A Family Adventure


in the mountains, ocean, and air

Oaks Gulf

April 10, 2008
Emilie Phillips

This past weekend we went skiing some more. Saturday was the amc nh ski committee get together at Cardigan. I’ve volunteered to help lead cross country ski trips next year so I got invited along with all the other current and future leaders. There was supposed to be skiing in the morning and barbecue in the afternoon, but it rained in the morning so no skiing. By the time the barbecue came around, the sun was out.

We had the luxury of staying fairly late because we had gotten ourselves a hotel in Bartlet to be ready for skiing on Mt Washington Sunday. Sunday turned out to be partly sunny and warm. Enough people had signed up for the trip that it was split into a slow group and a fast group. We were supposed to be with the slow group, but they decided to not ski all the way to Oaks Gulf. The weather was such that the Gulf snow had the best odds of softening up enough to be skiable. Tyson really wanted to get to ski an open snow field, so we wiggled ourselves into the fast group.

It turned out to be well worth it. Most of the day was spent climbing up to Lake of the Clouds and skiing back down. But we got a few runs in Oaks Gulf. The snow did soften up. And with a big wide open snow field and no ice, I managed to ski reasonably confidently. Tyson and I split off from the group when they skied a steep bit and we did a shallower slope instead.

On the way back down, we skied over some ice ledges which was a little interesting. Then we found some open snow for some more good turns. And then we had to bushwack back to the trail.

Pictures are available here.

The trip overall was great. The one downside was that I didn’t get sunscreen on until too late. By Monday morning I had a terrible sunburn on m face.