Re: ShopTalk: test - too quiet - no reply needed

[Bernie Baymiller]

Al,   The air always get very clear here when the temps are way down. Can look across the valley and see the Smokies (about 40 miles) covered with snow. Used to go hiking in winter non-golf weather...always exceptionally beautiful up there, especially along the Appalachian Trail at 6,000+ feet. Temps there last night were about -10 to -20°F with 40 mph winds, and probably higher winds in the gaps. I've been there on nights like that, but when the temperature was in the +20s. Sounds like a freight train coming right at you and blasts the powdered snow against the fir trees, coating them with a hard, white frosting. I seal up the tent and get toasty in my -20° rated sleeping bag. By the time the sun comes up, everything is a post card picture setting.   I start at Cade's Cove about 8:30 AM in a light breeze and by mid-morning it's dead quiet. Body heats up climbing steadily the first two or three miles on a trail inclined across the steep sunny side of the mountain. Am doing a 12 mile loop. Some places on the trail the drifts get a few feet high, other places are blown clean. Strip down to a Polartec over mock turtleneck and keep going. Five miles to Russell Field. On top just after 11 AM, I stop for hot soup from my thermos at a spot I can see at least for 20 miles down the Valley. Put the windbreaker back on...a good breeze is whistling softly across the mountain top through the leafless branches and dark green, snow-frosted rhodendendron clumps as I walk up to the shelter and head for Little Bald. Have climbed almost 3,000 feet. Nobody and not even any animal tracks up here. Trail is blown almost clean on the ridges. Tree trunks are stark skeletens against snow...powdered white on one side and black on the other. Climb through an occasional blowdown that couldn't stand up to the winds anymore. May be up above 20° by now. Really breathing well in the clean air up here. Spence Field is 2-1/2 miles along the AT from Russell Field. Climb slightly, boots crunching in the dry snow, for 2 miles to Mt. Squires at about 5100 feet and then descend into the Spence Field gap. There's a beautiful grassy bald here in summer that almost always has a small herd of deer eyeballing the hikers, there're weather-blown, pink-flowered trees in April, Flame Azaleas in May, flowering Laurel and Rhododendron before June, a few blueberries toward September. The deer are all down in Cade's Cove this time of year and now there're only the skeletons of the squatty trees sticking up out of the snow and some bare rock blown clean by the wind. I hunker down behind a Rhodo clump, enjoy the view into Carolina, have a drink and a couple of Trail Mix bars, then head down an old road the locals called Bote Mountain Road. There were once two routes where a road was planned to get from the Tennessee side to the Carolina side. This road was the route they voted for...or "boted for" as the Cherokees called it. In the 1940's, you could still drive up to the top at Spence Field if you had a Model A with enough ground clearance. The National Park still keeps it in passable condition for horses and hikers. Mile and a half goes fast as I jump over seeping spring water which freezes to slick ice on the road, then I turn left down Anthony Creek trail for the welcome downhill four miles and back where I started. Do those miles fast. The sun is dropping behind the mountain and the tall, grayish Tulip Poplar tree trunks down here are all a golden orange in the low mid-afternoon light. Stop at a couple of creek crossings to see if I can spot any trout in the bluish, snow-melt tinted water and then head for the car. The heater will feel good...walking in snow all day is draining, but I've never felt better.   Sure do miss those mountains. Maybe next year when I get my legs back in shape.   Bernie Writeto: [EMAIL PROTECTED]     ----- Original Message ----- From: Al Taylor To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, January 24, 2003 3:06 PM Subject: Re: ShopTalk: test - too quiet - no reply needed Bernie, Follow the money trail.  Who buys advertisement on the Golf Channel.  Who supports the PGA show.  Unfortunately, not the PCS.  We don't have enough money to create a trail. :-) Al Ps.  Enjoy the cold weather.  I think the laws of physics say that the more cold that Knoxville takes, the less there is available for Cleveland.  Seems it has been a full month now that the temps have not gone above 22*.  I surrender. At 01:52 PM 1/24/2003, you wrote: Tom,   Me, too. It was 5° in Knoxville this morning and had my tee time cancelled...AGAIN! Had 3" of snow yesterday...have had more snow so far this year than all of the last 3 years. Almost as bad as Cleveland. :-) Did get to watch some of the OEM hyped PGA Show coverage on the Golf Channel, though. Geez, what a bunch of baloney...seemed like a lot of talk about "new technology" that we've been using for 5 years. One that got me was a "new technology" statement about "all the new really light shafts around 50 to 55  gram weight." (or something like that) How long ago did Aldila introduce the 57 gram Longwood 50/50 R...3 years ago? Tour Golf has been selling a $13, 54 gram shaft for the last two years. Notice they never say much about the increasing competition, variety and quality vs. decreasing cost of components. In fact, I haven't heard one word. :-)   PCS better get on the ball, Al, and get a word or two in there on component clubs. (Missed some of the coverage...maybe they did?)   Bernie Writeto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----- Original Message ----- From: Tom Byers To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, January 24, 2003 1:25 PM Subject: Re: ShopTalk: test - too quiet - no reply needed Al,     They all must be at the PGA show. It's -20ºC here and I wish I was with them. Tom Byers