Olympic snow

A warm but drizzly day.. seems too early for spring
Got out for a few skis over the last couple of days. Been nice to get on the boards after shaking the cold I had. Sadly I haven’t managed to get my free time for skiing to coincide with sunny weather and skied for a couple of hours today in a gentle drizzle (with occasional flakes of snow falling) but so it goes sometimes. The last week has brought us about a foot of fresh snow on the ground. Warm temps however have had it falling like snain () rather than the fresh dry powder I would prefer…. But I’ll take it! The groomers have been hard at work packing the wet snow so it should lay up nicely for a strong base once cooler temperatures come back. And of course with the cooler temps will be another foot of dry powder snow (wishful thinking?)! Of interest, the current weather is almost exactly like the conditions out in the Callaghan valley right now. For those watching the Olympics on the TV we can sample the cross country snow conditions right outside our back door –wet, heavy, soft and a lot of work to ski! Pick your favourite klister or maybe some no-wax or rub skis would be the best choice for classic while the glide wax is another trick. Of course we don’t have to push as hard as the racers… but for those interested I recommend heading out tomorrow morning for 50k of classic just to take in the full Olympic effect.

Loppet time again

A beautiful warm, snowy day to go check out the racing action. Once again the course was changed up – this year justifiably owing to the small amount of snow we’ve had this season. Fortunately this year’s edition included some trail skiing on Ridge road, trail 24 and 1B as well as the parkways. Unfortunately the new route was laid out such that I couldn’t watch the start annnd drive/ski up into the park to catch some of the racing action on the trails. To be fair I’ve been sick all week coughing and hacking away so I don’t have much of a skiing sprint in me these days and the timings were just too short for me to work it. I was feeling a bit better than I have the last few days though so I decided to make the early drive straight up to P10 (forgoing the start line) and then ski in to catch the race at a few spots along the course. First saw the leaders pass by me at the top of the hill before Keogan and the race was already mostly decided at that point. Three skiers were completely off the front and working well together. Interesting (surprising?) to see Robin McKeever in this lead pack. To the best of my knowledge he has another big 50k race next Sunday which is… ummm, kind of a big deal. I would have thought he would be… you know prepping /resting up for that one. I’m sure the Monday paper will have an explanation as to why he chose this to be his “taper - training race” but still a lot of flying the week before his key race of the season. {edit}Scratch that! As Craig wisely pointed out I mistook Robin for his brother Brian... and Brian is safely in the final stages of race prep in BC before next Sunday's race... my mistake...


Karl Saidla leading Robin McKeever with Chris Butler tucked in third
From there I gamely thought I could sprint up the parkway to Huron cabin while the leaders did a longer route out and back on the Fortune parkway…but my lungs told me otherwise. I only had 2 or 3 km to ski to their 6 but as I climbed the parkway to Huron my throat and lungs – beat up from coughing for a week – told me I wasn’t gonna be speedy today. By no means was it “Petra Majdic painful” but no one was offering me a bronze medal for my trouble so I slowed the pace and rolled into Huron with the second pack of skiers arriving. Got a few shots of skiers tearing through the water station (no time for toasted sandwiches for these guys).


A quick drink at Huron
Finally I made the short hop over to the Brule lookout. From the lookout I hoped to use the Ottawa Valley as a backdrop for some nice race photos but the grey skies and – who woulda thunk it – snowfall (yeahhh!) precluded the magic shot. Still I grabbed a few pics as the trains rolled past me before finally heading off on my own for a (slow) ski. Rolled down Burma and Western on my way back to the car. Both were in decent shape although I think I spotted a couple of rocks hiding under a light cover of fresh snow. A whole lot more snow is in the forecast for this week (fingers crossed). My wide boards have been mocking me in the front hall for most of the season… maybe their turn is finally about to present itself.


The trains keep rolling

Canadian Ski Marathon - 2010

Another beautiful weekend on the CSM trails. Things didn’t go exactly as planned but then I hadn’t really planned to ski in the event this year anyway so it was all good. This past fall a buddy of mine proclaimed that this was the year he would partake in the CSM… so I signed up too. Only later did he come up with a host of “valid” excuses and bailed out (Boooooo!). Never mind it’s always a good ski so I stayed the course. As I mentioned in my previous post, the trails had to be changed this year as once again we had limited snowfall over the last couple of months. The first couple of sections looked to be really thin so I expected it to be a bit of a mess to ski but I concocted a plan for Saturday. I would arrive late of the official start time (maybe 15 or 20 minutes) and let the big mass of skiers work their way up the trail. This would mean they would spread out a bit and make it easier for me to ski “through” the field all the while dodging the tricky snow-free bits. Sounded like a good idea but alas the new highway extension through Buckingham got me to Montebello much faster than I anticipated and I arrived just as the pack departed. Rather than sit in my car and wait I decided to bite the bullet and head off from the back of the pack. Proved to be not too bad in terms of crowds but the first two (short) sections were pretty light in the snow department and – with a 1000+ skiers in front of me - meant the downhills were pretty much scraped down to ice (and rocks, and roots and logs!). Made for tough waxing as the icy chutes ripped the wax off my skis faster than a bully steals a little kid’s lunch money.


