Almost time for snow and Ice dancing
 

What do you say, 3 more weeks and we should start our snow and ice dancing for a wonderful winter for all our winter activities?? My hope is that we get ALOT more snowmobiling in this winter, no lets call it this season.:)

http://i54.tinypic.com/2e56yqf.gif

Babes on Sleds
 

The babes need to restart this practice.

This is my first full winter on the lake. I'm excited to watch fall evolve into winter. I remember saying I could never imagine living here during the winter...now, here I am...let the fun begin!;)

Hope so!!
 

As president of the Moultonboro Snowmobile Club, I sure hope so. Regardless of how much snow or how many days the trails open, we still have the same amount of prep work every year!

Hope the models are wrong
 

I'm all for a bring-it-on cold snowy winter as much as anyone, but the signs are not looking good.

First, the NOAA shows January through March as warmer than normal.

Second, the arctic ice set a record low this year, as it did in 2007. The winter of 2007/2008 was one of the best in years, with plenty of snow and constant cold temperatures. One might think that since this year, the arctic ice volume was much lower than the previous record in 2007 that we would have a similar or even better winter.

But, that does not seem to be the case. As the National Snow and Ice Data Center points out in the Arctic Sea Ice News, conditions could not have been more different.

They say: "Weather conditions prevailing over the summer of 2012 were quite different from those in 2007. The summer of 2007 featured unusually high sea level pressure centered north of the Beaufort Sea and Greenland, and unusually low pressure along northern Eurasia.... In contrast, the summer of 2012 saw unusually low pressure along the Eurasian coastal seas and extending eastward into the Beaufort sea, most prominently over the East Siberian Sea, with unusually high pressure centered over Greenland and the northern North Atlantic."

To me, this indicates "not-so-great winterl". I hope I'm looking at this wrong!

I hope your wrong as well!! The plow and sander sat idle most of last winter.:confused:
But although I'm all for a snowy winter I just don't want to see it happen till after Thanksgiving. After that :eek::eek:

I saw this rig on Rte 3 loaded with winter toys heading south from Canada this morning. :D
A sure sign that snow will be her soon!!

Last winter, it only seems like the snow was normal dry winter style snow for about the first two weeks in January........after that it was a little too warm and the snow got soft like what you usually get in March.....plus there wasn't much snow anyway.

This year, it will definately be an old fashioned winter with lots of single digit temps which make the snow very durable so it lasts and lasts and lasts......a real winter for this here winter........it's due........ayuh!

Took this yesterday morning on my car trunk!!! ;)

Hope that writing wasn't still visible after it melted.:eek:

Lifts are running.

Can to promise this and make a gentlemens bet on it??????:)

Of course, nobody knows what this winter will bring for snowfall and cold temps but here is something to ponder:

Last year, on October 31, 2011, the Waterville Valley ski area turned on their sno-making guns way up top at about 3500 to 3800' altitude, up on the High Country slope, and made enough snow to get it covered, and was forced to turn the guns off at about 11-am on Nov 1, 2011 due to warm temps above freezing, as I recall.


Last night, Nov 1, 2012, there was no attempt to make any snow up top, and the temps were not even close to 32-degrees.


So, what does all this mean......not very much......the weather can be fickle on a year-to-year basis....so it looks like the bicycle season will be here for another week or two or three or something......as opposed to the man-made snow skiing & boarding season?

About the only thing one can count on is for the price for a season ticket to increase from last year's price........cold temps or no cold temps......good conditions or not!

Season Passes
 

We got our weekday season passes at Gunstock last week, $129 each. We sure hope for a ton of snow after that huge expense! And we get to ski for free weekdays at Cannon.
It would be nice to be able to use the snowshoes after no use at all last winter.

Of course a ton of snow means a lot for us to plow on our 650' fairly steep driveway but that is what the plow truck and tractor are for. Like when we had a little snow in March 2008. No, I didn't make Mrs Slickcraft do all the work.

Possible snowstorm this coming Wednesday/Thursday. Still early and a week away, but very much worth watching. Get the dancers going! :)

R2B

Feel free to give your local snowmobile club a call as there is a lot of work to do this time of year in preparation for snowmobile season. Everyone likes nice trails without a lot of small branches hanging in the way right? ;)

Can I ask how you do it for free? I thought I heard state workers could do that but wasn't sure why.

NH resident 65+. Just show your divers license and you get a free pass for the day.
http://www.cannonmt.com/lift_tickets.html

Hopefully I do not have to register my bobhouse as a boat this year :(

Today is Saturday, Nov 10, and the www.waterville.com says the ski area is scheduled to open next Saturday on Nov 17. You know something, the grass on the Waterville Valley golf course is still very green, because it looks and feels under foot to be very much alive and still in its growing mode, as opposed to going dormant and taking on a beige to light brownish color. So, how's about that? The grass is still very green, and the ground in the golf course has obviously not frozen yet.

