Ragged Mountain - Danbury, NH

Wow! What a blast I had today at Ragged Mountain. I decided that for the rest of the season, I would only go to resorts I've never been to before. Ragged Mountain is less than an hour and a half away, but I never went there because they have a six-person high-speed chair lift and I didn't want to be crammed on with five other snowboarders. But I decided to go midweek, on a day when New Hampshire residents get a big discount, and it wasn't busy at all. The mountain was so much fun because of the recent huge dump of snow on Sunday and Monday. Every trail was well covered, with lots and lots of fresh ungroomed powder every where. Every trip down the trails I always had untouched groomed (corduroy) lines to take, or barely-touched powder. I wish I had endless energy so I could have stayed all day long.

They also have a slow triple chair lift to an adjacent mountain of trails, which I took for my first run of the day. Not a single other person was on the chairlift or the mountain when I went up at 9am. I had everything to myself. They have a great cruiser, Flying Yankee, and I rode down this trail and it was super. Then I headed over to the high-speed lift on the other mountain because I was anxious to check out their glades, moguls and terrain parks. My first run down, I went toward the terrain park. It had an 'all-natural' park along side the regular features, which consisted of trees made into flat boxes and a-frames. Normally, I would ride alongside all of the features to see what they have, before attempting to try any of them, but I was just jumping off of all the kickers and I saw this big ramp and decided to "go for it" blindly. Fortunately, I was able to slam on the brakes about an eight of an inch before the ramp ended, because it dropped down, straight vertically, over eight feet, and that's too big of drop for me to absorb. They had built a series of bigger and bigger stone walls/cliffs, and built ramps to the tops of them. This was actually the smallest of the three! So, fortunately, no one was behind me and I sat myself down the side of the jump, and slid down on my bum like a slide.

That was actually it for me in the terrain park today because the rest of the trails were too awesome. The next run I headed down a beautiful glade - a trail that is in the woods and is made up entirely of moguls/bumps around closely-spaced trees. This one was not too steep, and again I had it to myself and took my time weaving my way from bump to bump, between the trees. There was so much powder it was easy to do. Then, I found this narrow black diamond run that was entirely powdery bumps from the top of the mountain to the bottom. That is just about my favorite type of run. After that, I rode the black diamond main trail running under the six-person lift. It was fun to just carve my turns from the top to the bottom at a fairly high speed.

After this solitary set of runs, a 25-year-old snowboarder went out of his way to get on my chair lift and he was asking me all kinds of questions the whole ride up. He was very nice, seemed like a local kid, and talked about how fast he flies down the mountain, and that he used to work here and in Aspen. We went our separate ways, but the next time up on the chair lift, there he is again, as well as another 22-year-old snowboarder that didn't know him either. The other guy was out for the second time in six years and was asking us which trails to take. So, the three of us ended up heading down the black diamond main trail together, racing each other, and we all finished at the same time! Yep, that's right. I'm twice their age and they had nothing on me. That trail was really in amazing shape and so easy to fly down. We rode up again, and we went down that black diamond mogul run together. That was crazy. I hit more air than I have all season. It's funny what a little competition will do. Earlier in the day on that run, I had caught my toe edge and did a complete somersault over the moguls and ended up with snow packed in my helmet, and in every corner of my clothes. The older guy did the same thing on this run, only he wasn't wearing a helmet. He was a little stunned but popped right back up when I tore past him, leaving a huge spray of snow on him as he sat there.

But alas, I am as old as I am, and all of that effort simply drained me. I went on a few more runs and then called it a day, my thighs burning, my elbows hurting from my somersault, and my neck sore as well. I would have to say that was the best outing of the year; I only hope we keep getting more snow so I can keep seeking a better day.

Rhode Island

Ta-dah! I traveled 2822 miles in 12 days to snowboard in 10 states and it all worked out just as planned. I completed my trip today, having snowboarded at Yawgoo Valley, the only ski resort in the state of Rhode Island. This resort was small, but they had lots of snow on all of their trails. I had a lot of fun considering it was such a small place. Each trail was very different and there were plenty of little jumps to hit along the sides of the trails. There were a lot of people taking group lessons learning to snowboard. I had a couple of teenage girls asking me questions before their lesson began. They wanted to know what they would do when they got to the top of the chair lift, and I told them they would fall. I showed them how to rest their loose back leg on the stomp pad of the board when they got off the lift. Later I saw them in their lesson and every one was falling repeatedly. I'm so glad those days are long past!

