10,000 Hours - Hour 168

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It's been a little bit since I've written one of these. Is that because I haven't been active on HIVE? Absolutely not! Quite the contrary actually.

I know I'm late to the party on this one; but remembering the old days of everyone talking about desires for something like the "communities" we now have and actually see the platform manifest a system that allows them to function in such a productive way is incredible. I have been finding more and more communities that I absolutely love and have been posting things I never thought I would post.

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In the past couple weeks I've made 4 or 5 cooking posts.. ME!? Cooking posts!? I have always known I'm a decent cook; but I've never really identified as one. I'm one of those people who thinks the food they eat is so strange and different than most that I tend to just keep it to myself or my partner. It's almost an embarrassment kind of thing for me; even though I like my food, I was convinced I've just warped my taste buds into liking whatever slop I put in front of myself.

It's been a blast poking around communities such as Natural Medicine, SkateHive, The WEEKEND, Urban Exploration, Movies & TV Shows, ReggaeJAHM.. the list goes on and on.

And that's without even mentioning the obvious staples such as LeoFinance, OCD, GEMS.. again I can't stop exploring. There's too much fun to be had and the adoption of communities has really made everything even more interesting. I have so much fun reading, voting and commenting that I lose track of the time I wanted to use to make a post!

I was even made a moderator(thank you @ervin-lemark !) of a small, budding community Freestyle Sports which isn't the most active yet, but as HIVE grows, I'm sure it could as well! It's a great place for people of a diverse group of activities to post them all in one supportive community!

OK, sorry, that's enough tags. I got excited. I forget how many places I've been exploring. I've even found myself watching gameplay videos on LBRY; something I have never been interested in before.. but I guess there's a first for anything.

OK, change of topic

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If you've been following me, or have read almost any of my posts, you might have picked up that I live in a very rural ski resort town. It's an ever-changing environment. Year round, you have us, the working class that keep the tourist business alive for minimum wage and for the absolute love of the area. The other side of the year round crew is the very wealthy people who don't really work and settle down here and build crazy mountain mansions.. quite a dream. It's pretty economically diverse area and it can be a little frustrating at times but, it's worth it.

The winter we see thousands upon thousands of people come and leave from all over the world; even during COVID. The summer, people come to use the bike trails, golf, go on hikes and take advantage of our never ending system of rivers/strems/brooks/ponds/lakes/whatever.

It's the middle of April now; and usually spring has sprung by this point in time. And it did. My mindset certainly started to switch gears towards more summer-time kind of projects; and up until a few days ago it was in the 50's and 60's; even 70's!(Fahrenheit, obviously). Although the mountain is still open with a few ribbons, I had all but forgotten about snowboarding for the season; other than the occasional jaunt.

But, being this is Vermont, and weather is NEVER anything CLOSE to predictable.. two days ago a rainstorm turned into a snowstorm. Down at my apartment, we got maybe an inch or two of super wet heavy snow(6 on the cars); but as you progressed in elevation, it got a lot deeper. Given that I have been trying to get back in shape after spending my first and only winter as a chairlift mechanic, I decided I would take Raiden for a hike up a closed part of the mountain and ride down.

There's a village road next to one part of the mountain that winds around over potholes and switchbacks to put you up to a good few hundred feet of elevation gain before you arrive at the dead end. Said dead end is connected to a infrequently utilized ski trail aptly named "Village Run" that serves the homes and apartments on the road. It's a boring, mostly flat wide trail that there really is no point to being on unless you are going to somewhere on the road. However, what it does offer is an easy hike to "the plateau"; what we call a point partway up the mountain where three chairlifts kind of intersect.

I thought to myself, "hey, this won't be so bad; I'll park at the top of the village road, hike up village run, and then I'll only have to get up one more (exhaustingly steep) trail and we're at the top!"

