The March 16-19 trip to Tug Hill took a turn toward civility, thanks largely to a sweet waitress at a breakfast establishment in Utica.  Bill and Sandy Stine, Joan Short, Tim Musser and Fred Burgess had headed north Thursday and stayed overnight in that Mohawk Valley city so they could get a jump on skiing Friday.  But first they stopped at a restaurant for some carbo-loading.

During the course of that meal, the 40-something waitress referred to everyone at the table as "Honey" -- except for Fred.  When the late-arriving Kick 'n Gliders learned that he was moping because of this snub, they took to referring to him as "Hon," "Honey," Sweetie," "Darling," "Dearie" and other terms of endearment in a successful attempt to cheer him up.

Then everyone began addressing everyone else in those terms during mealtimes at Pioneer Lodge, the Turin, N.Y., bed and breakfast establishment where the club stays.  It all added up to one of the year's most congenial gatherings.  That spirit spilled over to after-dinner discussions, which sometimes headed in some unusual directions -- such as animal bites.

Dave LeRoy told of his unfortunate encounter with a dog that resulted in his having to undergo a series of rabies shots.  Joan said she nearly had to go through the same thing when her cat bit her finger and then died an hour later.  But Mary Klaue had the best stories.  The self-described farm girl said she had been bitten not only by dogs and cats but by horses, cows, a black snake, a muskrat -- and a caged bear.  She was a little stingy on the details, but one thing was clear: If only she had addressed the bear as "Honey" before reaching into the cage, the animal would have been pleased to have been petted.

But, we digress!  What about the skiing?  Well, yes, we did a bit of that, too.  Centennial Scoot was our choice for Friday morning.  Sandy, Bill, Tim, Fred and Joan headed there directly from breakfast and found good the best conditions we’d ever seen.  With plenty of snow everywhere, even the Bear Ridge loop was easy on our ski bases!  Trail accomplished, we drove to the Pioneer Lodge to check in and relax.

Later that afternoon Joan, Tim and Fred decided to try the rim trail at Whetstone Gulf State Park, with each of them assuming the others previously had skied there.  It turned out only Joan had negotiated the rim trail, and she had forgotten details such as how difficult it was to ski there -- especially in four feet of snow covered by an icy crust on the south side of the gorge.  The depth of the snow and the steepness of the climb made for an excruciatingly slow first mile.  The trio would have turned back had they not felt that returning down the path could have bone-crushing consequences.  So they continued uphill, sometimes using their hands and even their elbows as they crawled like crabs.

Tim was in his glory in the flatter area nearer the top of the gorge, as the snow was quite slick and offered many "technical" delights.  But Fred in particular was having trouble dodging branches that were whipping his face and knocking him to the ground, where the deep snow made it difficult to get back up.  Finally they came to Corrigan Road at the end of the gorge -- where Fred and Joan convinced a reluctant Tim to take the road back to the parking lot.  It may be the long way, they said, but it would be safer -- and faster -- than going down the north rim trail.

It WAS faster -- especially when the road began a serious descent.  Only snowmobiles had been using the road, and the cooling temperatures had frozen the packed-down surface to such an extent that snowplowing had little effect.  Fred almost had reached the bottom when a surprised deer bounded across the road right in front of him.  Had that deer been able to talk, Fred said later, it definitely would not have said, "Hi, Dearie." The startled whitetail managed to keep its footing and made it across the road.  The startled skier, on the other hand, did NOT keep his footing and found himself sliding down the road on his belly like a hockey puck.  He wasn't hurt and was able to join Tim and Joan on a mile-long trudge on a cleared-off paved road back to the car.

The Whetstone survivors showered and joined the rest of us for what has become a Turin tradition … Friday dinner at the Steak & Brew restaurant a few miles from the lodge.  And what a treat it was with Sandy, Bill and Mike ordering a table-side show for dessert of Bananas Foster and Cherries Jubilee.

After breakfast Saturday, we headed to Carpenter Road where we found five feet of snow still on the ground … hard to believe in the middle of March!  The snow was firm enough to support us on our skis, with enough surface powder for plenty of control, but far too deep to walk.  We started with Cone Trail, Mill Creek Run, Snow Ridge Loop and Jack’s Track before breaking for lunch.  There were no injuries, but Tim suffered a minor problem when one of his ski pole baskets broke, forcing him to ski with a single basket.  Because of the deep snow, it was impossible to find a place to sit for lunch.  So, Dave created an impromptu bench by stepping out of his skis into the deep snow and sitting on the skis!  It worked great and most of the group followed suit.

After lunch we skied the other side of the trail system.  Just a mile or so into West Loop, Tim turned into a real basket case when he lost the powder basket from his other pole.  Tim’s one heck of a man, though, and persevered, using only his legs to propel him along the trail.  The group split after skiing Larch and Beaver Pond trails with a couple of folks opting to return to the field of snow that a few of us had skated on along the way in Cone Trail.  (See Mick’s article in this newsletter.)  The rest of us finished up the trail system by skiing Return Trail back to the parking area.  That evening we all retired early after an excellent Pioneer Lodge dinner.

According to Dave’s proposed schedule, Sunday meant skiing the multi-use trails at Confusion Flats.  And so we did!  Conditions were as good as we’d ever encountered on this trail.  We didn’t even get lost!  It probably helped that a snowmobile had “groomed” almost the entire first two thirds of the way.  For the first time we actually skied the entire ten-mile loop!

Then, it was back to Turin for much needed showers and a well-deserved dinner served by Diane Gaylord and the Pioneer Lodge crew.  The evening’s entertainment was “Tent Night”.  It seems that Nan, Peter and Mary stopped at the Eureka store in Binghamton on their drive up and purchased five tents among them.  And, they decided they’d better set them up to make sure they were okay and could return any defective merchandise on their way back home.  We had tents in the dining room, tents in the living room and people playing in the tents everywhere.  Everyone had a good time and no defects were found.

We bid our farewell to Pioneer Lodge Monday morning and headed for Boonville and the Black River Canal Towpath.  The set tracks were a bit icy for the first couple of miles, but it didn’t really matter since there are no climbs and only gentle downhills on this one-way ski.  It was a great time, with sunny, warm … the perfect way to end an excellent cross-country skiing season!

Attendees:  Bill & Sandy Stine, Joan Short, Joyce Miller, Fred Burgess, Dave LeRoy, Nancy Kauhl, Mike Marhevka, Peter Oswald, Nan Reisinger, Tim Musser and Mary Klaue.