So, I know I had a great vacation because when I pulled in my garage, the first thing I thought of was when I could next go snowboarding. I tried to think of which resort was my favorite and I didn't have a favorite. They all had good and bad points. I would have to say though, that none of them compared to any of the resorts I have right in my backyard here in New Hampshire. We have so much more snow cover, and much longer runs, and terrain parks that are full of many more features and they are all professionally maintained. I'm glad I went on my trip; it was great to drive and see the mountains along the east coast and visit each state's resorts, but I will be content to keep snowboarding up here for a long time to come. There are 21 resorts right here in New Hampshire, and almost all of them are less than three hours away.

New York

So today's snowboarding at Thunder Ridge was short-lived and only fun because my daughter and I are eternal optimists. I chose this resort because it was only 35 miles from her home and I had a four hour drive to get to her home. This resort had a 3pm to 5pm ticket which made it doable for both of us. It was an easy drive to the small resort but we knew we were in trouble when the parking lot was a giant mud bowl -- looks like I picked a bad day to wear all white! We saw there was enough snow cover on several of the slopes so we got our lift tickets and got in line for the one chair lift that went to the very top. Just as we were next in line to get on the chair lift, the empty chair in front of us slammed into the wall of the chair lift system, creating a very loud clang and causing the chair lift operator to shut the lift down for the day.

We got out of line and over to the other lift which went almost to the top, and took several rides down the three open slopes. It was okay but the lift lines were very long because of the broken chair lift, and we were both ready to head out to dinner before long. The terrain park was just four rails lined up in a penned off area - nothing was lined up in succession, so it was not even worth trying.

Instead, we stopped at my daughter's new favorite hang out and had dinner and then went to her home and I taught her how to fill in and file her federal tax forms. She's getting a big refund so the day turned out even better than it started.

Now I'm off to my last of ten states at 6am tomorrow - Rhode Island. I hope to make the most of this final resort and can't wait to get home later in the afternoon!

Maryland

Happy Snowy Valentine's Day! It snowed almost the whole time I was at Wisp today. I had a good time and there was lots of powdery areas for me to ride in, but I didn't really like the vibe at this place. It is nice and fairly big and would be great if there was lots of fresh snow but there were other things about it like that it is not very accommodating for snowboarders. There are about seven chair lifts, and four of them unload in the same big area at the top of the mountain but if you want to head over to the other area, you have to slide for a long time on your board to get there. It's not like on skis where you can simply cross-country ski over. And all of the tops of the chair lifts, where you get off, are steep inclines down, which is hard to do with a loose foot in the back which snowboarders have. Then by noon time, the bottoms of these steep inclines were pure ice, and they were packing four people to a chair, so there was no way not to slip and wipe out by that time. They should have had staff filling in the ice with snow like every other resort does. One of the chair lifts had this feature that I have never seen before but was totally amused by -- it had a moving conveyor belt right as you got on the chair. It was maddening to slide onto it and then wait for the chair to catch up and pick you up. I got on with two teen age girls and one of them actually missed stepping on the conveyor belt and didn't get on the chair with us:
















As far as the vibe, this resort has very nice, very expensive vacation homes built all over the mountain. This means the majority of the guests were wealthy wannabee skiers and not the laid back, black tar heroin bootin' snowboarders I prefer to be amongst. All the kids were named Maggie and Keegan and Hailey and Tanner and the triplet girls Amber, Lauran and Miranda. They were all wearing outfits which coordinated with their parents. Even grown guys were decked out in pretty patterns. It was just too much show and not enough fun. The terrain parks were run down and not maintained. And on a night when Seven Springs was making tons of new snow, Wisp didn't make any last night - they just groomed over the ice and one trail in particular was covered in brown snow. Still I had a nice time exploring all of the runs and all seven chair lifts. I even got stuck over on chair lift number seven for a long time as I couldn't find my way back and kept taking trails which brought me back to "the seven". Here's a look at a typical house on the top of the mountain:


















Oh yeah, I had quite a startling surprise on my drive at 8am on the West Virgina and Maryland border. I was winding up an and down this very curvy mountain road when I came around a corner and all of the sudden there was this HUGE wind turbine in front of me, just off the road! A whole long wind farm was built up there in the middle of nowhere. It scared the living crap out of me because the blades were so big and literally right in front of me. I grabbed my camera and snapped a few pictures as I continued to wind around the mountain but nothing compares to that first sighting. If you haven't figured it out by now, clicking on the image will make it bigger so that maybe you can tell how intimidating it was.

















