So... Who's still skiing?

Hi Everyone,

We got a small cold front moving through Colorado the past two days, so
I got up at 5AM and raced up to the old standby Brainard Lake for what could
be the last skiing of this season for me.

After cramming some food down the gullet, scraping skis and piling skis,
boots, poles, bike, helmet, water, backpack and dry clothers, I headed up
the hill. I arrived at the parking lot at 6:00AM sharp and the temperature
on the car thermometer said 30F, so I was a little worried that the snow
would not be hard enough. I loaded up the bike with my ski gear and rode up
about 2 miles (the road is still closed up high) until there was good
consistent snow coverage. The last few weeks of unusually hot temperatures
have definitely melted things out significantly, but we've also had abnormal
amounts of late snow which has kept it clean and relatively smooth. Usually
the snow is half mud and pocked out by sun cups at this time of year.

I scrounged around for the snow, but it is definitely approaching spring
up there. There were many sections with 5-15 feet of snow still, but it has
also melted out in places, so the hardest part was stringing sections
together. I skied for ~200-300m at a time, then would have to hike through
a short scrappy section to get to the next good snow.

All in all it was worth the trip, but unless it gets super-cold in the
next few weeks, I don't think the alarm will be going off at 5AM any more.

Next snow skiing for me will probably be Crested Butte for the RMD camp
June 15-19. Then New Zealand in July and August. I need to line up
something for September and I will have skied on snow every month of the
year.

Also of note, I set a new record driving up by over five minutes with
the new Subaru Team car that has a 2.5l turbo.

Nathan

Hey Natron,

Here's one to beat...
Bill Clark up at Auburn Ski Club must have been bored last night (or
something), so he went out and groomed a few 'k up at the club. Some of
the Far West Nordic team and a few coaches enjoyed some really nice
skiing on great corduroy. Not bad for almost June!

I'm STILL hoping for one more trip down to the eastside of the Sierra
for some high country adventure skating. It looks like it's going to
start getting a LITTLE cooler at night down there this week, so we'll
see.

Mark

Mark,

I'm jealous, that sounds great. You guys definitely beat the rest of
the country for snow, especially this year. How much longer do you think
you'll have skiable terrain?

I've given up snow skiing until the RMD camp in a few weeks. Went out
on the new rollerskis for 3 hours yesterday and today got caught in a
downpour while out running.today. It sure would be nice to be on snow, even
if it was one or two days per week.

-Nathan
www.nsavage.com

"Captain Nordic" wrote in message
ups.com...
Hey Natron,

Here's one to beat...
Bill Clark up at Auburn Ski Club must have been bored last night (or
something), so he went out and groomed a few 'k up at the club. Some of
the Far West Nordic team and a few coaches enjoyed some really nice
skiing on great corduroy. Not bad for almost June!

I'm STILL hoping for one more trip down to the eastside of the Sierra
for some high country adventure skating. It looks like it's going to
start getting a LITTLE cooler at night down there this week, so we'll
see.

Mark

new rollerskis?

whatcha riding?

Captain Nordic has got nothing on us Washingtonians.
Even with the super low snow season, we raced last
weekend at Mt Baker, course elevation ~5500 ft.

http://www.xsergei.com/gallery/

Mt Baker if you don't know is the site of the highest
recorded snowfall anywhere, about 1200 inches.

After the XC race I skied 1000 ft up the road used for
downhillers' descent (downhill race is really an uphill
running race in downhill boots) to Artist Point where I was
greeted with 360 degree view featuring two glaciated peaks
with the concomittant icefalls, etc, Table Mountain
closer by and the race course directly below under the cliffs
with a few folks still warming down.

Altogether 6+ hours of skating on May 28 and 29.

-Sergei

"Nathan Schultz" wrote in message
...
Mark,

I'm jealous, that sounds great. You guys definitely beat the rest of
the country for snow, especially this year. How much longer do you think
you'll have skiable terrain?

