I guess I never posted a link to the last (s)newsletter, so here it is: “We need to be deriched.”

And here’s a drafted post from February that was supposed to follow it:

On a longed-for Friday night in February after three 12-hour shifts, I hit the road to Randolph, NH for a little weekend skiing. Driving somewhere just north of Lincoln, lost in some ubiquitous podcast, I felt a presence in the dark around me. And I knew what it was even before I leaned over the steering wheel and squinted past the headlights to see that barely moon-visible Franconian silhouette surrounding me on all sides.

I love the mountains. And I love those Appalachian Whites. Here’s a little 3-second exposure, 10-pm view looking south at the Presidential Range.

That’s Madison front and just left of center, and Adams to its right, a little more snow-covered. The still-bald false peak of Quincy Adams sits between them.

I don’t do a lot of backcountry skiing, but it’s a pretty good derichment activity. If simply being in the woods is not enough for you, you aren’t likely to have a good time. Out of the 8+ hours spent several miles back in the Crescent Range, at least 95% is spent just skinning, mostly uphill. Twenty minutes of downhill powder is about all you get.

And I know I speak for more than just me when I say it’s not really that you find the downhill to be worth the work to get there, though that certainly applies. It’s that it’s all worth it, all lovelily deriching.