Bash Bish Falls: The Icecapade (highspeed internet highly recommended)

Some random pics before we get to the main event of this blog:
The brook on Mt. Washington Rd. after the Valentine's day snowstorm.


After 30 years of Lifesharing John decides it's time to learn how to weave.


Dan suits up for the big trek up the creek to the falls.


So don't even think about it.

Two intrepid trailblazers hiked up the brook instead of along the trail to reach Bash Bish Falls. Will they succeed without violating the posted sign?

We have not come alone.







Oops.






Special Unit Dan.

You need someone special with you on such an expedition.

I like this photo because it's hard to tell the scale....




Dan leaps the gap.


Oops.


Maybe this is not such a good idea.


Dan just doesn't quite have it in him to finish writing his name in the snow.


The Intrepid Dr. Root crosses very carefully.


Dan finds an alternate route.


Oops.




More signs of instability


The way is marred with ice and snow. But the intrepid mountaineers are not girliemen and press onwards.


Special Unit Dan celebrates a succesfful negotaition of the challenge.


An elf photographs himself after collapseing through the ice.


After a minor scare of breaking through the ice, the team reaches the falls, but the adventure does not end here....


The pair attempt to climb to the top of the falls.


Above the falls.


The not so intrepid elf hopes the ice will not break through into the deep cold pool below. He keeps as close to the rock wall as possible. Unfortunately the pictures here do not do justice the clear and present danger.


Almost there.


On top of Bash Bish Falls


We'll walk back by the road.


The trees basking in the glow of the day's last rays.


Apparently there was a house on fire on Route 23 near the Egremont Country Club.


Well that was about all the excitement I could handle for one day.



Every once in awhile we have a special little ditty on the blog. Some kind of riddle or trivia or somesuch. Well, the first person to explain what is causing the hologram in this photograph will get adulation and praise from yours truly. And honestly, no flat screen tv or cash prize could be as great a reward.

Not much doin'

Woke up 15 minutes before the alarm clock went off. Looked outside... clear skies and not too much wind. Damn it. School. As I lie in bed I debate whether I should bother calling in to see if there's a delay... just in case. I call and low and behold 2 1/2 hour delay. Quite happily surprised. Too bad Ben didn't have the horse sense to check ahead. He gets to school and there's no one there. I had emailed him but he didn't check it before he left.




The very useful, very practical results of receiving personal fitness instruction from one of the Berkshire's premier personal trainers: Ben-yay-man. Shoveled the walkway free of frozen sleet and packed snow.






getting cozy with the cats. It's not that the book I was reading for school was boring, I was just very tired.

A date with winter

Well, it wasn't quite the blizzard I had hoped for. The blizzard happened farther north and the Berkshires were left with mostly pelting sleet instead. Fortunately we did get a heavy burst of snow at the tail end of the storm to give tonight's forecasted wind something to blow around and cause further havoc on the roadways overnight. That, combined with the frigid temperatures forecast for tomorrow morning and the downright dangerous windchills will perhaps be grounds enough to cancel morning classes tomorrow. I have a test tomorrow and have to be at class tomorrow morning at 8am. Deicing the car at 6:55am will not be fun. Today, in addition to day and night classes being canceled at BCC, banks and even fitness centers were closed. Fun.

A man walks across the street, he says, "why am I soft in the middle now, why am I short on attention" and then he sees the apparently non operational garbage can of art and is equally as puzzled as I am at this artistic manifesto the day before the snowstorm.



Jacobis sells a shawl to an employee at Berkshire Bike and Blade. You're thinking that shawl looks mighty fine wrapped around Craig's masculine frame. Well, it looks alot nicer around a woman's shoulders. You're also thinking you'd like such a fine handicraft from the hinter regions of India: Kashmir to be precise; but you're also thinking that you can't afford such fine fare from one of the most opposite and remote reaches of the earth. Ahh.. but you are mistaken. This shimmering shawl can be yours for the low low price of only $29.95!



This Titan of snow removal machines dwarfs the other dinky plows nearby as the snowplower smugly walks by an ordinary snowplow after no doubt having done the lionshare of the Pricechopper Plaza parking lot.


















