Castle in winter

My daughter and I xc-skiied by this lovely scene on Saturday, along "the Castle loop" trail.

early days of XC skiing

When cross-country skiing was new at Frost Valley, around 1973. Those skis are clip-ons (you wore your own shoes and clipped them onto the ski by means of a contraption that fell apart often for the novice). The scene of course is the Big Tree Field (ski trail through the Big Tree Field?!) and at right you can see a tobaggan that had just come a long ways down the tobaggan run that started up near cabins 21-25 and emptied out across the field. If conditions were icy and slick enough, you could get all the way to the county road. The building to the center-right is the Lake House (where in those days the Food Service Director, Everett Lake, lived) and to the left is the old horsebarn. Yes in the summers we actually ran our horseback riding program out of that barn. An old, old, old barn, barely standing. It was affectionately known as the Lazy Nag Corral.

snowy trails

Just back from a gorgeously snowy and cold winter weekend. Saturday afternoon and overnight we got a new layer of powdery snow (8 inches or so), on top of the 4 inches of icy hard stuff that was already there. Perfect for cross-country skiing. Before the snow we slipped and slid along the Castle Loop trail (easy) and busted out onto the red trail that goes on past the Castle field toward the old Sawmill site, crossed the Neversink at the bridge built for logging (near the Model Forest area). At some point, breaking a new trail somewhat east of main camp, we stopped to make this recording to mark the spot.