So now I'm spending the night in Pennsylvania and will head to New York tomorrow to snowboard with my daughter in the afternoon. That should be fun. She helps me get better in the terrain parks because she makes me braver than I ought to be. Eight states down, two to go...

West Virginia

What a super fun day snowboarding at Snowshoe! This place had lots of variety and the people were super friendly on the chair lift rides. Snowshoe has about 4 chair lifts to different parts of the mountain, then when I walk across the street from the top of one lift there is a backside with 2 black diamond runs that were really good, and then a two mile drive away is Silver Creek, an entire other resort which is part of the Snowshoe complex, and I went there too. I started to wonder what the rest of my day would be like after I saw the following person on my very first run of the day:


















So, that's a young girl snowboarding in a full length skirt. Like on the show "17 Kids and Counting". I thought I might have come upon a Menonnite ho-down or something but she was the only one I saw today dressed as such.

There were no lift lines which was great and there were lots of different kinds of runs so I never got bored. There were four terrain parks and one of them was just right for me. The black diamond runs were really challenging and fun too. I only fell once today and that was trying to land after the biggest jump I tried today. Mostly I have not been falling which is good because I would be too sore to keep this up. I even talked two women into taking snowboarding lessons today. They were riding up with me on the chair lift, and the chair lift stopped for a few minutes, so they were asking me all about my trip. They were both going to go home and slide across the kitchen floor to see if they were regular or goofy! They said they were getting bored with skiing and were ready to try something new!

I also rode up with a guy who just started snowboarding again after stopping for twenty years. When he was sixteen, he crashed at the bottom of a half pipe and hit his head on a metal grate and nearly died. I gave him a hard time because he was not wearing a helmet today but he had lent it to his buddy for the day who was just learning to snowboard. They were planning a trip out west together to Alta in Utah, and I told them that Alta doesn't allow snowboarders - only skiers. Fortunately, there are several other resorts nearby. Those two are from Banner Elk, North Carolina, which is where I went snowboarding three days ago. Small world.

Bat Caves and Luxury Resorts

I made the most of my final day off from snowboarding on Thursday. The day started off a bit precariously as I drove through the mountains of southern Virginia and West Virginia with winds gusting to nearly 70mph. It was a real double-grip kind of day and I always made sure there wasn't a truck or car next to me as sometimes my car was pushed into another lane. There were quite a number of trees down and I guess a lot of people loss power and phone lines. Despite all of this, the drive was beautiful and I enjoyed seeing signs for "Possum Hollow Road" and "Minnehaha Springs".

My first stop was at Organ Cave. This cave in West Virginia has over 45 known miles of tunnels, with 200 passage ways that have yet to be explored. I went on a two hour, two mile hike through the cave with a woman who is also a farmer and a grandmother and has four titanium plates in her back from years of farming. I figured I can keep up with her no problem, but she was fairly young and had better hiking boots than I... Okay, it was an easy hike except for some slippery spots and it was very cold in the beginning - 34 degrees. The cave hosts dozens of hibernating bats that were close enough that I had to be careful not to scrape my head on them. I took a couple of quick pictures, but the tour guide said that there is a state law that if you shine a light on them for more than three seconds, there is a $69,000 fine. And I was worried about getting speeding tickets on this trip. This cave was used by the Confederate Soldiers to mine the saltpeter (from bat droppings) into gunpowder. They lived in this cave during the winter which would have been very cold and uncomfortable. Robert E Lee knew of this cave because of his years of vacationing at the nearby Greenbrier Resort.

The Greenbrier in White Sulfur Springs, West Virginia


















This ultra luxury resort is unbelievable. I spent a couple of hours just exploring the place on my own, as if I was a guest. It is decorated in amazing colors in every room. There are ten lobbies and 40 meeting rooms, each decked out in fabulous chandeliers and carpets and furnishings and fresh floral arrangements. There is a 40,000 square foot spa (I was going to soak in the sulfur bath), a bowling alley, a gorgeous indoor pool, upscale shops, etc. I got some good advice about where to park and where to eat at Snowshoe when I go there to snowboard. I sat in one of their lobbies and listened to a pianist play on a grand piano while I looked out over their gardens. I used their computers in a coffee shop to check my e-mail, and I sat in their beautiful mahogany and leather bar room to make a few phone calls.

