Surf Station: Mid-December
Skiing is awesome. So is ice climbing. And between us, we’ve had some pretty good days out in the past couple of weeks. Most notable was a fantastic early-December day skiing on Mount Washington. The conditions were so good that even Mickey Spades brushed off the summer wax off his skis and joined us.
On the writing front, goEast published our holiday-themed Shoestring Gully and Northeast Ridge of the Pinnacle Gift Guides, Powder7 ran Tim’s piece on the best glade skiing in the Northeast, and we’ve posted a lot here: a Book Report on Disaster at the Pole and Doug’s two-parter on his recent Red Rock trip (Parts 1 & 2). We also just passed the 11-year anniversary of Tim and Doug’s worst hike ever. Check them out if you missed them the first time.
And now to the links.
Whether we’re accessing bigger terrain or just climbing Mt. Washington, we love skiing the Cog on Mt. Washington. But the headline on a piece Tim wrote a couple years ago says it all: Ski It While You Can. Since Tim wrote that piece, the proposed hotel he discusses has met considerable opposition from a variety of groups and individuals, most notably the Keep the Whites Wild‘s Protect Mount Washingtoncampaign. Presumably, in response to that opposition, last winter the Cog Railway began charging a $10 parking fee at the Marshfield Base Station at the base of the Cog. Further escalating matters, the Conway Daily Sun reports that this season the Cog has instituted a $10 per user per day fee (while dropping the parking fee). In other words, it’s going to cost your party of four $40 to skin the Cog next time. No bueno! Look for more on this one from us in the near future.
Save Red Rock’s effort to protect Red Rock Canyon was quite active in the past several weeks, this time recruiting public support to put a stop on a housing development proposed for the recreational area. The effort prevailed, as the developer ultimately requested that the County put a hold on its development request. Much like the hotel on the Cog, however, it’s likely we haven’t heard the end of this threat to the area’s rural character.
Patagonia’s campaign to protect the Blue Heart of Europe also had some considerable success in recent days, when the EU Parliament issued a resolution asking banks to withdraw funding for the hydroprojects on the river and Balkan countries to reconsider the environmental impacts of their proposed dams. If you don’t know much about this one, check out Patagonia’s film, Discover Blue Heart. Patagonia’s blog, The Cleanest Line, has also had some great stories as well.
Transitioning a bit, this Friday is the peak of the 2018 Geminid meteor shower. Hopefully, it’s not a cloudy night in your area as the fragments from the asteroid 3200 Phaethon burn up in our outer atmosphere. For more info on the shower’s origin’s check out this Vox piece.
We don’t know when Outside Magazine got so dark, but we couldn’t help but get sucked into these two grim tales (Murder on a Mountain Bike and Murder on the Appalachian Trail).
Rockstar Adam Ondra has been on a climbing trip through the American west and video blogging as he goes. If you’ve never watched Ondra climb before, these short videos are well-worth your time, as he walks up some of the U.S.’s most notorious routes and problems such as Smith Rock’s Scarface and Yosemite’s Midnight Lightning.
Tim is a sucker for anything involving telemark skiing. Doug is all in on stories about World War II resistance on skis. Suffice to say, we both were captivated by this story on The Telemark Skiers Who Saved the World.
