Awww hell. It’s only August but I’m already trying to get a handle on this winter. What are we planning for the 2010-2011 winter? If everything goes absolutely perfectly and I get all my permission slips signed, in addition to my Wednesday evening park sessions at Pine Knob or Saturday afternoon backyard or rail sessions with some local guys, I’d like the winter to look something like this:
Unless snow totals are abysmal we’ll be taking our annual pre-Christmas weekend up North, probably at Crystal Mountain. This usually works out good because the kiddies are still in school, and lift & lodging rates don’t get really expensive until Christmas week, so we can save a few bucks.
I absolutely have to find a way to get to Mount Bohemia (I’ve already planned this trip!), Michigan. Sure it’s a 10+ hour drive but they’ve got 980 vertical feet, and legit slackcountry. I could probably wrangle up a few people to caravan up there over President’s Day or MLK weekend in January or February if the weather is good.
I would like to get up to Blue Mountain, Ontario. It’s not too far away, but I’ve never been. This would be for a long weekend probably. If the weather there isn’t favorable, I’d consider taking the AmTrak over to Vermont but timing and finances make that less-probable.
Sometime in March I’d like to get back up for a full weekend to one of the Nubs Nob/Boyne resorts, in northern Michigan. I’ll probably get up to Crystal a few times with the nephew, but it would be fun to get up to Crazy Days at Boyne if there’s still snow on the ground.
A late-season trip somewhere West of the Mississippi. This could be virtually anywhere from the Sierra Nevadas to the Rockies to the Cascades to the Tetons to the Canadian Rockies or the Wasatch or some crazy combination of multiple places. But it’s far too early to make any plans – even tentative plans – for that.
So we may be doing a lot of Midwest/Michigan riding this winter especially if the La Nina comes through and gives us a crapload of snow, putting all our eggs in one basket and heading West sometime in April after all the snow melts around here. I’m gonna shoot for 40 days on the slopes this season, and I think this might be a good way to maximize winter.
