Sorry for the spam posts

I have fixed the problem I hope. Only skiing from now on. Only 5 more months til winter.

Season continued one more day

Due to a nice dumping of snow on the 17th, skiing was to be had on the morning of the 18th. I tried to get up the hill on the evening of the 17th, but was turned back on no-shine hill due to snow and ice that defeated my two wheel drive. But on Saturday morning, Jessica and I got up to the trails for some good skiing.

Good coverage early on the trails


Woods were nice but sticky


Dork-grin me and action Jessica at point A


It was really sticky for me going up, so I mostly ran, coming back down it warmed up and I had some glide.


Jessica and I at the top of the meadow


The snow was great. I wish I did not stick as much on the way up, Jessica was strangely immune from this issue. The way back was pretty fun though, and the meadow was great. There were probably 10 skiers out by noon, with no snowshoe or dog tracks at all. The coat tree down to the bottom was going fast as we were leaving, but we successfully snuck in one more day.

Easter Skiing...Awesome!

It has snowed more in April than I think it did in all of January and February combined. Late March wasn't so bad either.

We finally got out in one of these spring snowstorms to check out the skiing. In the past, I would go up pretty easily by myself when it did this, but with the new addition to the family, it's not quite as easy as it used to be. This time, the family came along, despite the daunting weather conditions. It was a lot of fun.

At the Coat Tree (point B). Mila's just about to fall asleep!


There was anywhere from about 12" to 16" of new snow on the trails, depending on where you measured. The upper parts of the trail had the most, of course. We never hit a single thing with our skis, but did feel the rocks below while skiing up the front hill. Once we were a little ways past the coat tree, we could feel the old snow base underneath...pretty solidly frozen. It would have actually been groomable, but the heck with that!

I'm one "switchback" above Dina, who is just past point J.

You can see that the fencing is down at point A (the banner is still up and looking good), and other sections of fencing were pulled down by the heavy snow. I saw no evidence of wands or bamboo poles in the meadow. It'll be a while before we see those again. We saw only a couple of medium-ish aspens down by the bonfire meadow, by the upper shortcut.

Mila and Dina at point A...you can barely see the ski area in the background. Note the fencing is all pulled down.

Here are just a few more pics of our outing:

up near point L...we had to stop for a break and since Mila didn't have eye protection,

we didn't take her out into the meadow

Mila made a good ski companion

still snowing hard out in the meadow about 2pm on Easter Sunday

A nice birkebeiner report

As some club members know, this year I (tarik) decided to not train but for a few times and then go out and do all the races I could. The not training was due to slightly suboptimal snow conditions in feb and march, but mostly due to fun things like the new baby and not so fun things like having to actually go to work to get paid. I think I raced more times in 2009 than I trained. No big deal, I was able to do a bunch of fun races and was able to race my way into shape so I did a 30k and 40k skate race and had fun. I am still three race reports behind, I may get to them before winter 2009-2010 starts, but in the meantime, please go check out this race report from the american biekebeiner.

Sean, the author, is a pal of a pal of mine in Iowa. His report is spectacular! As is his preparation, or lack thereof. Every time I think something like, "Man the snow kind of sucked this year for training" I need to remember to think first of our midwestern brethern scraping around on a 200meter patch of snow for training. So in this spirit instead of slightly suboptimal, I have revised the 2008-2009 Los Alamos official snow conditions to Spectacular, yet not Specf*&kingtacular.

Note that his race report is in 4 parts. I know long rambling race reports, and this my friends is a class A long rambling race report. Great stuff, enjoy:

part 1
part 2
part 3
part 4

2009 Pajarito Pinhead Challenge Race Report 3/14/09

Here is an excerpt from my Pajarito Pinhead challenge race report, for the full report click here.

Flurries blew in midrace


The descent was really soft and I did my best to try and stay upright the whole way, but I quickly crashed pretty hard twice, once almost hitting myself in the head with my own ski, so I decided to try some alternative methods of getting down the hill. My first plan was to try to slide down on my hip like last year. It was too soft and I ground to a halt. I then sort of fell into the successful plan. I basically sat on the tails of my skis and glided down the slope, half on my ass, half on my skis. When it was steep, I would grind my butt into the snow and essentially, uh, snowplow with my crotch. When it was a more shallow slope I would kind of paddle with my arms to maintain momentum. It worked pretty well, but I am sure I looked ridiculous. While I am dedicated to you dear readers, my dedication does not extend to wishing that video of my ignominious descent existed.