I was wrong. It turns out the 2 inches at my apartment quickly became 6 half way up the village road. It had not been plowed. It was incredibly wet, heavy, sticky, weird snow-slush.. so once the single tracks I was following ended, I couldn't keep enough momentum in my little Saab to get the rest of the way up the hill. There was no where to park without endangering both my car and other people who may drive; so I had to give up and go back to the bottom.

This kind of doubled our trip. In the summer, this is no mellow hike. In six inches of heavy wet snow that sticks to everything? Not so bad, but still no piece of cake.

"Six inches". Fuck was I wrong. With every 100 meters we hiked, we gained at least an additional inch of snow. Getting to the plateau was pretty difficult, and I'd say we were up to about 9 inches by that point. I also had really expected that this was not an original idea, and that there might be some tracks to follow. But, nope!, and we were breaking trail the whole way.

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The ski patrol shack I so optimistically had my eyes on

We got to the plateau and I wasted a good amount of energy trekking around to the various lift shacks. My first thought was the Ski Patrol shack. I had used this shack during night time snowmaking plenty and to my knowledge it was always unlocked. But, upon getting to the door, I realized that they probably only left it unlocked during snowmaking season. Combo lock on the door, and I tried guessing the combination(I've worked for the mountain for 3 years so it's not as crazy as it sounds), yet I failed. Next, a trip to the lift shack at the bottom of the lift we were about to hike up. Unlocked! We were soaked so I wanted the opportunity to dry some shit off but... no propane.

Hike ALLLLLL the way back across the plateau to the next shack. Being a lift mechanic for the mountain, we have keys to the masterlocks on the shacks. Now, I did leave my job, for reasons you can read about in my previous post.. but I still have my keys! BUT, god damnit, this shack had a busted lock so they had decided to put a brand new lock on it. It was a different key; and I didn't have it as it was a recent development and I had been working on the other peak for the winter.

Fourth try's a charm? Yup! Finally. I think just walking between these 4 buildings was an additional mile or so through this wet ass snow. At least it was flat! We got into the last lift shack and the electric heater worked fine inside; although it did take me a minute to find the power switch. It had been hiding under the cover that wasn't obviously removable until I tried.

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time to try to dry this shit

Raiden has apparently gotten just as out of shape as I have. I never thought this to be possible. This dog is an impenetrable ball of energy. I've taken him on 12+ mile hikes up the tallest peaks around and he gets home and wants to go skate or play.

BUT, he doesn't know when to stop. He was having serious trouble making it up here in the snow. He was clearly very thirsty. I kept trying to get him to rest a little and drink some water before we headed up the really intense part; but he wouldn't. No matter what. He's a smart little bastard and he has been protesting drinking water on hikes ever since I bought him his backpack with his collapsable dish. I think he's going on a thirst strike to protest the backpack; like "hey I don't need this fucking thing!"

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Raiden trying to help ski patrol take down their ropes now that the season is over

After I dried off and dried off his stuff, I left a few of the heavier items in said shack, made sure to bring my shack keys, locked it up and we headed out.

Almost immediately, it was kind of a "holy shit what are we doing" kind of moment. Firstly, as I mentioned before, I had really thought there might be some snowshoe or skinning tracks to follow. Anything. There were not. The closest thing I could see was the indentations from the side-by-side work road.. but that turned out to be an even more difficult path given the snow was so wet that when you would step it would all slide on top of the rocks beneath.

I don't have snowshoes, or anything of that sort. I've always hiked in my snowboard boots; trying to use an old pair I don't care about whenever possible. People think I'm crazy(or an idiot, what's the difference), but normally it's really no big deal. But in these conditions, I definitely regretted not having anything of that nature.

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only tower 3!? god damn

There were only very, very few points during this hike where I was confident we were going to make it to the top. Realization of reality kind of set in on Raiden's face almost immediately, like "oh we're going up farther? Why'd you let me play so much?". He started moving VERY slowly. He even walked behind me for awhile when he got sick of breaking trail.

I wish he was better at breaking trail. I really wanted to follow his path but there was a little too much zig-zagging going on. I would aim for little straight sections to make my hike easier for small distances.

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We slowly, very slowly made our way up. Every step the snow got deeper and heavier. It was exhausting, but I had made a commitment to myself to get back in shape so I had to just keep on going. I brought a few different drinks for myself as I had wanted to save as much water for Raiden as possible on the off chance he ever decided he would drink it.

It was certainly much, much more difficult than I had anticipated.. but looking around, I was thinking "wow, this is going to the best run of the season. Multiple seasons". We were up to a foot of snow now. The entire trail was untouched. All the trails this lift serviced were untouched. I had an entire peak to myself. I kept saying "this is going to be worth it.. THIS IS GOING TO BE WORTH IT".

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A goofy ass Rottie mix for depth reference

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Each step was more difficult. This trail gets steeper the higher you go. In hindsight, I wish I had taken the liftline. I had always hiked the trail I decided to this day, so I figured I knew what I was in for.. but the lift line would have been so much easier. Nevertheless, I kept on going. One foot after another.

I couldn't tell you how many times I turned around and said "well, this is far enough". But I pushed myself to keep going. Step after step. Tree island after tree island. Hydrant after hydrant. Just. Keep. Going.

I was honestly more concerned about Raiden. And I mean that! I'm not just making up an excuse for my own lack of physical competence. But he was struggling. But even when I stopped for a quick break, he would slowly saunter his way up. I don't think he was exactly THRILLED; but we needed it. Both of us.

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I've made snow on this trail plenty. However, when I worked as a snowmaker I worked nights. It was always pitch black and we were seeing by the power of very strong lights that clipped onto our helmets. That, coupled with the lack of visibility, made it very difficult to see where I was. I knew there was one last really steep pitch before we hit the last flat before the summit. But I got fooled by other pitches 2 or 3 times. Defeating, to say the least.

There were snowmaking hydrants I could have easily used to mark my progress. The way they are identified is by numbers; 1 being at the top and increasing as you go downhill. So I could have easily walked over to a hydrant to see I was at 27, 17, 12, 7.. whatever. But even that extra 40 feet over to the side of the trail didn't seem worth it. Until, finally, I could see hydrant number 9 from my path. I remembered replacing hydrant 8 very well as I was sent there alone with limited tools in the middle of the night. I knew 8 was at the end of the flats. And then, easy peasy we're a short jaunt from the top.

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Of course, the top ski patrol shack also had a combination lock. Those assholes. Believe me, it is intentional. There's a friendly beef at the mountain between pretty much all labor departments and ski patrol. They like to screw other employees over; probably because they really don't do much with their time at work. They ski/snowboard, hang out, drink some beers, put up and take down ropes, and occasionally deal with an injury; although I've heard that most of the time they need to give someone a ride down it's just someone who's too uncomfortable to make it down the hill on their own.

But, luckily, the tiny lift shack had a normal lock. In my opinion, neither of these should be locked. And that's for good reason other than my own personal qualms. Our mountain is on the Long Trail- a several hundred-mile long trail system across multiple states. People hike part or all of it very frequently and can be out there for months at a time. There's a pretty conscious effort to provide periodic shelter for these backpackers. And I believe by policy, these ski patrol shacks are meant to be just that- especially as this part is DIRECTLY on the trail. But, I guess patrol isn't all that concerned with that(I'm saying this with a smile, I got NO real beef).

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We dried our stuff off one last time before heading down. Again, Raiden wouldn't relax and would barely drink water. I had to cup it in my hands for him to drink- he was CLEARLY protesting the bowl and backpack. Given how much he struggled getting up here, I decided I would relieve him of his back for the rest of the day and stuffed it down in my own backpack. I tried so hard to get him to relax but he just wanted me to kick snow so he could jump for it and bite it. I didn't entertain that notion for long because I knew what he was in for.