Then, I was off to my hotel for the evening. I am staying in a small B&B in Marlinton, WV. Not quite as posh as The Greenbrier, but I have the place to myself and it is quiet so that's all I need. It would have been nice if the heat was on in my room last night though. I slept in all of my layers of snowboarding clothes (sweaters and wool socks, etc) and still my nose was cold all night. It's nice and warm down here in the living room however and I slept fine. Now I just need to get ready to head out to the biggest resort I'll be at on my trip - Snowshow, West Virginia.

North Carolina

Another great day snowboarding. The day started out warm but quickly turned much colder because thick clouds moved in with very strong winds. The slopes have seen a number of warm days so there were several worn spots to avoid. Still, there was plenty to keep me busy until I tired out. This resort also requires a leash and when I asked the lift attendant how my board could possibly fall off, some other snowboard guys in line said "yeah - it's dumb but it's a state law in North Carolina". At least I could wear my iPod here.

The town of Beech Mountain is the highest town east of the Mississippi - 5506 feet up. The slopes are not that long once up here though. It put my car through the paces again to climb to the top. There were several hairpin turns while climbing straight up. When I left the mountain, it was 41 degrees and cloudy and windy. When I got back down the mountain, it was 73 degrees and sunny.

The chair lifts here are so low to the ground - about 5 inches off the ground when getting on. It is really crazy to have them that low. I don't understand what happens when it snows. The top of the chair lift lets you out inside a big red barn structure. It felt like I was entering a covered bridge.

Well, the storm that hit Oklahoma yesterday just arrived here. The rain is pouring down sideways and the wind is gusting very loudly against my window. I hope we don't get any tornadoes but I guess thunder and lightning are likely. Yay!

Tomorrow morning I head to West Virginia for my other day off from snowboarding. I plan to visit Organ Cave - 45 miles of caves to explore - too bad my sense of direction is horrible. Actually, they have guided tours so I should be fine, as long as I don't get bored and go off on my own. Wish me luck!

Tennessee

So, I chartered my own private helicopter today. It was great. I sat next to the pilot and got to see Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg and the Great Smoky Mountains from the air. The pilot is also the official Nascar pilot, and he just got back from flying in Afghanistan, and he is also a snowboard instructor at Ober-Gatlinburg. I loved flying in a helicopter. That was my first time. I think when my snowboarding days are winding down, I will take helicopter flying lessons! They offer them at the airport a mile from my home. It was much more fun than riding in a small plane. I loved the feeling of my feet dangling over the ground in front of the glass. I could really feel the helicopter shaking when we were hovering in one place but that was cool too.

The early morning drive toward Pigeon Forge provided a real treat. To my left, I saw a beautiful pink sunrise over the mountains, and to my right, I saw a giant full moon setting over more mountains. It was so incredible. I'm glad there were no other cars around because I wasn't exactly staying in marked lanes as I gawked from left to right.

I didn't know Pigeon Forge was packed for five miles with every sort of attraction, shop, and restaurant. It reminds me of International Drive in Orlando. They have every kind of adventure from helicopter rides, to indoor skydiving (I've done that already) to go carts to horseback riding. Tomorrow I might try ATV riding in the Great Smoky Mountain National Forest. A guided trip of course.

Gatlinburg has an 8-mile loop of arts and craft shops. I only stopped at one pottery store today but will go back tomorrow. Oh, and both towns have thousands of Christmas lights and huge displays all over. They keep them up until the end of February and when I drove through both towns tonight it was a great light show.
















So, I also went snowboarding at Ober Gatlinburg tonight. For 3 cans of food, I got a free lift ticket. I had fun snowboarding and it was another warm night - starting off at 61 degrees and cooling just a few degrees. Most of the people there were learning to ride or ski. There was a jump at the top of the slope and they all kept lining up to jump it but then just sitting there forever so I kept cutting in front of them and taking the jump every time. I thought maybe if they saw me do it, they wouldn't act so scared. I saw some excellent wipe outs though. They had way too many rules at this place and that just doesn't sit well with me. They require a leash on the snowboard which is crazy because it's impossible to have the thing fall off. My binding has a leash so I could hook it to my boot but it's just ignorant. And they have a sign that says no headsets. As in no iPod listening while snowboarding. I took that to mean 'as long as you don't get caught' and I wore mine the entire time, as I always do. I just took them off before getting back on the chair lift. It was weird having the chair lift guy talking in a southern accent. It just doesn't fit the ski resort image - howdy doll, are you fixin' to ride all night ?

