Gore Mountain is therapeutic: Due to the exceptionally good skiing yesterday, I skiied all day long, and my knee not only did not hurt at all, by late afternoon I had no pain and was pain-free all evening. I find this astounding, it's so counter-intuitive. I'm not questioning it, though. Tomorrow by hook or by crook I'll be back up there.

I skiied with a fascinating older gentleman I met on the chairlift. He was in line behind me, so to better survive the northwest winds on the lift, I asked him if he would like to share a ride up with me, because I've noticed that it's nowhere near as cold if you have someone to talk to.

What followed was a day packed with information about the our region of the Adirondacks. He's a die-hard paddler and is a specialist in the water trails of New York State and New England. (A water trail is a route that combines both water passage and hiking between bodies of water.) He's currently involved in a trip that goes from Saranac Lake to some lake or pond in the Allagash wilderness in Maine. By currently involved, I mean that one doesn't do the trip from start to finish all in one stretch. People generally take trips going section by section over a longer period of time.

His wife sounds so interesting, too. She's a high school biology teacher, who spent the fall semester on sabbatical studying polar bears in Churchill, Alaska.

Gotta run. Work today.