Saturday in the woods with Miles

Just got back from skiing the Northville-Placid, which has turned into my default outing this winter.

Glorious conditions. Just enough coverage that the trail is perfectly set, no root-rock rattle, but not so deep that it’s a slog.

The first five miles in are great fun: lots of moguly, plummety weirdness.

People that I work with ‘out there’ in the big wide world often ask me why I’ve settled in so deeply here in the North Country.

The answer is, in big part, ‘out there’ in the woods.

At the end of a crazy week, after wrangling with all kinds of fierce, interesting, opinionated, contrary, and great people…I can slip on the skis and vanish.

My new vice on the trail is my Ipod. There was a time when I would have sneered at someone carrying a private jam-box into the woods.

But I can’t help it. Skiing the backcountry with Miles Davis and Elvis Costello and Dexter Gordon and US is just too sweet.