I've given up snow skiing until the RMD camp in a few weeks. Went out
on the new rollerskis for 3 hours yesterday and today got caught in a
downpour while out running.today. It sure would be nice to be on snow,
even if it was one or two days per week.

-Nathan
www.nsavage.com

"Captain Nordic" wrote in message
ups.com...
Hey Natron,

Here's one to beat...
Bill Clark up at Auburn Ski Club must have been bored last night (or
something), so he went out and groomed a few 'k up at the club. Some of
the Far West Nordic team and a few coaches enjoyed some really nice
skiing on great corduroy. Not bad for almost June!

I'm STILL hoping for one more trip down to the eastside of the Sierra
for some high country adventure skating. It looks like it's going to
start getting a LITTLE cooler at night down there this week, so we'll
see.

Mark

Hey Sergei, I recognized you in the photos. We started in adjacent
lanes in W2 at the Great Ski Race, and I was following you for the
first ~K. I was in a blue SWIX suit.

Sergei,
Was that snow running (alpine) and cross country skiing part of the
Sea to Ski this year? This article from the Bellingham Herald says it
wasn't:
http://news.bellinghamherald.com/sto...s/247513.shtml

Gene

xsergei wrote:

Captain Nordic has got nothing on us Washingtonians.
Even with the super low snow season, we raced last
weekend at Mt Baker, course elevation ~5500 ft.

http://www.xsergei.com/gallery/

Mt Baker if you don't know is the site of the highest
recorded snowfall anywhere, about 1200 inches.

After the XC race I skied 1000 ft up the road used for
downhillers' descent (downhill race is really an uphill
running race in downhill boots) to Artist Point where I was
greeted with 360 degree view featuring two glaciated peaks
with the concomittant icefalls, etc, Table Mountain
closer by and the race course directly below under the cliffs
with a few folks still warming down.

Altogether 6+ hours of skating on May 28 and 29.

-Sergei

"Nathan Schultz" wrote in message
...
Mark,

I'm jealous, that sounds great. You guys definitely beat the rest of
the country for snow, especially this year. How much longer do you think
you'll have skiable terrain?

I've given up snow skiing until the RMD camp in a few weeks. Went out
on the new rollerskis for 3 hours yesterday and today got caught in a
downpour while out running.today. It sure would be nice to be on snow,
even if it was one or two days per week.

-Nathan
www.nsavage.com

"Captain Nordic" wrote in message
ups.com...
Hey Natron,

Here's one to beat...
Bill Clark up at Auburn Ski Club must have been bored last night (or
something), so he went out and groomed a few 'k up at the club. Some of
the Far West Nordic team and a few coaches enjoyed some really nice
skiing on great corduroy. Not bad for almost June!

I'm STILL hoping for one more trip down to the eastside of the Sierra
for some high country adventure skating. It looks like it's going to
start getting a LITTLE cooler at night down there this week, so we'll
see.

Mark

Well, it's yet another Herald blooper. They are funny like that. For
example, in this year's race guide, they published a picture of downhill
skier as a caption for cross country skiing section. In another story
someone was quoted saying that he observed considerable quantity of snow
melt during his workout.

So, not true. The downhill and the cross country legs were raced this year.
The differences vs last year was that downhillers started first and the
start was moved a quarter mile up the road. The downhill leg is indeed an
uphill running time trial, which is why nordic racers win it every year. I
heard from some oldtimers that in the eighties both the downhill and the
cross country leg started at the same time. The downhiller climbed directly
up a steep chute, the nordic skier went around and the first tag off was at
the top of the downhill run (lots of fun in the fog). The last leg used to
be sailing rather than kayaking.

-Sergei

\
"Gene Goldenfeld" wrote in message
...
Sergei,
Was that snow running (alpine) and cross country skiing part of the
Sea to Ski this year? This article from the Bellingham Herald says it
wasn't:
http://news.bellinghamherald.com/sto...s/247513.shtml

Gene

xsergei wrote:

Captain Nordic has got nothing on us Washingtonians.
Even with the super low snow season, we raced last
weekend at Mt Baker, course elevation ~5500 ft.

http://www.xsergei.com/gallery/

Mt Baker if you don't know is the site of the highest
recorded snowfall anywhere, about 1200 inches.

