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Hike Up, Ski Down for Backcountry Powder

March 25, 2009 - GREENWOOD — Earn your turns. It's a ski phrase that's probably distasteful to many lift junkies.

However, at one of Maine's smaller mountains, a new backcountry invitation is aimed at luring the most expert skiers – as well as those who have toyed with the idea of hiking (also known as "skinning") up a mountain to ski the fresh powder found off the groomed trails.

"Everywhere in the East, they just mow everything (cutting trees and grooming trails). We're trying to get away from that. It's hard to change people's perspective, but we're trying," said Mt. Abram spokesman Art McNeally.

It's part of the backcountry push in Greenwood at the Mt. Abram ski area initiated by McNeally, who spent 20 years skiing and guiding in Utah.

And it's a vision that carries well into spring, when hard-core skiers head to the backcountry terrain in New Hampshire around Mount Washington, one of the last places you can ski in the East in the spring.

What the East Coast lacks in monstrous, wide-open natural-snow covered mountains, McNeally, a Gorham native, hopes to make up for in backcountry fun at this family mountain.

So on Wednesdays, when the ski mountain is closed, skiers are invited to pay $10, sign in for safety purposes and hike up as far as they like – anywhere from 30 minutes for the first intermediate trail to 45 minutes to get to the good glades where fresh snow awaits.

The ski area will offer Backcountry Wednesdays during the season, until it closes April 5.

After that, McNeally said skiers still are welcome to hike up and ski down at their own risk. Last year, that lasted until May, when the snow cover finally melted.

It can be as easy or as hard as a skier chooses, and even the expert backcountry skiers are getting their skiing needs satisfied by doing five to six runs through powder-covered glades. On any given week, about a half dozen normally venture to the western mountain to skin up and ski down.

Laurie Bernier of Raymond backcountry skis often along Maine's western mountain range and around the White Mountains. Friends from New Hampshire lured her to Mt. Abram's Backcountry Wednesday.

"That was a fun time. The snow was ungroomed. And it's safe," Bernier said. "One of my friends tore her (anterior cruciate ligament) last year, so she's tentative getting back into her teleskis. She did the groomed trails, and we went on the ungroomed, 30 feet over, in the trees. So we could all ski together."

Most winters, Bernier "mixes it up" by skiing at resorts and in the backcountry. But this year, she teleskied in the woods more because the snow was so light.

"You get your exercise skinning up," Bernier said. "And that's the nice thing. You get exercise, and you still get good snow."

Nick Branch, also of Raymond, is another backcountry skier who has explored Backcountry Wednesdays at Mt. Abram.

He's glad to see a ski area welcoming the adventurous type with its boundary-to-boundary invitation to ski anywhere – in the trees, through the brambles, over rocks, wherever.

Branch said where Mt. Abram has cleared out its glades it also has left the trees close, providing a worthy test. In addition, the coverage from the snow makes it reliable for skiing powder off trail, Branch said.

"There are certain places to (backcountry) ski in Maine that are pretty well-known," Branch said, noting areas around Rumford and Norway. "When you'll get people flocking (to Mt. Abram) is on a Tuesday if we get a big dump of snow and they don't groom it. I would rather have much less vertical and better snow."

On a blistering hot Tuesday (with rain in the forecast for Wednesday), we took a few turns with the staff at Mt. Abram.

Loaded down with camera gear and lacking skins, it took us longer in our alpine ski boots, but we also stopped for water, the view and stories of heli-ski trips.

One big difference stood out on the off day at this ski area, which offers lift service only from Thursday to Sunday: When the lifts are not running, it is utterly quiet. No sound of people, pulleys, even birds.

So still was the wind, it seemed completely silent when the hiking boots stopped.

It's a perfect way to get away, get a workout, and have a mountain almost to yourself for a run or two – or six.

And with backcountry spring skiing about to get into full swing around Mount Washington in Tuckerman Ravine, it's a perfect introduction for someone who has never hiked up and skied down ungroomed trails.

"It is like a stepping stone to Tuckerman Ravine," McNeally said. "You can figure out your backpack on the deck, rather than in the car. You can hike up to ski down in 30 minutes."

By DEIRDRE FLEMING, Staff Writer, Portland Press Herald, March 19, 2009


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