XC Skiing at Bear Swamp

Snow is hard to find around Ithaca this year, so a bunch of us decided to go searching for some powder elsewhere! We had a lovely day of cross country skiing at Bear Swamp State Forest, just southwest of Skaneateles Lake. Here's a map of the trails! The crew included Rob, Ben, Sarah, Emily, Rick (Emily's dad), and me. We departed from COE a little after 10am (after waiting for Ben to polish his rental skis...). The drive from Ithaca was approximately an hour.

About 5 minutes into the trip it was clear that I am by far the slowest XC skier ever. It probably didn't help that I went with a bunch of experts... The moments between falling on my face were quite enjoyable!

Most of the trails were really nice and fluffy with snow, but towards the end the trail followed a creek which was not frozen. This resulted in some very ice-laden skis which made it feel like we were snow-shoeing instead of skiing.

On the ride home we chatted and munched on some chocolate bars that Rob brought - yum! Also, this was my last day of adventures with Emily before she graduates and moves back to Colorado! I'm gonna miss this girl! Hopefully I'll have some Colorado posts in the near future...

Nepal!

For the months of December and January my blog will temporarily be dedicated to a non-kayaking subject: Nepal! On December 27th, after spending a week in Belgium visiting family, I'll be boarding a plane for Kathmandu, Nepal (with a 7 hour stop in Abu Dhabi first!). I'll meet up with the other Cornell students and we'll spend a few days exploring the city while staying at the Cornell-Nepal Study Program housing.

On New Year's Eve we'll be on an all-day bus ride to Mhanegang, a little village in the mountains, northwest of Kathmandu. We'll spend a few days living in the village and learning about the Nepali farming lifestyle. On January 4th we'll depart for a 10-day trek through the mountains (along the Phyukhri Ridge) from which we'll have views of the Himalayas (the Annapurnas to Gosainkund).

Once we get back from our trek, we'll do the whole process backwards!
Stay posted for more info!

Waterproof Cameras are Fun! (COE Pool Session #1)

After a fun-filled weekend at Ontario Greenland Camp where I learned two new Greenland rolls, I was excited to attend one of Cornell Outdoor Education's kayak pool sessions to practice! If you're ever interested in joining, I can bring up to two guests for free, so check out the dates on the News page and let me know when you'd like to attend.

The turnout was great - 12 people in kayaks in the pool makes for lots of boat-bumping and fun. There was a well-balanced mix of experienced rollers and excited beginners.

 

This is the first time I've had movies in my blog, so let me know if they don't work for some reason! Here's one of me doing a rough version of 1/2 a reverse sweep roll (normally you're supposed to go over the other direction, but I'm still trying to refine this portion of the roll):

Here's one of Rob doing a bunch of C-to-C rolls in a row!

Here's one more of Ben doing a hand roll!

Any feedback on rolling technique is much appreciated! More videos to come in the future.

FAST Sea Kayak Seminar

What a beautiful day for a paddle! Today I helped Rob teach the FAST (Fall All Staff Training for COE) sea kayak seminar. The students were all COE instructors for different sports -- mostly climbers -- so they were a really enthusiastic bunch! We met at East Shore Park and went over the basics (fitting in boats, wet exits, deep water re-entries, and basic paddle strokes) and then went for a short paddle punctuated with mini play-times. Most people were really excited to try t-rescues, and some people even worked on their roll. Dan got his roll on the second try! It was very exciting! Everyone was excited to hear about the tri-weekly pool sessions available to all COE instructors, so hopefully they'll be back for more.

I didn't take any pictures, but we could see Todd (COE director) snapping shots from the shore, so maybe we'll make it into next year's catalog! The strap on my camera snapped a few days ago so I'm trying to find ways to remedy that...

Yay kayaking!