Murdock Mountain Madness

First weekend of 2010 spent at home and active on "our" Mountain.  It was a snowy weekend at that, with over 12 inches of snow accumulating from Friday to Sunday and still coming down.

Murdock Mountain Madness

Friday Donna and I headed out on a normal dog walk.  Which is normally a around the block afair on Bain, Coach and Brennen Extension - about 1.7 miles of mostly dirt road.  We started on the new trail I recently hacked out and Donna headed to the exit onto Bain.  I said, "where are you going?"  "Around the block," was the reply.  I politley described my distaste for walking on the road and timidly suggested a walk that stayed on the trails and in the beautiful, snowy woods.  My meek suggestion was met with quick acceptance.  We started and continued on the trail I recently made with the dogs on leash.  Chance in the lead with me or Donna, and Harry bringing up the rear.  We went up the trail past the waterfall and then just kept going up the various trials that led up to the pet cemetary and beyone into the man-made pond near Summit Lake Road. 

We considered returning by road, but opted stay in the beautiful snowy woods.   We were all enjoying the outing.  It was decided to get to the top or "our" mountain and sign-in the register which is inside a 3-inch PVC pipe attached to a tree and lebeled "Murdock Mountain."  Donna started to climb straight up the grade to get to the top.  I asked her what she was doing and indicated that I was scouting possible single track lines for making a mountain bike trail to the top.  Finnaly she realized my alterior motive.  Picking a circutuitous route, we got to the canister and signed out names under our previous and first entry on April 4, 2009.  We continued heading east and picking a path/line through the trees and stone fences that could be riden very easily until we hit the 4-wheeler path down to Rick and Wendy's house.  We cut across on another bushwack that avoided coming out behind our neighbor's house and brought us back over to a pair of tree stands.  From there we took established bushoged 'roads' back to our original foot prints and home.  A good day by all and the dogs were proud of their summit!

On Saturday we started out intending to repeat Friday's adventure since we all enjoyed it so much.  Chance was especially anxious to get out there again.  So was I.  And the two of us were in the lead, but Harry was hurting.  Donna eventually had to offer to take him back and she encouraged me to continue on with Chance.  Which we did.  In a sort of reverse route, we recreated the hike of the previous day.  There had been so much new snow that our boot and paw prints from the 24 hour previous were nearly wiped out.  And at key critical points, there was very little evidence to give a clue as to which we we should go.  Chance seemed to have a sense of the right way and was successful in picking the right direction most of the time.  I had to over-ride his choices sometimes, being correct on some of them. 

We reached the cannister at the top and headed back.  Choosing not to follow the circuit that we did the previous day we headed straight down the grade doing very short switchbacks to decrease the momentum forced by the pitch.  We came out in the meadow just above the pet cemetary and at this point I noticed what nice lines you could make for riding a snowboard down through meadows and 6-foot wide pathways cut between them.  With the snow plenty deep and building, this was an enticing possiblity for tommorow instead of traveling to Pico Peak as currently planned. Chance and I continued until we found the boot/paw prints of Donna and Harry.  We returned home and Chance, unlike yesterday, was completly exhausted and proud of his second summit. 

As indicated above, a day of snowboarding on Sunday is planned - but of a different than normal variety.  With high winds and low wind-chill temperatures predicted for Pico, I chose to try the backwoods-style snowboarding I always thought possible at our new home.  After snowblowing another 6 inches of light powder off the drive way I started getting gear ready.  At first I was going to use my old Gnu Classic board, not wanting to damage my Burton Malalo or Lib Tech Darkside.  But after thinking about how deep the powder would be, I opted for the Malalo.  Using my old Forum boots, old Columbia pants and shell and old Burton gloves, I was not risking my good gear on this potential thorn, stone, tree tangled adventure. 

I tried some preliminary runs right in the backyard while waiting for Donna, who offered to stomp some trails with her snowshoes.  With not enough vertical and more than 15 inches of snow, the first "run" was not much.  However, the second time down I was able to stay close to my previous attempt and it wasn't bad.  After the third time I climbed up to see Donna sipping on a cup of tea in the living room and I signaled to here, "WTF?"  She thought I was already gone.  I did one more run and then set off on my own.  I got to the top of the meadow next to the waterfall and tried going down.  It was great!  The snow was so deep it was difficult to get any speed, but with the greater pitch and some effort to get the nose up on top, it was a nice glide. 

I started to climb back up and got half way before deciding to head for the higher meadows.  That meant taking a four-wheeler path up a steep grade and then through some tangle "pucker" brush and over a smooth three-strand wire fence.  From there it was up the meadow and over to the next one through another four-wheeler path.  And up again to the top of the meadow that boarders the pet cemetary and the tree line that goes straight up to the Murdock Summit.  My plan from this point, as envisioned the day before, was to glide down this meadow, hit the four-wheeler path with low over-hanging trees with enough speed to make it to the next meadow and take that to its downhill conclusion.  And that just about worked.  I had to do about a half dozen all-four crawl/hops to get through the flat four-wheeler path, but then continued down this middle meadow until I could go no further in a tight squeeze of trees and brush.  It was a trip! 

Half way up I saw Donna walking her way over to the pet cemetary meadow.  She waited for me and I told her what the plan was.  She followed me and I got to the starting point for run two of Pet Cemetary - Middle Meadow. This time I had more speed entering the gap, but not yet enough to carry me through (I scrubbed too much off before I got there).  Just 3 crawl/hops and I was out the other side and down again.  Donna offered to be my Sherpa and carried the board up.  The aerobic benefit aside, the climbs up were part of the deal and I enjoyed this difference to lift-served boarding.  The enjoyment and physical challenge and benefit were to be had both ways.  However, it did mean resting at the top and waiting for the heart rate to come down some.  You can see our house in the distance (right-center) in the photo above.

We decided to just stop at the top of the Middle Meadow and not go all the way back to the Pet Cemetary.  I made another 4 runs from here and each was new and exciting.  Using the previous run track allowed for more speed and with that was starting to do some carving, throwing up huge flumes of light powder.  With my legs starting to feel the effort from both up and down hill action, I decided to start back.  The tight, steep four wheeler down to the first meadow was not made without falling and sitting to control speed.  With another run, and better legs, I could do it better.  Next time!