Over on the seven acre Corcoran's Pond, it looks like it is about 1/2 frozen with very thin ice, and that ice is shrinking and getting smaller right now.

In the past, it was pretty common for the woods and open spaces in Waterville Valley to all be snow covered from November 5 to April 5, but that has not happening the last couple-three to five years.

Looking up at the Waterville Valley slopes on the 3800' foot high ski area on Mt Tecumseh, there is no white snow to be seen anywhere, no white no-where, and the slopes have a beige-brown color so probably up on the mountain, the ground has gone through a freeze.

The ski area has not yet turned on its sno-making, and today feels a lot more like an October day than a November day with a temp right now at 40 and supposedly getting up,( www.weatherchannel.com zip 03215-ten day forecast), into the low-50's or so???

......

The ski area has applied to the Forest Service to expand new slopes and a new lift onto Green's Peak, the smaller mountain just south of Valley Run beginner's trail http://www.fs.fed.us/nepa/nepa_project_exp.ph or google "forest service waterville valley green's peak", so a return to an old fashioned winter this season would probably help to move this planned expansion along.

I hope I'm wrong but it is beginning to look like Lakegeezer was right this could shape up to be a repeat of last winter.
I heard yesterday on the radio that Sugarloaf opened this weekend for the season.

November 14, 5-am

....say hey.....the www.waterville.com has done turned on their sno-maker and the white stuff is gently drifting across the High Country slope, up at about 3600-3800ft elevation. Just don't believe that stuff that says WV is a 4000 foot high ski area, because it ain't. The ski area is built on White's Peak, and it gets up to about 3800' as opposed to the 4000' as promoted and advertised since 1966. Mt Tecumseh is 4002' high, making it one of the shortest of the 48 4000' mountains in NH, but the ski area don't go up to the top of Mt Tecumseh. Down here at 1800', my thermometer says it is 21-degrees. This is the first time the sno got turned on this season, and it well could be that last night was the first hardcore, killer-diller frost, cold enough to make all the well-kept, green golf course grass go dormant.

So, who knows, maybe the ski area will actually be open on this Saturday, Nov 17?
.........

... meanwhile, about 24-hours later on Nov 15.....apparently they just left the sno-guns or sno-wands running all day yesterday, throughout the above freezing temps of the daylight hours and never turned the High Country sno system off; above 32-degrees, what comes out is water, and below 32-degrees, what comes out is man-made sno; the laws of physics still apply, even to a Sununu ski area. The sno-system is still running and the High Country area is looking all very white, so I suspect that WV-High Country, one 400'-long slope, way up top the hill, will be open on Saturday, November 17, just like it says in their website.

My thermometer now says 20-degrees.

....................

Sunday, Nov 18 ..........it's a pretty big surprise to me how good the sno-making at WV has been going since it started last Wednesday.......it's 18-degrees now here outside my window at 1800' and looking at the ski area, the High Country is all very white.....and it looks like there's sno-making on the Tippie Canoe trail....probably to open up the North Side lift next. Everywhere else in sight....mountains....Mt Osceola, Noon Peak, Mts Tripyriamid, Mt Tecumseh, Jennings Peak, Green Peak, Snows Mountain, Flat Mountain......no snow no-where.....everything natural is all is looking sunny, dry and the beige-brown-greens of November......but no natural snow on the ground anywhere......in years past....it was standard procedure for the Valley to be totally white with a snow cover from November 8 to March 8 ....... so you know what, the snow is S-N-O-W W-H-E-R-E ?
.............

Thursday, Nov 22....taking about a 2 1/2 mile walk earlier this morning that took me.......over the river.....through the woods.....past the golf course.....and up & down the hill....gave me a pretty fair look at the still very green and well-kept grass in the WV 9-hole golf course fairways.....and you know something....the grass there all looks and feels underfoot like it is still alive and growing and not yet to go winter-dormant.....who know's....could be it has something to do with the summer water irrigation system and deep roots and the cold nights-warm days of recent weeks just not having enough cold uumfph to penetrate down into the roots.....because it all looks pretty much green and still alive to me....

At 11:52-am my outside ordinary type of a mercury thermometer, which is in the sunshine, is saying 60-degrees.
...........

And, at 1:58 it is saying 70-degrees in the direct sunshine......how's about that...... 70-degrees on November 22, 2012.

WV-NE Patriot's Tuesday, www.waterville.com, ski the seven trails up top today, Tuesday, Nov 27, for 19-dollars as opposed to 35(?).

There's just got to be a way to make this pay......maybe buy a ticket for 19 and then sell it down in a parking lot for only 30.....and the reason why......oh yeah.......just because my achy lower back just cannot handle the mountain today....aarrggg.......bingo!:rolleye2::laugh:

Wow, I guess you didn't get enough crap with your post about returning 89 day used circulators. Some people actually like getting hit on the head.:laugh: