Full Moon Ski on the Mt. Ascutney Auto Road

Dave skis down the Mt. Ascutney auto road. This 30 second exposure is too long to capture Dave, but the headlamps pointing down track his path. If you look closely, you can also see his tracks underneath the light.

For a night owl like me, a 1:00 am ski is just the ticket.

This view is from the little shelter half way up the road. After I took this 30 second exposure at iso 800, I then pulled the exposure down a couple of stops. The original photograph looked like the middle of the day.

Over the past four or five days, our region has been blessed with abundant snow. At my house here in Windsor, Vermont we got about 10" the other day and another 5" or so last night. Many of the mountains picked up over twice that.

The moon was so bright, it cast shadows on the snow.

Yesterday morning at 1:00am, which was actually still a continuation of Friday for us, Dave and I decided to climb and ski the Mt. Ascutney Auto Road by moonlight. We went VERY leisurely with a lot of photographs and breaks along the way. By the end of the climb (we only made it about 3 miles) the amazingly bright moon, which had previously been so bright we could read under it, began to get obscured by the incoming front.

As Dave climbs up, his skis stop for a second or two on each step. The headlamp lights it up just enough to make out the skis clearly. The green is his jacket and you can just make out his poles. (We didn't need the headlamp, but I made him put it on for the photo.)

I like this shot more in black and white.

The snow was very nice. We skied down using our headlamps. Although the auto road isn't very steep, it's a fun downhill ride, and can be skied with very minimal coverage. During our descent, when we needed speed, we got in the track up and when we needed a little more speed for turning, we'd get into a set of snowshoe tracks. It was my first full moon ski descent, but it won't be my last.

We caught some turns here. I like how you can see the moon and the red lights of the tower in the upper left. It's also neat how Dave's tele turns are evident, with a slight dip in the middle of each turn.