OK, if you want to read the whole report with race results and real names this year, please surf on over to my blog Moscaline. Dina's photos are over on the swnordicski photo page

Done?

Are we done?

After cutting out 3 down trees before point A, one pretty good size, I groomed a "best line" classic track on the upper tree trails Saturday afternoon/evening since there was about 8" new and still pretty cold. It turned out awesome, especially early in the day yesterday. It stayed nice and cool -- especially in the shade, but the sun was high and strong and the new snow annealed with the old rotted stuff underneath and it got weird if you didn't have big rills and good wax. It was a blast to ski, though.

I suspect that's about it if no one wants to go groom again. There are three spots that are going to open up quickly this week -- the hill past point B, the "Rock" below J, and that weird spot where the first shortcut above J intersects that upper flat section of trail, where the sun hits it hard this time of the year. All of those sections are short, but getting thin by the second, otherwise, there's still good coverage everywhere else. The current groom job won't really be good for skating.

The 6' Tidd is still just above point A, and we can give it a ride back down on the 'Gopher Fence' when we have our trail day. Some bamboo still standing in the outer meadow; the ones that fell were covered by the storm.

New Snow 3/13/09

Happy Friday the 13th of March.

There's now a little more than 6" new snow on the trails, and still snowing. So far, there are no immediate plans for grooming...maybe early next week something might get a pass or two if someone gets motivated.

So, be prepared to ski in your own classic touring tracks if you do go up.

Remember, the Pinhead Challenge is tomorrow morning...it'll be groomed late tonight.

Grooming / Trail Report 3/5/09

Believe it or not, there's still quite a bit of Nordic skiing to be had on the SWNSKI trails. Of course, you have to hike in a little further now...all the way to the "coat tree" at point B on the trail map. Up to that point, the trail is very sun-exposed and really took a beating with these record temperatures.

The lower road looks completely destroyed from the junction at point A, but beyond point R, it's in OK shape and groomed out to point O and even has a nice classic track set. The cutoffs at R to the upper trails and O to the upper trails at TJs are sort of groomed too, so there's skiable access to the lower road, which is actually in good shape where there's snow.

That's the theme around the rest of the trail system. Where the sun hasn't beaten down too badly, it's good spring skiing, although really dirty snow. There are about 3 or 4 very short stretches where it's very narrow, then fine just beyond.

I wasn't able to set a classic track on the rest of the trail system because I had a problem with the grooming machine. The lights failed due to a charge system/battery problem and I ended up grooming in the dark using only the stars and whatever moonlight was available. There may be some weird swerving around in the skate lane down low. Too bad, as it would have been good to get in one last classic track. Maybe this weekend...

It finally cooled off dramatically when the clouds cleared out, so it froze and started setting up. Hopefully, we'll get some new snow to squeeze out a few more days. Otherwise, we may have one more grooming session left if we're lucky.

Go ski and say your farewells this week....

Tarik's Alley Loop Race Report, 2009

Buddy and me during better times


See that picture above? With me and the 7 foot tall bear costumed skier? Those were the good times. The Alley loop starts on Elk Avenue which is the downtown main drag in Crested Butte. This year we started by going up Elk avenue and looping back through the alleys. We were supposed to follow the guy in the bear suit through the sketchy parts of the alleys as a neutral start. Here is what happened. I was on the front row of the starting line. Buddy the Bear was in front of me. The race started. Everyone started skiing except the bear. The bear was still dancing. I hit Buddy the bear hard and bounced off. By the time I recovered everyone was way up the road and the bear still had not figured out what just happened. That, pretty much, sums up my race. You need not read any further, that was the best part of the report. For those who are looking for the usual overblown, late and too wordy report, please read on. For everyone else, thanks for coming by.

click for the rest of the story

Grooming / Trail Report 2/20/09

Dave and John got out last evening and regroomed things. Here's John's summary:

skated it this am. Its pretty good beyond point B. The track from there up to the top is pretty good but the track in the outer meadow is poor. Lower road is pretty good between the meadow and the cut-off to B. We made multiple passes above J and in the meadow, only 2 passes on Dave's and TJ's but they are in great shape. Ski hill jeep road on west side is also groomed 3/4 up. Ken, Jess and I skated it this AM before the downhillers go there. Enjoy.

