A little post work ski with the little guy! It was a nice afternoon, sunny and low 20’s. We started at the Wirth Beach and did the little loop over the lake. I was skate ski and he of course was classic.
The loops have been reversed since the last time I was on them. Trails weren’t super fast but in decent shape.
1.8 miles.
The afternoon sun was deceiving. It felt warm when I started skiing, but the wind picked up especially across the lake. And once the sun started slipping away.. Brrr. It was down to -2 when I got home. I was excited to do some skate skiing on the natural snow and to get some longer sections of flat area to ski! The trail wasn’t quite in ideal shape with all of the fresh snow. It had been groomed, but it had a lot of soft spots and even some drifts on it across the 5 miles that I did. I got pretty exhausted as I was coming back across the lake. The Washburn Nordic team was out there and that gave me some energy for awhile. My phone died from being so cold, I had it in my outer jacket, but it warmed up enough that I could snag the frozen beard pics when I finished! It was a tough ski, but it felt good to get my longest ski done. It was about 8,5k in just over 80 minutes.
We went for a post work ski with lots of fresh powder! I knew the groomed trails would be rough as it had been snowing all day so we just took the roads from our house for a little bit and then hit some of the natural snow trails. It was fun to ski down the road and do some exploring! We ended up with about 3k total. It was pretty windy. The groomed trails weren’t horrible considering, but they weren’t tracked yet and had snow drifts.
The kids were at a birthday party during ski lessons today, so I took the opportunity to ski solo. The trails were a little crowded with all the kids, but that was the time I had to get away. I did the full loop skate skiing again and it felt worse, but my time was actually better so that’s a good thing! My glasses got fogged up so I put them on top of my head and as I flew down Devil’s Drop they flew off. So as I went back up I made a slight detour to pick them up! One of the older kid groups was practicing climbing up the same hill and they were better than me! Most of them have been skate skiing longer than me and it wasn’t like it was super easy for them either!
It was about 7 above with a below zero windchill. The sun was out, but not really warming things up too much!
6.5K in 55:12.
A few weeks ago the Loppet Foundation announced that they were opening the man made snow trails to fat bikers on the evenings during the weekend. I think fairly low usage time for skiiers, but the bike trails have been icy so long that it is a generous gift to the bike community. I had hoped to go out on Friday evening, but that didn’t work but I really wanted to get out and try it. So I went, in the middle of a snowstorm!
The conditions weren’t ideal at all! The wind and snow was driving and there was more than an inch of fresh powder on the trails. This made it hard to see where the trail was and the powder made it slow going. I had to walk on some of the steeper hills and once my glasses fogged up they froze and it was hard to see through them. But that was better than getting pelted by snow in the eyeballs!
This wasn’t a problem until I was on the North side of the Haplutter loop. I had managed to get down the hill okay, but when I got back on the trail at the top, I struggled with staying there. I could see two poles and decided to ride between them. Makes sense right? Well after a few feet I came up to a rope stretching across the “trail”. I took my glasses off and somehow I had ended up on one of the greens. Oops. So I made it back to the trail and kept going. Then whomp, I fell off the packed snow into fresh deeper snow. I took my glasses off and I indeed had fallen off the trail and was pointed down the upside of the LaSquandra Loop. Oops! After that everything went fine but as you can see in the picture I had really no visibility.
I wasn’t the only crazy one out there riding either. When I rode up a few people were finishing and as I entered the Hap Lutter Loop a few people were just finishing the loop. So I might have been the last crazy one, but not the only crazy one!
5 above with windchill around -15. 5 miles in 56 minutes.
We met some friends at the Trailhead for dinner, games, and skiing. It was a fun night and fun to see how many people are out enjoying the trails on a week night. There were also a few high school groups which overall were pretty nice. We didn’t have any issues with them in the building or on the trails.
We had 6 kids of varying ski ability and 4 adults. We skiied up to the meadow and skiied around there a few times before coming back into Lower Stadium and playing around a bit. A few adventurous ones did a little more hills before calling it a night. The weather was great for this type of gathering too – not too cold! Hopefully we’ll do it again.
I did about 3.3K of skiing for the evening.