When I snowboard with Raiden, he chases me as fast as he can. I can't let him catch me, because he has a tendency to get too close and get run over. I've clipped his paws so many times with my metal edges I thought he would learn his lesson. But he won't. So, I knew he was going to be sprinting down this whole mountain. At least there was snow to cushion his joints.

Thinking about everything we hiked up, I was ready for one of the best runs of my life. At least until the plateau. Below there, I knew it would probably be too wet and sticky to be able to keep moving. It's not too steep down there. Maybe in the bootpack but still, unlikely.

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So how was it?

Fucking horrible. The snow was much heavier/wetter/stickier than I could ever imagine. Despite how steep the trail was I could barely move. Every turn would wash away all the snow and my edge would be on grass. I ended up just going straight down the entire slope.. slowly. I had to even hike down to the plateau once I got towards the bottom.

The other issue was the snow was so wet it was sticking to my base. It was coming off in layers and multiple inches would just attached to my snowboard. As anyone who snowboards knows, once this happens, you aren't moving. When I finally came to a stop I realized that had happened. So I just hiked down.

So that was that. A really long hike with little reward other than the exercise and a beautiful afternoon with my puppo. Which is actually a huge reward. This was extremely therapeutic for me, and the time alone to think was priceless. There are times when I win in the battle against my dumbass manic brain and this hike was one of them; despite the disappointment. Snowboarding is my biggest therapy; but hiking comes close.

Yesterday was my mother's birthday. She passed away when I was in high school in 2010. Therefore, I didn't really have the courage to write this post until today even though this occurred Friday. In a sense, this hike was for her <3

Love you Mom. And love all you HIVErs. Please reach out to me, or anyone, if you are having problems with mental health. I'm here for everybody. Stay strong y'all <3



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Goodness me, what a dramatic post and an enjoyable read this morning over coffee! I know what you mean about hiking or snowboarding therapy.. mine is surfing, yoga, walking or gardening. It gives you space to think, and in this case I imagine, be close to your Mum without the noise of the world.

I'm with you on the communities.. so much better! And that new sport community sounds good.

Now I hate to sound like a bitch, so take this how it's intended - helpful, I hope! if the communities are so awesome, why are you posting in OCD 😂😂 who is encouraging you post in communities? 😂😂😂 This seems like it would fit in the sports community you spoke of (have you got the link there by the way?) There's a lot of curators looking for posts in the communities so don't worry about being found 🧡🧡🧡🧡 and, as an OCD curator and someone who loves a good story, I'm definitely following you 🧡

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Now I hate to sound like a bitch, so take this how it's intended - helpful, I hope!

Hhahah no not at all! I need all the feedback and criticism I can receive, and that is very helpful! I actually had a hard time deciding where to post this, and there are a few reasons I chose to post this in OCD.

  1. "10,000 Hours" is a self-therapeutic series I started writing as kind of a freewrite stream of thoughts that helps me personally overcome my own battles with my mental health issues. The idea came to me years ago when I was using Steemit after some dramatic life circumstances where I had planned on moving myself across the country in hopes of finding a "new me". "10,000 Hours" was an idea of a "branding" of sorts for my posts relating to my own mental health problems; stemming from the somewhat foolish concept of it takes 10,000 hours to master a trade and for me that is mastering my battles with mental health.

  2. OK, so that wasn't really a reason. But it's relevant; in my own head at least. I have previously posted these in OCD and they seemed to be well received there. It has kind of become my "home" for these posts; regardless of if it's that apparent that this is therapy for me, it is. OK again, not a reason.

  3. I had considered posting in the Freestyle Sports community but had decided not to for a few reasons(cue second subset).