The Previa trundles through the snow with naren't a napswatch to say about the sleet slicked roads.

Click To Play

Heavy snow can't deter the stalwart and uncanny traction of the Toyota Previa even without snow tires.

And now onto our special feature: Ripplies Believe it or Not segment.




Beefy Ben demonstrates the shoulder pushup via the physio ball impossible posture maneuver.

Jake attempts the shoulder pushup via the physio ball impossible posture maneuver.

Valentine's Day Blizzard

Valentine's Day will have a slightly different theme this year. Absent will be red hearts and the usual fare. Instead we have a heart of ice. Not to be taken too literally though.

Jineane carving a heart out of a block of ice. No, it is not meant to be a pair of buttocks, that is a heart.

Valentine's day will be celebrated particularly intensely this year. Not with the hot blooded intensity of passion and love but of the bitter cold white blown intensity of a good ol' fashioned Nor'easter. Now the forecasters are not calling for a full blown blizzard. They do say there will be heavy snow and wind but for some reason they think the warm air this storm will be pulling in from the coast when it strengthens tonight will cause a mixing of precipitation in the major cities. Well, we have had absolutely no Nor'easters this entire winter so I have to be optimistic that mother nature is going to make up for the below average snowfall with one big massive pent up storm to be remembered as the Valentine's Day Blizzard. Why else would she wait all winter long and then smack dab on Valentine's Day give us a massive snowstorm? I don't want to predict amounts, but my presonal bet is 2 feet in the Berkshires with locally heavier amounts and massive snowdrifts. :)

Now from the official sources I've heard anywhere between 1 and 2 feet on the weather channel and www.accuweather.com and 2 to 3 feet with, locally, areas receiving 4 feet from WAMC driving home from school this morning. At anyrate, look forward to fun pictures of the aftermath (and possibly during) this Happy Valentine from Mother Nature who looks like she will be making up for her holding out on us for so long! In any event, look forward to pictures of the aftermath (and perhaps during) of this storm later in the week.

In other news, went hiking up Monument Mountain for a little fresh air exercize with Nori.

Nori Photographs me with nair encouragement of my climbing out zee narrow tree trunk. I concurred it was a bad idea and shimmied my way back down lest I fall and twist mine ankle on the rocks below.






















An Elf Princess curiously pokes her head through the pine needles.









River of ice. I was tempted to slide down it. Maybe after the snowstrom I will go back up there and slide down it with the cushion and safety of the snow there.









Snowy commute to BCC at too early in the morning.








Remember what this scene looked like before the blizzard. Taken yesterday.

We close out this blog with a special honor to yours truly. Jacobis manages to receive the highly reputable honor of Member of the Month at Simon's Rock fitness center. Yes, even though I am not a member it was deemed so unlikely that someone should put their stuff in the locker, come back to the locker and fail to find it, leave and come back and look for it again and still not find it, until finally after looking through all the lockers find his stuff and upon closing the locker door see that it reads "Member of the Month" on the door. It's one thing to forget which locker you stowed your stuff. It's altogether quite another thing when the locker reads Member of the Month. So that is the little story of how Jacobis got Member of the Month even though he is not in fact a member at all.

Jug End Slip and Slide

What happens to the end of the jug when it freezes? It becomes slippery is what.










Hacinto Querer takes a tumble.










Don't let that white stuff fool ya. It's all ice underneath.










Jacinto hobbles across the icy path and can't believe it when he makes it across without taking a tumble.











Ben finds this all very funny.









Hector Gallargia whips the air with his scarf.









Horace the Honorable reaches the summit in grand fashion.









This is the town where I grew up. That is the pond I drive by everyday since I can remember.

Winter finally here!

Hacinto Querer and Horace Hector walking from town.















Pretty Llama

























This sheep has the right idea.
































Horace Hector the incredible ball balancer.









How many hours of entertainment can a bowl of popcorn provide on a Saturday evening? You'd be surprised.....




Click to watch Hacinto carve up the course.



Watch Steffen attacking the course from a different angle.