So tomorrow I have my first day off from snowboarding. We'll see how much I can fit in a day when I'm not riding. As for now, the hot tub is calling my name.

Virginia

What a warm day! It started out at 56 and warmed to 64 degrees on the mountain! I only wore my long-sleeved polo shirt - no gloves, no jacket, and no goggles so that I wouldn't end up with a raccoon-line tan! So Wintergreen was great. They had six-person high speed quad chair lifts so there were never any lift lines and most times I had the lift to myself.

The bigger side of the mountain was all black diamond trails and I spent most of the day there. The snow was so soft, and piled up in big mounds, so it was great to plow through it while cutting my turns. I saw this 65-year-old-ish man snowboarding and he was doing these amazing turns where he almost sat down on his heel edge, and was arching his back severely when on his toe edge, in an exaggerated form, so I tried that and it was a blast. It actually let me rest some of my sore muscles (and toes) and use other muscles instead.

When I wasn't riding those trails, I was over in the two terrain parks. One of them was just a set of small and medium jumps, one after the other, that was a blast. They were all doable but still a challenge and very fun. The bigger terrain park was a bit warn from overuse so I only went down it twice. They did not have any flat boxes so I wasn't too interested.

The resort has some really nice shops and restaurants and outdoor seating which was great on this warm day. They are the only resort I've ever been to (27 of them so far) that actually has ski patrol stationed everywhere the trails merge, telling the people to slow down. I actually liked that because the skiers were a bit out of control coming down the black diamonds. They like to fly down (which is fine) but then they don't stop to look for people where the trails come together near the chair lifts.

The drive to Wintergreen was beautiful, the Skyline Drive through mountains and then, when I was close to the resort, I had to drive down steep, curvy roads to the valley below, across the valley, and then up another several miles on very steep roads. My car couldn't get over 30mph no matter how hard I tried. The view from the top of the slopes was about as beautiful as I've ever seen. I didn't notice it until later in the morning because there had been low clouds. I wished I still had my camera with me.

So tomorrow is one of my two days off from snowboarding. I have a longer drive to Gatlinburg, and then I am going to shop the 8-mile-loop of arts and craft stores there. I see that Monday nights at the Ober-Gatlinburg ski resort is ladies night. If you bring 3 cans of food, you get a free lift ticket from 6pm-10pm. That's going to be a bit hard to resist especially since it is supposed to rain a bit the next day when I am supposed to ride there. So, a can of okra, a can of spinach and a can of spam is all I need, versus thirty bucks the next day. Or I could do both...

Pennsylvania

Another great day on Saturday! Eagle Rock Resort is located in a gated-community slash country club which also happens to have a ski resort. I knew I was in for an uncrowded day when I arrived twenty minutes before the lifts opened and I was the first one there. I parked my car right at the slopes which made it easy to go back and forth all day. The day started off at 18 degrees but warmed up to 46 by the time I left. The snowboarding was great. Their black diamond runs were steep but short, and one of them was covered in moguls. They were located right under the chair lifts. And speaking of the chair lifts, they were wooden, and worn, and one of the chairs I rode had broken slats in it which was a little unsettling.

There were only a dozen trails but they were all varied enough to keep me busy all day. They had zig-zagging narrow trails in the woods, and a poor-man's half-pipe which even I could traverse, and a mile long terrain park full of jumps and quarter pipes. I could hit the bottom big jump at full speed and barely get air, because the ramp up was so steep. It was fun to act like I was going to fly over a big jump and then not have much happen, no matter how hard I tried. Once it started getting busy later in the day, a lot of people were in the terrain park but they didn't know any of the etiquette - like not cutting in front of people and staying clear of the jump zones. Parents were even bringing their three-year-olds in there and letting them learn to ski around the jumps. At the end of the day, there was a man lying unconscious at the bottom of one of the jumps. I had watched the ski rescue teams practicing with their toboggans all day and that training came in handy then.

There were lots of people learning to ski and snowboard. I helped a couple of guys in their twenties learn to snowboard in the morning. I was riding up the chair lift and one of them was on the ground and yelled up to me "Did you just go down those black diamond moguls ? That was sick! This is my first day and I can't do anything.". So, when I came back down and they were only a few yards further down the mountain, I showed them how to get started and left them to keep catching edges and slamming to the ground.