    1. Outreach. I'm still relatively new to HIVE and am looking to make more connections! Said community only has 10 members; and that's no big deal! But
    2. There was very little to do with actual snowboarding in this post. I spoke more about hiking, my dog.. other things. In fact, the snowboarding itself turned out to be a gigantic let-down on this specific trip and really was not a highlight of the day whatsoever(even though I thought it would be before actually strapping in)
    3. I have much more appropriate content for said community. Snowboarding videos, photos, etc. Those posts I plan on making are more specific to said community whereas this one, as I just mentioned, was much more so about the hike and personal improvement; not the snowboarding.
  4. Maybe I just don't fully understand OCD! It has just kind of become, again, a "home" for these posts. I'm still figuring out my way around here! So that's why I very much appreciate your criticism.

I will definitely give it more thought as to where I post these in the future. I still feel like the Sports community isn't the best place necessarily; at least not for this one. I'd rather use that page for posting my more sports-related content I'm planning on making in the near future. But, maybe there is a better place. I had thought about Natural Medicine as well, as there seems to be interest in Mental Health Awareness there. But, I have been posting a lot of cooking material in that community, including a post earlier today; so I didn't want to flood it with a long post that wasn't clearly talking about my mental health; regardless of my own personal intentions.

I'm curious to hear your thoughts! Please, be as critical and honest as you'd like :) No offense taken over here whatsoever. I'm a newbie here still.

And MOSTLY, I appreciate your feedback! And your time! It's wonderful getting votes but I get a special kind of excitement to actually get a genuine comment and have a conversation. That's one thing I've noticed that has improved greatly since my first stabs at Steemit, and the eventual transition to HIVE. There seems to be a lot more genuineness (bleh.. that word sounds so awkward) here these days and I love that. The opportunity to actual make connections here is amazing!

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(Edited)

Oh you know what, sometimes I think there needs to be a 'Life' community just for all the posts that don't quite 'fit', right? I definitely know what you mean. I love your 10,000 hours project - I suffer mental health issues like the best of us here on HIVE, so admire your journey and your idea.

You'll definitely get more engagement here than on the dying platform that is S****m, haha. Well, I hope so anyway - you are engaging, and you write beautifully, and you're so personable and lovely! I can see why you've been so well recieved and looks like there has been good support for your posts. In no way was my comment criticism, only feedback or tips - although I can see it's the same thing haha.

Nat Med definitely supports #mentalhealthawareness - pretty much anything to do with 'healing' or 'wellness' which can be pretty loose really. I wouldn't have objected to this post being there. But it could also fit as a travel post too, even though you might not see it as travelling. So definitely understand why it's in OCD and there's nothing inherently wrong with posting here at all. Just wanted to make sure you understood OCD's drive to push people to post in communities, as some just post here in the hope of rewards above all other intentions, which is clearly not your entire modus operandi at all!

Keep up the good work!

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Hahaha yeah I'm well aware Steemit was much different than HIVE. I spent a good amount of time there back in the day. When I left due to computers/keybooks disappearing, I don't believe HIVE existed yet. And when I returned, Steemit was all I knew; but something seemed off and I was really excited to discover HIVE; especially because I immediately saw names I recognized from Steemit so it solved that big mystery for me as to where everyone went.

I don't see "criticism" as being a negative thing inherently, although I know many do. And I could use it! It's great to hear from people who have been here much longer than myself and get some advice. I think in the future I will be posting these in Nat Med! Once this COVID thing gets sorted out and my life gets back on track as planned I think some could start to fall under Travel. Like you said, there are certainly posts that don't seem to fall under anything! But, with time, I'll figure out where everything goes :)

And no, not my modus operandi. Again, the votes are nice, obviously, but I'm looking more to engage. Larger communities give me more hope that someone will read it- especially because of how much I write. It's never intentional and at the end I'm always thinking "god damnit I did it again no one's going to want to read this". But people like you keep proving me wrong!

I will be more deliberate as to where I post in the future with these :) This was kind of an impulse post and I just didn't know where was home for it. Seriously, I understand what you're saying! Noted for sure!

