That's a wrap.. or un-wrap?

March '14 has provided a lot of snow so far!  We got back to back 20-24" storms.

The Hanfords stopped by after work to check out the tow for the first time.  Here is Josh (w/beer in hand) and Addie.

Alicia and Ben made use of Roxy's lodging space to get geared up.

Due to all of the new snow we had a little trouble with the tow slipping as the rope kept getting stuck in the new snow.  We really need that bigger drive wheel someday...  Occasionally we'd have to hike up and pull the rope out of the snow to get it spinning again.

Here is Kricket skiing down towards the house in the Homerun glades.

The Hanfords!

Addie and I tended to lift operator duties.

On a nice sunny Sunday we had family and friends over.  Here is Ted at the loading station.  We discussed that someday it would be easier to have the rope up off the ground at the loading station.  That way you don't have to fish the rope out of the snow.  By adding an extra idle wheel we could make that happen easily.

The Roberts family and Jared stopped by to check it out.  Jared had a little trouble getting a good grip on the rope so I loaned him my leather gloves which made the difference.

A view of the tow near the top.

Here is a picture Jared took of me grabbing onto the rope.

The following weekend we got another 6" of snow.  Good friends of ours, Hardy and Caitrin stopped by to check out the tow.  They got a few runs in before the rope started to get stuck in the snow again.  We hiked up and pulled it out of the snow until it got stuck again.  This time it slipped so bad that it burned the rubber off the wheel and caught a bolt on the wheel causing the rope to actually break in half. DOH!

It was a real bummer.  Luckily it was a clean cut and only 3' of rope was damaged.  Instead of splicing it back together at this point we decided to call it a year and wait until we get the right drive wheel for the job.  All in all we ran into several drive wheel issues (that we'll fix this summer) but overall it was definitely a successful first year for Rochester Gap Skiway.

We shifted our ski ventures to BC and nordic.  It's nice to be able to come home from work and have lots of snow and daylight til 7:30pm!

Sunsets and corduroy in the front yard.

The north facing logging lines on Lympus were really nice too.

Here is a picture from Lympus looking back torwards our house - in the upper right just below the ridge.  You can't see the rope tow as it's on the opposite side of the ridge.

An after work ski

Here is a short clip around our almost 1km ski loop. The packed snow made for some fast skiing!

http://youtu.be/aCNayRm_yrI

Fun Weekend

Jay wanted to try a rim with a rubber surface to see if it kept the rope from slipping.  He ended up cutting a tire off the rim (while leaving the side walls) and bolted the flat surface directly on to the rim.

We swapped the rims and went back to a double wrap (instead of a triple).  Before we had even tension the rope - the rubber drive wheel had no trouble spinning the rope.  Clearly the new drive wheel works a lot better!

I took 2 runs to test it out.  The skiing was a bit sketchy with about a 1/2 inch crust on top.  It's a bit of a bummer as the snow cover is incredible.  I hooked the rope back up on my way down.

We ended up nordic skiing in the front yard later that day.  Pete, Melissa and Jackson stopped by to ski.

Jackson ripped it up on the hill out front!

You know you can ski when you have balance like this.. all while carrying a kid on your shoulders.

Galen also got to try skiing!

Galen is in there somewhere..

I was able to groom the entire nordic ski loop (just shy of 1 km) and it skied really well.

Everyone had a blast.  Pete and Melissa kept requesting that we build a toddler tow in the front yard.  Now that's really not a bad idea...  We do have 200 ft or so of extra rope right? 

Here is a short clip of Galen getting used to having boards on his feet.