Well, the skiing was great on Sat. 2/24 but it was a strange trip. I left home after work on 2/23 to drive as far as Seneca Rocks, stay overnight and get an early start this morning. The strangeness began in Moorefield;

1. I am always very careful to observe posted speed limits in cities and towns, no matter how low they may be. Thus I was surprised when a state trooper turned on his blue light behind me in Moorefield while I was going < 25 mph. I stopped, rolled down the window and told him I was certain I was within the speed limit. He said that he was stopping me for having a headlight out and wanted my license and registration. My glove compartment is full of paper. I found the 5 previous year's registrations but not this year, which probably IS IN THERE someplace. I told him I was a law abiding citizen and hadn't been stopped for anything for at least 5 years; it's probably more like 10. So he wrote me up for the headlight and for not having a valid registration in my possession, written however as a warning. He delayed me about 40 minutes for this whole process. When I got to my motel the office was dark, closed, and locked. I finally raised somebody to check me in, or I would have been SOL in the middle of nowhere. Either there is not enough crime in WV or they have decided that it is a good idea to harass people with out-of-state plates bringing business into the state in winter.

2. I took a single ride at CV ski area and went into the backcountry. The powder was lighter and faster than last weekend, but still great. After a couple runs on the north side of Weiss Knob I decided to try the south side, more remote and normally untracked but more subject to sun effects, but with a 9AM temp. of 4 deg. I thought it would be fine. The first 5 turns were, but then crust. I took falls on the first couple of crust turns then began to figure it out. Then I heard a snap and my right binding lost its spring resistance to heel lift. I finished the run, thinking the heel piece had popped off and found instead that the cable had broken; I'd have to walk out about a mile. Without skis to distribute my weight the crust broke through on every step and I sunk down to mid thigh. This is exhausting and I stopped to try to think of a better way. I had some extra webbing with fastex buckles and rigged it to hold my heel in the toepiece, not very well, it fell off a few times but I was able to skin back up. Not wanting to push it with the makeshift repair, I kept the skins on to descend the steepish pitch slowly and reach the traverse back to Canaan Valley ski area.

3. I asked at the patrol shack if I could ride the lift down. Answer - no, nobody can ride down but they'd take me in a toboggan. (I wonder how the liftees get down after their shift.) WTH, I got in the sled and went down like a log. I have seen many ski patrollers in the mid Atlantic whose ski ability would make me crawl down rather than take a sled ride, perhaps they were trainees. These two were very good, although their speed scared the bejeezus out of me at first. Perhaps it's having your head a foot off the snow that makes it seem so fast. It was my first and I hope last sled ride.

4. Why is my backside so wet? I do sweat a lot under the pack but not this much. Answer, the hydration bladder in the pack had sprung a leak. Everything inside was soaked. By now it was sunny, 35 deg. and felt like 60. I drove over to Whitegrass for lunch and an afternoon of skiing without pack, jacket, or gloves. To my surprise there was no breakable crust in the lower elevations and many many descents with boot top deep powder. T skied all over and the woods in particular were as good as I have experienced.

All things considered an excellent although strange trip. I am going to have to devise repair startegies and carry the necessary materials for any foreseeable binding failures. Depending on temperature, snow depth, distance to get out, and time until dark, walking out can be life threatening.

WOW..AAA should post a speed trap warning heading into that town like they do down in "High way robbery" places like Waldo,fl! Duck Tape...don't leave home without it ...Sounds a little risky heading further out during a heavy snowpack time period. I head offshore or up the cape fear river or anywhere else that I boat knowing that if I run into trouble all I have to do is call Seatow...You couldn't even call Whitegrass for a rescue attemt because of 0 cell phone service up there. Maybe those stronger mini Walkie talkies would be in order. Leave one with a liftee maybe....It could have been worse. Could you see down to the "other Valley' when you were on the southside of Weiss?

Speedtrap? I thought the stop was for a headlight out.
How is that harassment of an out-of-stater?
Sorry, but I just don't see it!

Ummmm, Denis, did you consult your astrology before you headed out? you got some bad kharma from somewhere. I mean that just doesn't all happen on the same trip.

I wanted to ask, to know the trails up there, are you using a trailmap from Whitegrass, Canaan, or some other source? Also, the Tline snow report shows 17km of tails, but I've never seen a map of it and I've only seen that one trail over to Weiss. Are those trails something you can do on conventional XC gear. Well, its raining small pets here so I might as well type in a bunch of lame questions. I guess the real question is this - say I am at Timberline with a group of people but want to get onto some trails, what to do ?