Cross Country Skiing

[Crankin]

Skied at Bretton Woods yesterday. A balmy 10 degrees at the start! There was a race going on, so we had to avoid 2 trails that we often take. So, we started off climbing Coronary Hills. About 4K of that. Got to the yurt, had a snack, then planned a nice descent. Well, they are doing logging, so there were some cross trails that we had to gingerly step over. Then, boom! The trail became ungroomed. It wasn't roped off, and others had made tracks, but it was really hard. There were steep drop offs, ice, debris/trees, and random holes in the snow. DH fell a lot, as he was going a bit fast. But, we made it to the next section and had a decent long downhill. After that, I was descending a small hill and I avoided some ice, but fell after that. It is rare that this happens, but I was exhausted from the "backcountry" experience earlier.
At least I didn't fall in front of the race officials who were near this point.
Not sure how far we skied, but I think around 12k.

[Crankin]

The skiing yesterday was 13K.
Today we left for Bear Notch, which is north of where we were, a little bit. It was 14 when we left Franconia and 33 when we got to Bear Notch. The sun was shining, and I knew I was overdressed. But, I unzipped and dealt with the too heavy base layer and jacket.
Bear Notch is a small, family run place that seems like it is back in the 70s. The grooming is great and they often have more snow than other places. Today was no exception. The only negative is the trails are not marked as well as they could be; we've been there before, but after climbing a long time, we headed down, and when we knew we were near the center, we couldn't get there from where we were, because there was a river, with no crossing. So, we skied out to the road, and walked just a teeny bit back. We had a trail map, too, but the trails didn't have names, just numbers, and the signs weren't plentiful!
There was hardly anyone on the trails where we were. A few more across the street, on the easier trails. We suspected the football game kept most people home. I think we skied about 8K-10K today. I was really hurting when I woke up, but felt pretty good today. But, we were tired. DH hit something on a descent and crashed, so we decided to stop while we were ahead! A good first ski of the year.