A Day for Carl Johnson, In Hope for a Cure

Carl Johnson, a great friend to Great Glen Trails and a lover of all things skiing, passed away in 2006 of ALS. This event is held in his honor, and in his spirit, it's all about fun!

March 13th, 2010 marked the 4th Annual Carl Johnson Memorial Ski-A-Thon at Great Glen Trails Outdoor Center. And by far was one of the best turnouts yet! A fun aspect of the race is our "Wacky Tights Contest." As you can see above, we are all about wacky tights here at Great Glen Trails! Our winner this year was Andrew Doherty, he's the one in the middle with the groovy sequin top!

Another aspect of this event is fundraising money for a cure for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) or better known as Lou Gehrig's Disease. Christine Fleming, Carl's wife and a dedicated volunteer for Great Glen Trails collected the most money, which was donated to the ALS Association.

Overall participants ranging in age from 4-70, skied as many 5k laps as they could and raised a total of $1276! Great Glen Trails donated each participants entry fee to the ALS Association as well, totaling $740! A raffle for a baseball signed by Kurt Schilling and a handmade wooden bowl for Good Turns owner, Ed Good, raised $140 additional dollars.

We are so grateful for all of the participants and donors that came out to honor Carl and support the ALS Association in finding a cure for Lou Gehrig's Disease. Over $2200 was raised and we look forward to raising even more money for next year!

A new Blog.....Finally

So it's been a great winter so far at Great Glen - so great that none of us can peel ourselves away from our skis long enough to blog apparently. So here goes.

Our 8 week Nordic Meister series concluded today so the pressure is off, I stayed ahead of Nate all season and can now relax and bask in the glory.

We really have been doing quite a bit of skiing and snowshoeing these past couple of months or so, it comes as a byproduct of being addicted to winter and the incredible human powered sports that a New England winter brings. Most days off are at least partly spent at neighboring resorts or in the neighborhood woods.

Here's Sue at the Peeko Fulsom Bridge on one of the Randolph Mountain Club trails in Randolph, NH near where we live - very cool to be able to snowshoe here from the house.

My daughter, Cory and I had a great day of alpine skiing at Wildcat. THE quintessential New England downhill ski area IMHO.

Sue and I tried skiing the trails of the Nansen Ski Club, the oldest ski club in America. They've newly relocated to the Milan Hill State Park where John Morton has laid out a very entertaining trail network. As you can see, we were in deep fresh snow and knowing they operate with volunteer grooming we weren't expecting freshly groomed trails. Beautiful little trail network that is destined to grow.

I think this yurt is part of the summer Milan Hill State Park operation.

Waterville Valley XC is always worth the drive, they seem to have stepped up the grooming and have some fabulous terrain with great and entertaining hills. So much for cell phone camera shots.

Mt Orford near Magog, Quebec is our favorite Canadian destination since it's only 3 hours away, has tons of snow and excellent trails and grooming. You really have to work at it if you want a soda!

But it's pretty cool being right here at Great Glen too - lots of options for snowshoeing and skiing.

















And the scenery ain't half bad either!
- Howie