Trail Photos from Pres day Weekend

Here are some pictures from Sunday Feb 15th to go along with Clay's trail report below.
Btw, again, thanks so much to all the groomers - if it wasnt for your work and time we wouldn't have such an awesome place to ski so close to where we live!

1) Front hill - much easier if you switch the skis for wheels (or hiking boots) right now - burnt out spots are getting closer and closer together, but the snow fencing is still a huge help. Here is Clay with Mila in the Chariot, this is actually on the way back to the car:


2) Just past point A you are good to change over to skis!



3) Nice corduroy and good classic track - pretty great skiing (and even more so because you dont expect it from the way the front hill looks :)


4) Coming up the Outer Meadow trail with the Valley behind:

5) Outer meadow trail layout was well done - makes for some really great skiing:

6) Going up the Outer meadow to the top:

Grooming / Trail Report 2/19/09

Well, it's not so much a grooming report as just a trail conditions report. Nothing has been regroomed since last Friday before President's Day weekend.

Anyway, things are holding up, if not getting crusty, glazed and rough around the edges again. The upper tree trails and the lower road are both still in pretty good condition, but there's a lot of hard pack, glaze and wind-strewn tree debris in the trail.

The classic tracks in the trees on both the lower road and the upper tree trails are still in pretty good shape, but with a lot of debris. I picked out the major stuff where I could. It drifted out in all of the meadow locations and really needs to be reset out there.

Speaking of drifting, it did snow a little bit. I discovered that on my ski today, but I was not the first one out there to discover it. I saw a couple of sets of skate tracks on it, so someone beat me to it. The tracks left by said skater indicated that the upper meadow sections were drifty in the skate lane too. It's amazing how much drifting was present after such a small amount of snow. The outer meadow trail had all of the new snow blown clean off it, so it's still crusty and hard, except at the very bottom where it's protected from the wind.

For classic skiing, I applied 3 layers of klister: one generous layer of ice klister, one layer of hard/course snow klister (both torched in and allowed to freeze outside), then a thin layer of "vario" klister (corn snow) on that, just corked in. It worked great and kick was as solid as can be expected in all sections except for around point K, where there's a weird moist drifty spot that iced up on me for a few meters. It cleared up pretty well once I got back on something crusty and hard. Even the icy section from the lower road out to the upper meadow skied well with that combination and I was able to stay in what was left of the track all the way up.

It's funny, but I get a little bummed out with the lack of snow down here in town and it's depressing walking up the mostly brown front hill now, but then once I get back into the trail system, it's amazing how well it is holding up and how good the skiing is. I would say keep gettin' out there once it gets groomed again.

Tarik's NM cup race report

Well Clay already contributed his timely report so here is mine, or at least a portion click here to read the rest

The mighty wax box


Anyhow, when Paul and I got there, it was warm and getting a bit warmer. So klister it was, with the advice of Clay and a few others I reapplied the swix blue klister that had worked reasonably well the week before. Paul, who hates klister, went with some super warm hard kick wax. We headed out on the trails and it was clear that it was much warmer than either of our waxes could handle. We double poled around for an hour or so and returned for a snack. I cleverly applied Universal Klister , which, in theory, would work in a huge variety of warmer conditions. I will now refer to as UMAKlister which stands for Universal My Ass, which might tell you how the rest of the day went. I actually had great kick, but no freaking glide as the wax was filled with a giant snowball after about 15 minutes of skiing. I realized if I kept moving and did not stop at all I could get reasonable sking done. Paul still had nothing, so I skied back an forth on the trail while paul walked around on his skis. He looked like he was having fun, and it was, upon reflection, a pretty good day, so I kept on skiing. Later I ran into clubmember Tom who clued me in that UMAKlister was too warm for the day, I needed violet Klister, and he was getting amazing kick. Feh, Universal my ass.






click here to read the rest including an actual race report

Note from the Mora Vasaloppet courtesy of Tom Br.

