snow Globe World

It is snowing as I sit at my desk. Fat flakes sifting down outside the window. The evergreens along the driveway are, suddenly, adorned in winter white. The red splash of a December-blooming geranium on the inside of the glass contrasts with the snow globe scene beyond.

After last winter’s dismal snowlessness and too-warm temperatures, I’m almost afraid to hope the snow will stay this year, hesitant to picture the brown of the field buried in a blanket of cold white. But somebody is shaking the snow globe hard today. I hope it keeps coming.

In this busiest of busy months – with presents to select and wrap, decorating to do, cookies to bake, Christmas cards to write, parties to attend, school concerts – it is easy to feel overwhelmed. I love Christmas – the magic and festivity and excited anticipation – but in these busy December days I sometimes feel far behind, stressed out, overbooked.

Snow makes it better.

It also makes it harder to concentrate. I want to get outside, back on my skis, back on the mountain. We had one measly excuse for a powder day last year. Maybe, I think, this will be my only chance. But there is too much to do today. Too many deadlines. There is no time for a long outing to the mountain, booting up, riding chairlifts, floating through new snow.

Instead, I’ll dig out the old cross-country skis I never used last winter. Find the faux leather boots that are cracking at the edges. Glide through the field, whose stubbly vegetation, cut roughly by the bush hog, catches my skis now and then.

Into the woods with the puppy.

She’s just a few months old, still learning about the world around her. A world transformed now by white. At first, she bites at the tapered tips of my skis, pouncing as they move. But she’s a quick learner, and a few glides into the trek, the pup is running alongside me. Fast, excited, wondering what this new adventure is.

She pushes her nose into the cold snow when we pause, comes up with a faceful of white.

The snow keeps falling. White fluff floating onto the wide hemlock boughs that stretch over the trail. My old skis glide across this first winter layer, skimming over the brittle, barely-frozen leaves that fell in autumn and are not yet fully covered.

The puppy runs ahead, whimpering softly now and then. She’s never been this far into the woods and is happy when we reach the yard again, relieved at the familiarity of home.

Tomorrow, as they do every morning in December, counting backwards from 25, my children will remind me exactly how many days are left until Christmas. I’ll inhale, fighting anxiety over all there is still to do. Exhale. It is snowing. I’m dreaming of a white Christmas – and more ski treks through quiet of snowy woods.

Original content by Meghan McCarthy McPhaul, posted to her Blog: Writings From a Full Life. This essay also appears as Meghan's Close to Home column in the December 9, 2016 edition of the Littleton Record.

What a Difference a (Powder) Day Makes

What a difference a (powder) day makes.

All winter we skier types have been lamenting the lack of snow, which has been compounded by the rain that has seemed to follow every scant snowfall of an inch or two, and by the numerous dashed hopes of promised storms that amount to, well, not much.

Skiers tend to be grumpy during low snow seasons, oozing sarcasm when the forecast of 6-12 inches becomes a reality of a trace-1 inch, becoming bitter when we can still see the grass in our yards in February, lamenting past winters of deeper snow.

But this morning dawned a powder day on Cannon Mountain. An unanticipated, delightful drop of 7-10 inches that fell in the night.

This morning there were only happy faces on the first Tram. No grumps. Just fat skis and smiles from the regulars, most of us playing hooky from work or whatever else it is we should have been doing on a Monday morning. Two weeks of February vacation and the associated uptick in skiers on the slopes ended yesterday, so we locals had the mountain all to ourselves – with plenty of first tracks to go around.

It was a hero snow day, with a perfectly grippy base buried under fluffy, knee-deep snow. The turns came easy, and everyone looked like a pro.

True to the zany weather pattern we’ve had this winter, the temperature is supposed to rise to the 50s on Thursday. And as we enter the first full week of March, spring is likely on its way. But last night Ullr decided to show up, at least fleetingly, giving us one sweet, smooth, wonderful powder day.

For that, we skier types are thankful.

Have you hugged a snowmaker lately?

Photo: Greg Keeler/Cannon Mountain - Guns a-blazin' on Cannon.

When Alpine skiing first became popular in this country nearly 100 years ago, there were no lifts to carry folks to mountain tops, no grooming equipment to smooth trails, nor (gulp) snowmaking guns blasting layers of white onto mountainsides. If Ma Nature complied with lots of the white stuff, early schussers were lucky. If she didn’t, they found something else to do in the bare days of winter.

The snow lovers among us should be thankful, in an early winter as lean as this one has been, for the modern marvel of manmade snow. Snowmaking crews have been working day and night – wrestling heavy hoses, frozen metal snow guns, icy water, and subzero temperatures – to create snow-covered slopes amid a landscape of muted brown.

“It’d be tough to imagine any ski area in New England being open right now without snowmaking,” said Cannon Mountain General Manager John DeVivo early this week. As it is, local areas from Bretton Woods and Cannon to Vermont’s Burke Mountain are operating on about half their trails following a disappointing rotation of teasing snow showers and pouring rain through December.

Other normally snowy areas, from the European Alps to the Rockies and Sierras, have also had a slow start to winter. Ski areas in Colorado and California, which normally see hundreds of inches of natural snowfall each year, are operating solely on manmade. Powder hounds have nowhere to go for a fix.

On the heels of a seasonal snowfall as epic as last winter’s, this year is certainly a bit bleaker. But local ski areas are in as good a shape as just about anywhere else. “There’s a fair amount of skiing out there, and the bigger trails are all open,” noted Craig Clemmer of the Omni Mount Washington Resort, which includes Bretton Woods.

The local manmade has been surprisingly silky, the terrain varied, the corduroy replenished into neat, grippy rows each morning. For that, we have the snowmakers and groomers to thank. We’re not so far removed from the days when so little natural snow would have meant no skiing at all.

A complete lack of skiing would be devastating both to the local economy and the local psyche. Not only would the skiers and snowboarders among us be moping around, but the thousands of folks who work at ski areas or other businesses directly affected by the ski industry – hotels, restaurants, shops – would be without a paycheck.

The Bretton Woods Ski Area employs about 380 people. More than 400 folks work at Cannon Mountain. Countless others area residents rely on spending by skiers and snowboarders to make a living through the winter.

We snow lovers are hoping this week’s forecasted storm drops a load of snow on the mountains. And if it does, we’ll have our ski legs ready, thanks to the turns we’ve been able to make on manmade. So, keep on doing your snow dance, strap on your boards, and get out to your favorite ski area. While you’re there, you just might want to hug a snowmaker.

Original content written and copyrighted by Meghan McCarthy McPhaul, posted on her blog: Writings from a full life.