After the XC race I skied 1000 ft up the road used for
downhillers' descent (downhill race is really an uphill
running race in downhill boots) to Artist Point where I was
greeted with 360 degree view featuring two glaciated peaks
with the concomittant icefalls, etc, Table Mountain
closer by and the race course directly below under the cliffs
with a few folks still warming down.

Altogether 6+ hours of skating on May 28 and 29.

-Sergei

"Nathan Schultz" wrote in
message
...
Mark,

I'm jealous, that sounds great. You guys definitely beat the rest
of
the country for snow, especially this year. How much longer do you
think
you'll have skiable terrain?

I've given up snow skiing until the RMD camp in a few weeks. Went
out
on the new rollerskis for 3 hours yesterday and today got caught in a
downpour while out running.today. It sure would be nice to be on snow,
even if it was one or two days per week.

-Nathan
www.nsavage.com

"Captain Nordic" wrote in message
ups.com...
Hey Natron,

Here's one to beat...
Bill Clark up at Auburn Ski Club must have been bored last night (or
something), so he went out and groomed a few 'k up at the club. Some
of
the Far West Nordic team and a few coaches enjoyed some really nice
skiing on great corduroy. Not bad for almost June!

I'm STILL hoping for one more trip down to the eastside of the Sierra
for some high country adventure skating. It looks like it's going to
start getting a LITTLE cooler at night down there this week, so we'll
see.

Mark

Wellllll, Captain Nordic is done skiing for this spring. We tried our
last adventure skate of the season last Saturday. And since I've never
held back in writing to the newsgroup when the skiing was awesome, I'd
be remiss if I didn't write a little bit about how much the skiing
sucked for skating up at Tioga Pass in Yosemite NP last weekend. And it
is truly days like that which really makes one appreciate the
successful trips, and how fleeting that success can be when depending
on a variety of natural factors.

We were planning a huge loop through the eastern section of the park,
parts of which we've skied before, but with a new, very high elevation
return twist of sorts. We actually tried this same trip 2 years ago,
and got turned back because of a different problem -- a lack of an
adequate freeze for skating. This year, we got the snow, we got an
awesome cold night, but by June 4th, the snow surface was just too
sun-cupped and pock-marked to make skating a viable method of
transport.

So no successful Southern Sierra trips this year, just a few Tahoe-area
ones. It was a bit frustrating, because we had an incredible amount of
snow this season, but the spring weather was just too snowy and rainy
to pull off a good high-elevation backcountry skate.

Fasterskier.com will probably have a few pictures, but for now there's
a couple on the farwestnordic.org website. Didn't take a whole lot of
shots that day, being too busy trying to keep upright on the Fischer
Revolutions.

Captain Nordic

xsergei wrote:

Captain Nordic has got nothing on us Washingtonians.
Even with the super low snow season, we raced last
weekend at Mt Baker, course elevation ~5500 ft.

What rollerskis are you using
Fitzgerald
"Nathan Schultz" wrote in message
...
Mark,

I'm jealous, that sounds great. You guys definitely beat the rest of
the country for snow, especially this year. How much longer do you think
you'll have skiable terrain?

I've given up snow skiing until the RMD camp in a few weeks. Went out
on the new rollerskis for 3 hours yesterday and today got caught in a
downpour while out running.today. It sure would be nice to be on snow,
even if it was one or two days per week.

-Nathan
www.nsavage.com

"Captain Nordic" wrote in message
ups.com...
Hey Natron,

Here's one to beat...
Bill Clark up at Auburn Ski Club must have been bored last night (or
something), so he went out and groomed a few 'k up at the club. Some of
the Far West Nordic team and a few coaches enjoyed some really nice
skiing on great corduroy. Not bad for almost June!

I'm STILL hoping for one more trip down to the eastside of the Sierra
for some high country adventure skating. It looks like it's going to
start getting a LITTLE cooler at night down there this week, so we'll
see.

Mark