The backyard ski run and other micro-adventures in the Connecticut winter

Video: A backyard ski run in Connecticut

Skis
    Let’s be clear: to many people, there is something a little sad about a full-grown adult trying to recreate childhood memories by hauling trash barrels full of snow from the porch into the woods to get the right coverage on a tiny backyard ski run.

    There is also something sad when winter in Connecticut is all gray skies and wet leaves, when a sickly veneer of snow on the ground is the only chance to relive the sweet effortlessness of gliding between the maples and birches. 

    I worked diligently with the shovel, scooping the inch-thick layer of snow off the duff around the trail, hurling scoopfuls of it onto bare moss. Here and there, I stopped to remove clumps of dirt and leaves from the smooth surface I wanted to build.

   Yes, I could have just driven north to miles of skiing in New Hampshire that would have been worlds better than anything I’d hope to build in Ledyard. That wasn’t the point.

    It was the principle of the thing, dammit. Our town had been cheated out of the snow it deserved. Going north to borrow somebody else’s snow did not rectify the injustice, nor did it supply the satisfaction of skiing on the home turf.

    If Connecticut was only getting an inch, well, then I’d rise to the challenge.

    Yet, the snow gods deserved more credit than I’d given them the first time.

    A second helping of snowfall the next day gave me just enough  coverage to cruise further out onto some of the trails in the backwoods, hitting twigs, scraping over rocks, revisiting an old hill further down the path that put a rock through my knee a decade ago.

    I even managed to visit some maple taps to collect sap from the buckets.

    After I got my fill of this, I got back to work. I knew that if I was going to ski for more than a couple days the course would require more human intervention. I added what I could from the leaves and skied back and forth over it to pack it all down, into a fast and narrow run, with a tiny jump made from a rock I’d buried in the middle of the trail.

    When I had the temerity to go down the slope in my skinny track skis, I caught a glorious slice of air at the bump, then fell on my ass trying to make the curve. This was when several people were watching, of course.

    Snow melting and re-freezing eventually turned the slope into an icy death chute. The stone walls on either side left no room to kill momentum with a snowplow. It was just point ‘em and pray, hope for the best at the end. Afternoon sun eventually broke the ice into corn mush, that was still fast but mercifully had enough give so I could sink ski edges in and take control.

    I got to spend a couple weeks with my miniature course as the cold lingered over weeks, running it many times. I even cleared a secondary route through brush to make the course into  a lollypop-shaped loop. I went back to weak spots and piled more snow where necessary. I began to become aware of intricacies of the run, like a minute gap in the wall where I could throw out a quick snowplow if I needed to kill speed.
    I loved the course all the more for all the work I put in. 

    Watching snow melt is like saying goodbye to an old friend. I hope it wasn’t for the last time.

Axes

    The bitterest weeks of cold froze Long Pond thick enough to walk over, even froze the waterfall above Bush Pond.

    One afternoon, I decided to shuffle over to the frozen wall with ice axes and crampons with the intent of scaling the beast for the first time.

    It was about a 12-foot falls, with water still flowing beneath the ice. If the ice broke away, it would dump me onto the broken rock below, but I weighed the risk against the fact that I might never again have a chance to climb those falls.

    First, I went up the easiest route, which followed the main watercourse. I’d gone this way barefoot in the summertime, with axes and crampons it was no problem. But that wasn’t really the kind of climbing I had come out for.

    I went around back to the base and took a vertical route on thinner ice. This time the axe bounced back once or twice, and I had to spend uncomfortable minutes standing on my crampon points whacking the axe into different spots until I found a hold that I could pull myself on. I topped out by jabbing the an axe shaft through the thin ice above the pool of water at the top. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to hold a bit of weight while I got a knee up, then bent myself over the edge to safety.

    The third ascent, I chose the route with the thinnest ice. Here, it was shellacked to granite in hard, white nodules the far right of the falls. Once again, I found myself hitting the ice again and again in different places, until finally, I could pull the axe down with enough confidence to trust my weight on it. I teetered at the top, feeling the bite of my crampons weakening as I slammed the axe point into one place and then another, only to have it bounce right out. 

    Crap. What was I going to do now? Finally, I got a tiny bite on the axe, that gave me cover enough to make the final movement and stand at the top of the ice.

    Three ascents were good enough for me. My fingers were going numb. I walked back home over the frozen lake as wind clashed the branches of the trees together and the sun setting over Cider Hill lit the troubled sky into clots of gray and orange. 

Skates

    I finally found some ice skates I could borrow, just in time for the lake ice to remelt a little and then re-freeze into a perfect black sheen. I love how ice changes the meaning of Long Pond and it is suddenly possible to waltz right over to North Stonington, or cruise past the coves at speeds that would be unthinkable in a kayak. My dad and I got out a few times to enjoy the new perspective.

     A friend and I even tried holding a tarp between us as the wind blew for a fast ride going north. Mostly, I skated under my own power — skated sloppily at that — but enjoyed the quest to find the rhythm, and think about nothing else but how to move with grace, maximum economy.

    There was one small, hacking problem: a nasty cold, or maybe I can call it an upper respiratory infection given that it stuck with me for a month. I stopped here and there throughout these excursions to double over into coughing fits, marveling at the pain that I felt at the back of my ribs. But who could know when Long Pond will freeze up like this again? I had to be out there.

    At night, the expanding and contracting ice would make those haunting chunking noises, skittering and cracking, filling the night air with reverberations from the lake bottom.

    It is a sound that most of us in Connecticut don’t get to hear often, certainly not as often as we should. The voice of the ice strokes a wild part in the listener’s soul, reminds us that there was a time when wolves ran in the hillsides here, leaving footprints in the snow. 

    Those lucky enough will hear the echoes of the ice come up through the windows of their homes. They will cherish the wild that is left for us here — then turn back to their screens, turn up the volume and turn up the heat.