Nemo | February 8-9, 2013
Well, it happened. Nemo is gone, having left over 2′ of snow across much of New England. I read about this storm all week and started to make a plan of attack for the weekend. Ryan Dunfee and I agreed somewhere in Central NH would be our best bet. As the storm drew nearer, we decided a night session at Crotched would be a good way to get things going. They ended up closing at 9pm instead of the normal 3am because of the high winds and deteriorating driving conditions. We ended up staying in a local B&B just off the mountain which was an amazing break from the 40 mph sustained winds outside. When the morning came around, the report was saying 26″ of new snow in the last 24 hours. We kept our options open so that if another resort in the region had gotten more snow, we could take off early in the AM but the decision was made to stick around. The drive to Ragged (reporting very similar snowfall) would take too long and we really had enjoyed ourselves the night before. We arrived to beautiful, low water content powder and a very empty ski hill.
After shooting all morning with Ryan while Max did some scenic photography, Ryan went in for a break. Max and I went out for a few turns before we headed back to the Seacoast and that’s when the trip turned a bit sour. Max landed pretty hard on a rock and blew out his knee. Ski Patrol was called (thanks to the party of skiers who went down to inform them) and we waited. Max seemed comfortable but it quickly became apparent that he would have to be taken down by sled. Turns out, it’s not his first ski patrol sled ride. Ski
Patrol arrived with the sled and helped Max down to the bottom. Thankfully, after four years of carrying these orange Voile ski straps around with me, I had a functional and semi-emergency use for them – I tied up his skis as well as both sets of poles and we headed down.
At the bottom we reorganized to headed back to the Seacoast, one man down. Special thanks to Jane, Geoff, Isaac and the other helpful Ski Patrol at Crotched, truly professionals. Also a thanks to John at the Crotched Mountain Inn, if you’re ever looking for a B&B in the area – this is the place to go. Hopefully Max’s MRI went well this morning and he can get back to shredding. Max is an extremely talented skier and photographer. Take a look at his work.
Mr. Dunfee has a wonderful piece up on powdermag.com that chronicles our adventures and includes some of my shots, have a look.
http://www.powdermag.com/stories/nightskiing-nemo/
The calm before the storm.
alpine-live.com 
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