And lastly thank you so much for your encouragement! I love being here and am using my unexpected free time to try and find some more connections here. My non-blockchain social media has come down to solely Instagram, which is fun to keep up with my old friends' projects and sports clips/achievements, and things in my local community, but... obviously I can't really write there; which is what I like to do :)

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Well, I'm always up for new followers on @wildtrackdreaming on Instagram :P if you are into old Landrovers bhahaaaa!!!! Instagram can be a lot of mindless scrolling - I like chatting and writing too. It's cathartic therapy. Saying that, my short comment can't match your long one - it's nearly lunchtime here and I'm starving.

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Hahahah no worries at all! I'm not expecting it, I just ramble. It happens far too often.

I'll give you a follow!

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On the note of my rambling I'm sorry for these super long comments haha. It seems my brain is a bit of a loose cannon today

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Haha no problem! You're going to be great at engaging on HIVE! have you joined the Engagement League, hosted by @abh12345 ?

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You know what! I don't think I have! I've seen it around here on HIVE and I was a part of it on Steemit(sorry, S***m 😂) for awhile, and I guess I had forgotten you had to sign up for it. I'm going to do that now thank you for bringing it to my attention!

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omg this brings back memories of the #life tag being overused in the steem days.

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Great choice on following him! This mongrel lives a few hours away from me and is an awesome dude! Lol

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An amazing adventure for both of you. Amazing! I admire your stubbornness :)

Yes, wet and heavy snow is the worst there is. Combine it with 100% humid air and you get what you've got - tons of snow sticking to your board.

I remember similar conditions years ago when I was a timekeeper at a local skiing event. It was half a meter of wet snow overnight day and we were checking if it's possible to have a race. Skiing down I followed the track that snowplow made minutes before. When I turned off the track I was almost catapulted out of my boots. No way you could ski down in these conditions even on the steepest slope. We immediately decided to cancel the race and went to dry ourselves in a hut. The teams were waiting on our decision in the valley so the didn't have to drive up to the slopes. I guess they were quite happy the race was cancelled :)

Again, a great feat you two did!

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Yeah man, I should have known it would be bad. It was pretty apparent. I was fooled by my room mate's review that the "snow up top" was really good; not thinking about where he had been riding that day as opposed to where I was going. He chose to ride the lifts, and the only one still operating now gets a lot more shade whereas this peak is just hammered by the sun all day. Obviously there wasn't much sun this day but what it did mean is that since that side of the mountain had closed all the snowmaking snow had already disappeared and the ground had thawed; so it was just baked garbage on top of warm earth; warming it through and through.

Part of the reason I spent so much time drying off up top is I wanted my base to be dry so there was no initial moisture to fix to. I should have thought that one through more because now it's obvious to me I was screwed either way haha

Good thing you cancelled that race! It sounds pretty similar to Friday's snow and.. well... yeah. No one was making it down that trail hahaha.

Thanks for the cross post/reblog Ervin! Much appreciated. I had thought of posting it in the Freestyle sports community but I figured I would wait to post some actual directly-related content.. I.E. snowboarding photos and videos. I have a friend with a bunch of footage I'm urging that he sends to me for that specific purpose.. but he's saving it for an edit so I'll have to wait for him to give in.

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Great that you are convincing your friend to join.

Yes, video editing. Yesterday, for Niko's backflip, ... the coach sent me the 7 seconds long movie by email. I wanted to cut out the first two seconds because of the background noise. It took me half an hour to do it in the quality I wanted it to be, and post it to Instagram.

Sometimes, many times, we over-complicate things :)

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Oh trust me I know haha. I've spent hours just trying to piece together a couple of clips. I used to be much more into filming and editing and the amount of frustration I've experienced even just trying to get a few seconds right hahhaa. It's a tough process!

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What tools are you using now?

I am on Windows and using Shotcut. I tried VideoPad yet I wasn't convinced enough to buy it.

