Where's your beard

Four relatively good-looking Ephs headed to my extended family's condo in Bretton Woods this week to discover what having a beard is like in the real world, and did a little training on the side. A majority of us had beards and were anxious to find out how they would fare outside of the Purple Bubble. Our conclusive findings were that we are extremely good looking, beards are awesome, and we can only feel sorry for Vanya that he did not participate in the having of a Novembeard. Where's your beard, mate?

The skiing was quite good considering...I've not skied for all of Thanksgiving break except for once in high school, and never with grooming. Bretton Woods' nordic center had already groomed by the time we got there Wednesday afternoon, and for the most part we were able to train like we do in Quebec, with double distance sessions every day. The best part: Dimits, Will, and I discovered that beards are an excellent facial accessory to keep warm in the winter. Thursday and Friday were split half skate and half classic, despite the temperature getting fairly warm on Friday and preventing further skiing at the Bretton Woods nordic center.

Friday afternoon we decided to climb Mt. Rosebrook via the Bretton Woods alpine area. A couple double black diamonds and more than a few patrons' sideways glances later, we arrived at the summit, where we surveyed our victory and checked out the USGS station at the top. Skiing down brought back some great memories of my brief days as an alpine skier, although unfortunately we couldn't really rip down the mountain because Vanya broke a ski and had to one-ski it down most of the way (worth lots of g.n.a.r. points).

Saturday we made the trip down to Jackson, where we found ourselves skiing in surprisingly nice classic tracks for most of the day. Our Saturday doublesession wasn't really a doublesession...we just skied in the morning, scratched our beards and ate my mom's homemade pesto pizza at lunch for about 25 minutes, and then immediately headed out for more. We even managed some surprisingly pleasant shirtless Rossa Special klister skiing in the afternoon as conditions got sloppy...perhaps a very early start to spring skiing in New England.

On a serious note, a great many thanks this break go out to my aunt and uncle—Heidi Janes and John Deveau—for providing lodging and food (including a turkey dinner that was to die for), to my parents for providing luggage management, more food, and canine entertainment, and a special thanks to my grandmother Judy Janes for cooking her unbelievable lasagna dish on Wednesday night, which we really could not stop eating. (that's an understatement, we never stopped eating)

Thank you so much John and Heidi!

Photo opportunities were more plentiful than I could keep up with, but we managed to capture some candid moments, like Dimits's Thinker with Beard and Vanya's Russian Sublime (both by Wicherski), Shirtless Hanoverian Man, Scandinavian Man With Beard, The Pensive Beards, and Bearded Fall (Spring) Skiing Bros (See below).

Russian Sublime (by Wicherski)

The Pensive Beards

Shirtless Hanoverian Man

Bearded Fall (Spring) Skiing Bros

Thinker with Beard (by Wicherski)

Scandinavian Man with Beard

While it's not awesome switching back to dryland training, this little taste of winter kept us hungry for more, and put Canada in our sights. Next stop, Mont-Sainte-Anne, QC, CAN.