I parked the car at the trailhead on the Summer Road trail and we started hiking up the slope under the Bridger Lift. Right off the bat there was patchy snow cover and by the time we reached the bottom station of the lift, there was a solid inch covering everything.

The trail (Bridger Run) became steeper and the climbing trickier the closer we got to the top. Two hours of slogging uphill under the lift…

…slipping and sliding on the unbonded snow and we reached the patrol shack at the top of the Bridger Lift. Hiking up, we noticed that the North Bowl area appeared to have consistent snow and appeared to be close to the top of the lift.

After resting at the patrol shack and enjoying some Arizona…

…and taking in the incredible views…

…we set out for the North Bowl. The trail quickly disappeared and we were led into a steep pine forest. I postholed into a tree well a couple times and then stepped out into an open chute. One step, and I started sliding. There was easily two feet of snow in the chute and it wasn’t sticking to anything. I grappled on the rocks and roots and finally managed to stop myself. Out came the ice axe. Thanking my judgment the night before as I pondered whether or not ot bring the axe, I followed Adam (who had somehow made it across the chute unscathed) into the next patch of trees.

The next chute offered similar terrain, but behind it I spotted another chute which cut horizontally down towards the rest of the North Bowl. I set out across the chute, looking downwards first.

I had no idea how far the cliff at the end of the chute dropped away and I really didn’t want to find out. I worked my way across the chute and tossed my axe over to Adam, who followed me.

After the extremely sketchy but fortunately safe chute crossing, Adam and I found ourselves at the top of another chute. This one, however, was skiable, and there were no rocks visible. The snow was extremely sticky and whenever we kicked chunks over the edge they would roll down the chute, growing and growing in size until they exploded against the walls of the chute. The chute below us looked perfect, and best of all, dumped out right into the North Bowl. After our hellish traverse this was an extremely welcome sight.

Finally able to take my pack off and set my skis down, I hiked up to the ridge between the two chutes and clicked in.

One nervous jump turn later and the 2009-2010 Ski Season was underway. The snow was very, very heavy and jumping was made increasingly difficult by the boulder sized chunks of snow littering the chute. I slowly made my way down and rocketed out into North Bowl, stoked as all hell. Adam followed.

North Bowl itself was a bit of a letdown after the chute. Once we lost a little bit of vertical, the terrain became a boulderfield. With each turn I could hear and feel a series of horrible scrapes as rocks ripped into my bases. Oh well. What else do you expect for mid-October skiing? We made our way down the bowl and before too long I ate shit. My ski tip caught underneath a buried rock and I went over the handlebars, so to speak, twisting the hell out of my bad knee. It hurt. Alot. Adam, fortunately, had his camera ready.

The rest of the ski out was of similiar quality.

I scored two impressive core shots and made alot of ugly turns, but it was worth it. The hike up was great, and the terrain at Bridger is incredible. I cannot wait until there is more snow and we can actually ski some of the narrow, bony lines we were scoping out today.

Oh, and the cliff we were traversing above? It’s the big one in the center of this shot:

To The Tip Top House

Three thousand feet below, the sun was shining. Fleshy tourists were diving into swimming pools, splashing each other as they frolicked in the water. They could relax. Their lives did not depend on the careful placement of their ice axe, on the tenuous grip of their crampon in the snow.

Mine did. I was perched on the side of Mount Washington. I’d left Pinkham Notch at 7:34 A.M., setting my sights on the summit. Two hours of slogging had brought me here, to this  outcropping of bare rock. With my back resting against the granite, I watched the wind blast particles of snow off the rock and into space. The summit was still two miles away, and fifteen hundred feet up. At the top I could look forward to more wind, more snow, more ice, and the summit sign. On the way I would be fighting my way through thigh-deep drifts of thick snow, squinting through my goggles, trying to discern the next trail marker. Most people would have turned around and hiked back down to the valley floor, to the hot tub and warm bed that awaited them. Not me.

This was why I was here. Stranded on Cape Cod on all but the winter weekends, I had learned to crave blizzards, wind, and real winter. I had driven all the way to New Hampshire to test myself against exactly these types of conditions. The physical difficulty of what I was doing was why I had traveled from the sunny shores I called home. I had plotted out this weekend months in advance and prayed for a storm, hoping for what the British call “heavy conditions”. I wanted to throw myself against the worst the mountain could offer and come out victorious.

Why? Because I thrive on adversity. I enjoy challenges, enjoy putting myself through hell and back, knowing I’m going to wake up in the morning mentally and physically exhausted. I live my life looking for challenges to throw myself at. Most people call this foolish, but I don’t see it that way. I live for the toughness that comes from being able to master everything life can throw at me. It quite literally feels like I’m on top of the world.

I shouldered my pack, grabbed my axe from its resting place against the rock, and kicked my crampon into the ice. Stepping out from behind the rock, I pushed my way into the wind and the snow. Hundreds of steps later, I made the summit. I stood next to the sign that warned of the “Worlds worst weather” and scraped the caked ice off my goggles. Despite accomplishing my goal, I was only halfway done. The storm was only getting worse, the winds picking up and the temperature dropping. I was covered in ice, and four hours of descent awaited me. After barely five minutes on the summit, I turned around.

I’d never felt so alive.

The first night skiing session started at around 7pm in the very cold, windy, and slushy Bolton parking lot. The mountain was hurting for snow, and there were large bare, rocky sections on most of the trails. Thank God I paid close attention to these bare spots that night. The woods were dangerous. And then it started to snow. By the end of the night, as Matt and I left early to ensure we would be able to make our way down the access road, about 6″ of powder had collected on the mountain.

The next morning, after we sidled our way into line with a visiting ski team to get a free breakfast, we crawled, slid, and skidded our way up to Bolton Valley. 18 inches of fresh snow blanketed the mountain, covering all the bare rock from the previous night. It also made the skiing absolutely incredible.