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That sounds like a hell of a hike man! I’ve had some of my most amazing mental and therapeutic mind moments while doing things in the mountains of Vermont. I just broke up with my ex (many years ago, before I met my wife of course) and needed lots of mental time to process what I just did and where did I go? To my grandfathers house up at Jay. Hiked up and down a bunch of trails right from the base up to the summit. Was an incredible few days to do that type of stuff! Really cleared the mind, got things figured out and moved on. Mountains can definitely do that type of stuff for a person! Combine that with a companion like a dog and you’ve got an awesome time on your hands.

I know what you mean about that insanely wet and heavy snow. I’ve tried to go riding in that and it sucks. You need some crazy wax and an alpine board or something to get anywhere lol and we don’t have that shit! The worst is when you get a little speed and you hit a solid wet patch (sounds like it was all that wetness, really) and your board soaks the water all up and you are done lol.

Also on the communities section, check out my fledgling rant community. You can shoot the shit, rant, complain or do whatever you want really. It’s chill! There’s a good amount of people posting in it and checking it out so it’s fun!

https://peakd.com/c/hive-196233/created

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Yeah man! It's one of the reasons I moved out here. I loved living in the city and I miss it a lot, especially just being able to walk out the door and skate, but here it's a lot better for my head. I can literally walk out my door and hike up the mountain; which I do sometimes but a short drive does make it a lot more bearable haha.

And yeah, doggo definitely helps! He's another reason we're out here.

The worst is when you get a little speed and you hit a solid wet patch (sounds like it was all that wetness, really) and your board soaks the water all up and you are done lol

Hahah yeah that was pretty much it the whole way down. At first I had to just go straight and get into the bootpack eventually. As soon as it started to flatten out I tried to scoot a little and looked at my base and it was done for. I imagine it was probably like that the whole way down haha. Hike was worth it but if I could do it again I wouldn't have even brought my snowboard..

Hell yeah on the community! I'm gonna join. I actually think I saw a post of yours recently and it had the tag or whatever you call it. I was going to check it out but then something came up, I forget what, and I left my computer and forgot about it. Thanks for the reminder!

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Our mountain is on the Long Trail- a several hundred-mile long trail system across multiple states.

Bolton Valley or Bromley Mountain? :)

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Hahahahha Sugarbush! But that's funny you mention that, I grew up riding Bolton and lived near Bromley for 2 years 😂 they're definitely kinda the overshadowed smaller mountains in the area!

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Cool. Thanks for telling.

I have a friend who lives in Catskills. It's just five hours away from you. One of these years I'll make a double visit :)

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Hell yeah! I know the catskills well.. I had an ex partner who lived there and we would spend time there now and then. Definitely let me know if that's ever in the plans!

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It's always in the plans. Yet the realization ... it depends on many things.

This friend is Dick Vincent. He organizes the Escarpment Trail Run.

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I just checked out the website- it looks really cool! I used to run a bit but I don't think I could meet any of the qualifications- maybe in the future. What a great idea. This sounds like exactly the type of trail that would actually keep my interest in running. My biggest problem is I get bored... gotta try some more interesting terrain!!

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This run should be interesting and technically demanding too.

Dick used to say "if you get injured on the run you should bring your own body back to the finish!" :)

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Your posts keep me engaged. As I have said before, you are an honest writer and that is what I love.

Ahhh Raiden is such a good friend and a real trooper.

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Thank you <3 Yeah! I've already talked all my friends ears off far too much.. they don't wanna listen to me ramble anymore 😂 so HIVE has given me the freedom to find an outlet for all my stream of thought type word-vomit. And I love it, so much.

Raiden is the best trooper. He'll never give up. That dog has undergone some crazy times! That m'fucker has hiked over 10 miles up one of the tallest mountains in the Northeast just to want to play as soon as we get home... regardless of how sore he'll be the next day....

He really has a crazy amount of personality. Most people who know him will say "I've never seen a dog who acts like that". Over-the-top goofball. I think he should have his own HIVE page :)

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