Ideal conditions at the Mora, Minnesota Vasaloppet Feb. 8. Tom skied the 35Km freestyle. He’s going back to Wisconsin this weekend to ski the American Birkebeiner for the first time in 28 years; 50Km for his 50th birthday. (He just got his first piece of AARP junk mail).

Shot of him and Ben from the race - doesn’t that hat look good!

Nice skiing with colder temps and fresh snow!

Thanks to all the time put in by our wonderful and dedicated groomers the trails are in great shape and particularly sweet now that we had a few more inches to freshen things up. Thanks a lot to all the groomers!
also, thanks to whoever was the considerate showshoer(s) on the lower road! Great job stomping all the edges and not following the same track - made for a very nice and even wide road all the way through the outer meadow where they kindly stayed to the sides and nicely framed the trail - very cool!
Here is a shot from earlier today. This might look a bit grey, but being spoiled with all of our sunshine here in the southwest, its actually a nice break to get the colder, humid, grey winter day - just like where I grew up! :)

Scarlett Johansson punished by a fan

Boost your nether rod's abilities http://www.vinwopez.cn/

Chama Chili Classic Ski and Snowshoe Race Report 1/18 2009

Here is an excerpt of my typically long Chama Chili classic 2009 race report. read the rest here.

Shack near the start line. Why is there a shack here?


So my ski race went a little something like this. Double pole in the tracks in the frenetic start. Ski up on the person in front of me, try to get out of the tracks to go around. Crash. Get up, go up the climb, crash. Go through the fast twisty part in the trees. Nearly crash into trees, but instead crash in snow hard enough to have bruises. Look up to see the next group ski neatly away from me. Get up, ski frantically, crash. Have my teammate Dave, who is probably worse than classic skiing than me, come up upon me and inform me that if I keep crashing that he will beat me. Get up and then crash in front of Dave again. Get through the rollers and then, I am now on to part two of the race.

read the rest here

Classic Track set on 2/4/2009

Classic track was set on the lower road (past the hill at point A), all the way out to the meadow, on the outer meadow trail, and then down the upper tree trails to the point where there's a burn-out spot just above point A.

It'll be purple klister (or even yellow for a while tomorrow...) during the day, and probably ice klister in the early morning and evening. Otherwise, waxless skis would work well if you ski in the warmer parts of the day.

Please help to educate people you see walking on the "no walking" portions of the trail. There seem to be a lot of these sign disregarder people and they've done a lot of damage to the "skiing only" designated trails. It's a mess to groom and ski on...

Ski on!

Grooming report 2/2/09

We figured a few things out with the ice grinding, so some of the trail is in more or less pretty good shape for skating -- at least for a day or so. The lower road still stinks because a lot of people walked on it when it was warm and very soft. It just isn't possible to repair that damage. Just what the allure of walking on groomed ski trails is, I'll never really understand...

Anyway, the upper tree trails are pretty good all the way out to the end of the meadow. The outer meadow trail is in OK shape. We didn't use the "new secret ice grinding technique" out there, so it's not as well ground up as the tree trails, but still should be in good shape.

If time permits, I'll attempt to get a classic track pulled in on Wednesday (so plan on skiing classic with klister on either Thursday or Friday). It's supposedly going to snow this weekend, so hopefully this extended "January Thaw" will end.

Bear in mind, that the front hill is total crap now (much in part thanks to the winter walkers) and it's probably better to walk it up past point A or just to point A if you plan on starting by skiing the lower road. The lower road is actually pretty good once you get past that spot where we had to cut out a bunch of down-fall trees. From there, it's pretty good all the way out to the meadow.

Enjoy.

PS: more on weekend trail conditions...

I really should add that if you go up to ski this Saturday or Sunday, use more sense than we did and start skiing around 1-2:00 when the snow is warmed up and it should be good skating!