Boarding @ the 'loaf

Jack & I had an interesting adventure last Saturday -- we went snowboarding at Sugarloaf in Carabassett Valley, Maine. A pilot buddy of mine who lives in MA called me on Friday to see if I wanted to meet him up there at 9:15am. He was bringing his two teenaged sons and had arranged a cab ride from the airport to the mountain.

My biggest challenge was getting Jack up at 6am so we could get the airport and takeoff by 7:15. I had the plane placed in the hangar overnight so it was warm and easy to start. We were wheels up at 7:15 on a crystal clear, cold winter morning. The sun was up and there was very little wind. Flight time was estimated at 2 hours exactly, twice as long as my buddy Dave. We'd agreed to make contact on 122.750, the air-to-air frequency and sure enough at 8:20, Dave called me on the radio.

He was about 25 miles behind me, but his Cirrus cruises at 20 knots faster than my Trinidad -- our ETA's for Sugarloaf were identical. At 4 miles out, I did a 360 to allow Dave to pass and go into the airport first. The runway was clear, but somewhat icy, so speed control was critical for the landing. We both made perfect landings, parked the planes and Greg, our cab driver, was there to help move our gear. We were skiing within 25 minutes.

The conditions were hard-packed snow with lots of "corn", but as the day wore on, the snow loosened up and the conditions improved. The skies were perfectly clear and you could see for miles in every direction from the top of the mountain -- absolutely beautiful!

During lunch at The Bag, the boys discovered they were all addicted to Halo 3 for Xbox. Since Microsoft has designed the Xbox to allow users to play against each other over the internet, a "battle" was scheduled for that evening -- Dave's two boys against my Jack and his buddy Keith. We skied until 3 pm and then it was back to the airport for an uneventful flight back to Westchester. During the trip home, Jack assured me "Keith and I are going to destroy those guys." To ensure success, Jack actually went over to Keith's house to play from there and spent the night. When I asked him the next day about how they'd done, he said, "man Dad, those guys could go pro! They owned us! It wasn't any fun -- it got so bad, we didn't even want to play anymore!" I think he might have over-estimated his ability :)

In the end, it was a great day made possible by the magic of general aviation. A day trip to Maine for snowboarding ranks very high on my list of fun ways to spend a day!