I asked a guy who was with his family to take my picture at the resort, and he had never used a digital camera before. The zoom and pan buttons were a novely to him ("You mean I don't have to get closer to take a close-up?"). He was very nice and took a couple of pictures and I thanked him and then he handed me a little booklet (tract) that said "Smile - Jesus Loves You". He was there on a church snow-tubing trip.

The drive to the resort was beautiful - gorgeous mountain landscapes, especially at Delaware Water Gap. In the afternoon as I drove south to my hotel room, I took a short detour to drive by the house of the family from the Jon & Kate Plus Eight TV reality show. They just moved out of that house, into a bigger house, but I couldn't come this close and not get a picture for my daughter and I since we have been "obsessive" fans since the show started three years ago. I also got to see the state capitol of Pennsylvania (Harrisburg) on the way.

So, the previous two nights I got to have a great but short visit with my daughter in New York, and now I start eight nights in various hotels. My daughter and I wished we had more time to spend together as she had to work late last night, and I was exhausted and falling asleep early, but we made the most of it anyway. We got some groceries and cooked dinner together. I made her boneless pork chops and, turns out, that's the first time she's ever had pork chops! Check that off the list. Now she just needs to try fried chicken for the first time and her culinary experiences will be complete.

New Jersey

What a great day of snowboarding! This is one of the bigger resorts I'll be going to on my trip and I'm glad I did it early on so I could make the most of it. I had read some bad reports about this resort so I was setting my expectations very low as far as crowds, long walks and rude guests. There certainly is an extremely long walk to the resort, up hill, in a pot-hole filled, dirt parking lot. I cannot believe they don't have those big trucks or buses that pick everyone up to take them to the lifts. So, I only carried one of my two boards, and I left my lunch in the car, figuring I would be tired by then and ready to switch boards anyway. It was only 18 degrees and cloudy and so that wold be hard to take for too long as well.

Mountain Creek opens their lifts in a weird order. The main lift opens at 9am, the next peak opens at 10am, and the two terrain park peaks open at noon. So, I went up on the 5-person open-air gondola to the main peak and all of the trails were a lot of fun. And everyone on the gondolas was really friendly and talkative, regardless of their age. They all gave me advice as to which runs to try and talked about all the resorts they've been to in New Hampshire and Vermont. There were a lot of adult snow boarders, and this year I am seeing a lot more teen age girls snowboarding which is great. There were never any lift lines but the trails started to fill up. It seems like many people are beginners and they sat down in the middle of the trails where they all converge towards the gondola lift line.

There was supposed to be a progression terrain park (for beginners) on this mountain, but it was not there, even though the Mountain Creek web site talks about it. They also had the Pipeline black diamond trail closed, even though the web site said it was open. That was something I had also read that they do - they are not exactly honest about what it open and what is not.

However, since there were no lift lines I was ready to go back to the car, have some lunch, and then drive down the road three miles to the lifts for the real terrain park. That parking lot is close to the lifts, and I switched to my lighter, more flexible board. The other board is better for riding on ice, which came in handy at times. So, anyway, the terrain park was a lot of fun! One entire trail was full of easy features, like flat boxes on the ground level, and small jumps and table tops. I could do all of them no problem. I was very happy. When I was taking my last run, there were these two teenage guys near me and one of them went over one of the jumps at the same time as me and landed on the back of my board when I landed but we managed to disentangle without either of us falling and it was like we planned it that way. We both laughed when we got to the bottom and he said that was crazy.

On that note, I called it a day. It's going to be 38 degrees in Pennsylvania tomorrow, and 62 degrees in Virginia on Sunday. That should be so much fun, I'm actually going to try to get there earlier than I planned (late afternoon), so that I can enjoy the beautiful sunny day on the mountain.

I think I have figured out how towns are trying to raise funds since the economy is depressed -- through speeding tickets! I have seen so many police cars out everywhere, pulling over speeders. I mean, it's probably a good idea. I just don't have much hope that I will make it out of this trip without a ticket or two.

Connecticut

Brrrr! I had a great time at Ski Sundown, but thankfully, I only had a two-hour ticket, as it was so windy and so cold! The top of the mountain was 10 degrees with a windchill of -10 to -20. There were very few people on the slopes so I could even play in the terrain park without having to look out for others. There was a big jump and I watched a guy ski off of it and do a back flip right below me when I was on the chair lift. I wanted to check out all of the trails, since it was such a small place, but one time I got on this very tiny chair lift and it was only for the bunny slope. I should have realized that when it was next to the moving carpet conveyor belt, and their were 3-year-olds learning to ski with their instructors.

