Good old fashion winter!

What a great season this has been so far. Thinking back to our first season of tours in 2007 I remember getting in one of our first sled runs of the season around January 10th. Even that was marginal and we were running on about three inches of snow. This winter has been the best one in recent memory. We have had great trail conditions since the first week in December. Between that and the new; used Tidd Tech groomer I purchased this past fall the dogsled trail has been just about perfect. We haven’t seen a day above freezing here since Christmas. Seeing that in writing doesn’t sound like such a big deal. It’s only been four weeks but it seems a lot longer than that. I’ve become accustomed to the big temperature swings of past seasons where we have had temperatures in the 50s above zero. I guess we have had similar swings this winter but they have been more in the range of -40 to +20. Same amount of swing just a lot colder.

We have been doing well with sticking to our plan of skiing every Monday and haven't missed one yet. I've already broken my record from last season. As usual the biggest challenge is to get my butt in motion on Mondays after working with the dogs all weekend. I'm often ready for a break by Monday but getting out for a ski is a great mental break if not a physical one. Craftsbury does an amazing job of keeping their trails in top form and they are always great for skate skiing.

On other fronts all has been going well. No major break downs of equipment. The tractor has been running great so keeping our road open has been easy. We haven’t had any huge snow storms; just a few inches here and there adding up to a few feet which is much easier to keep up with. We haven’t even had any frozen water pipes in our cabin despite the record cold. Just maybe after seven years of living here we are finally getting things figured out.

No complaints from the frosty woods of north central Vermont!