The coolest feature at this resort was the free-formed moguls trail. The moguls were all different sizes in crazy patterns. There were a lot of icy patches on the moguls though so it made it harder than it had to be.

The drive to the resort was uneventful except for driving through less desirable sections of downtown Hartford for quite some time, and I was grateful the police car chose to pull over the car in front of me, rather than me. Oh yeah, and just before I got to Ski Sundown, I saw a sign for Satan's Kingdom State Recreation Area. After what I saw in downtown Hartford I was a bit afraid to check this out. Turns out, it's a gorge along the river with white water rapids.

So, I gave snowshoeing a try

I love trying new things and this was a first. I went snowshoeing in New Hampshire. I wasn't sure what to expect but it turned out to be a lot of fun, and quite a work out. The trails meandered for miles through the woods, and along brooks, and there were some steep down hill and up hill climbs. The down hill trail ran right along a steep cliff with nothing but an occasional tree to brace against.

I lasted about two hours before calling it a day and anymore would have been too much. At least when snowboarding you have the lift back up the mountain to give your body a rest. This was more like riding a unicycle - you can never just coast, you have to stop entirely if you want to rest. I would definitely try it again and actually hope to give cross country skiing a try soon as well. Never down hill skiing again though. After switching to snowboarding, skiing is about as appealing as square dancing...

Resorts I've Ridden

From January 2002 to January 2009:

California:
Squaw Valley

Maine:
Sunday River

Massachusetts:
Jiminy Peak
Nashoba Valley
Wachusett

New Hampshire:
Bretton Woods
Cannon Mountain
Crotched Mountain
Gunstock
Loon Mountain
Mount Sunapee
Pats Peak
Waterville Valley

Vermont:
Ascutney Mountain
Jay Peak
Killington
Mount Snow
Okemo
Smugglers' Notch
Stow
Stratton Mountain

Quebec, Canada:
Mont Sainte-Anne

Chile:
Portillo

Snowboarding 10 States in 12 Days

That's my goal. To snowboard ten states in twelve days from February 5th to February 16th. I'm not sure I can do it, given how sore my joints get after just one day, but I feel like it's now or never. Seriously, I'm 46, and it gets harder every time. I had a goal of snowboarding all 50 states by the time I'm 50, but that's not going to happen. At least I can put a dent in it with one relatively short trip.

I got into snowboarding late, at age 39. I love it. It's the most fun activity I've ever tried. There's nothing like it when I'm surfing down a mountain, surrounded by such gorgeous views, listening to the perfect song on my iPod, feeling like I have the whole mountain to myself. Once I get out there, I feel no pain, which is amazing considering the aches and pains I have every day. I experience such a feeling of total bliss and excitement with every run down the mountain. Whether I'm just carving turns down from top to bottom, or spinning my daisies around and around until I'm too dizzy to balance, or playing on the small flat boxes and jumps in the terrain parks, I love every run. I ride until my thighs are too shot to control the board any longer. And then I leave with regret for having to end too soon, but psyched about the next opportunity.

I have only snowboarded the NorthEast - Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachuetts and Quebec, with one trip out to Squaw Valley in California, and a summer week-long trip to Portillo, Chile when I just couldn't wait for winter to arrive. I love visiting new resorts. I check out as many new places as I can, usually just taking day trips. That's why I'm planning this trip. I can see ten different resorts in one trip and because the resorts are not huge, I am hoping I can keep it up from day to day.

My itinerary has me driving from New Hampshire down to Tennessee and back, criss-crossing to a different resort each day. Here is the plan:

Thu Feb 5 – CT Night Ski Sundown
Fri Feb 6 – NJ Day Mountain Creek
Sat Feb 7 – PA Day Eagle Rock
Sun Feb 8 – VA Half-Day Wintergreen
Mon Feb 9 – TN Night Ober Gatlinburg
Tue Feb 10 – Travel Day
Wed Feb 11 – NC Day Ski Beech
Thu Feb 12 – Travel Day
Fri Feb 13 – WV Day Snowshoe
Sat Feb 14 – MD Day Wisp
Sun Feb 15 – NY Afternoon Thunder Ridge
Mon Feb 16 – RI Afternoon Yawgoo Valley