Thin snow as we head out of Montebello
Once into the Kenauk preserve, north of Montebello, the snow was good, the grooming excellent and the wax stayed in place a little better. The trails opened up (in terms of crowds) as well and I was able to ski my own pace and enjoy the day. Weather was a mixed bag with some light snow falling, then some sunny skies and then more grey skies… all while the temperature rose to -5C. At the north end of the circular route things again got a little rough but the trail crew wisely deviated us for a few km across Lac a la Croix which had some nice snow coverage and even had a groomed skating lane to mix things up. Despite the good conditions by the time I got to the 4th section I decided to pull the plug. To my surprise I had arrived almost an hour before the cutoff time to start the last leg of the day (another 20k section) but instead I opted to climb on the bus to save the legs for tomorrow.


Skiing amongst tall pines


Heading across Lac a la Croix
Sunday I woke up feeling a little off (more so than just tired from the ~60k ski day before). Couldn’t put my finger on it but decided to opt for cherry picking a couple of good snow sections rather than go for big miles. As it turns out the skiing was again beautiful with fresh grooming. The weather was a carbon copy of the previous day with the temperatures rising to -5C, some light snow early and then a beautiful sunny day. One stretch of lovely grooming however had been well trodden on by a pair of moose (a mother and child?) whom I suspect hadn’t paid an entry fee! An indication as to how solid the snowpack was was made evident by the moose tracks only sinking an inch or two into the groomed trail. To their credit, they had only messed up one of the sets tracks so I think I’ll let it slide. Besides, there was no sign of the moose anyway so I couldn’t give them a piece of my mind… ;-)


Moose tracks - Mother and Child?
As I rolled across the finish line the first Gold Coureur du Bois arrived. I had given them almost a three hour head start but they did ski 80k (with full packs) to my 30k so quite an impressive ski. Felt a little odd to be done so early but it quickly became clear that the real “odd” feeling I had was a cold settling into my lungs. As a result it was perhaps a shrewd move to ski a shorter distance on Sunday. All in all a nice weekend. Well salvaged by the organizing crew to find and groom up some fresh trails when it became clear we would have little snow on the regular route. A few more pictures can be found here.


Lots of rewaxing along the trail this year... but lots of smiles too.
Next up is the Gloppet this weekend though it hardly seems like that can be right. I keep looking at the weather forecast and expecting a massive (downward) spike in the temperature plot for Sunday… but it looks like it will be almost pleasant. I’ll have to work hard to shed this cold so I can get out on the trails and follow the race this year.

Scratch that...

I guess things were tougher in the woods than I could see from the road crossings. The trails for the upcoming Canadian Ski Marathon have been changed due to poor snow conditions. Once again the route goes through the Kenauk reserve where presumably more reliable snow is available. This is the same area that was used in 2007. My recollection was this was a nice area to ski - very similar to Gatineau park. My pictures still hold true as part of the course but the second one is an uphill section only so should be a little easier to manage. New trail map and guide are available.

Canadian Ski Marathon snow conditions

With no update on the CSM website regarding snow conditions I decided to make the short drive down to Montebello on Saturday morning to check out the snow for next weekend’s ski marathon. Of course I couldn’t actually ski the course as none of it would be track set at this point. Anyway, for the most part it crosses private property which is only available to skiers on game day. I could however drive to a number of locations where the trail crosses roads to see what the snow conditions looked like. In all I looked at maybe a dozen different locations along the course. For the most part there looks to be enough snow to ski on up high in the hills. In most places an initial pass has been done to consolidate the base a little (but not everywhere).

Things are looking quite good here



A little tough through this section
Somewhat troubling were the sections of the trail that ski down out of the hills towards the river and into Montebello itself (and then climb out of Montebello on day 2). There the snow depth looked pretty thin with lots of dirt and debris appearing. It did look marginally skiable but none too enticing. Might not want to bring your best race skis with the new (expensive) stone grind and lots of (expensive) wax if you’re planning to ski these sections… cause you might get a new type of (economical) stone grinding for the bases. Still that only encompasses one section per day with marginal conditions and much of the rest should be good to go. That said I did only see a small fraction of the course and conditions in the woods could be quite variable (better maybe?) so I guess we'll have to wait and see what the snow is like next weekend.

Only a slim possibility for some more snow between now and next weekend. Hats off to the grooming crews who will likely be hard at work this week getting things in shape. I’m looking forward to a good weekend regardless as next weekend’s weather is looking outstanding.

A short trip to the Adirondacks

Whiteface looming on a cool, crisp day
Headed down to Lake Placid to do a bit of skiing. I usually wait until closer to the end of the season to make the trek down but the last few years I waited too long and the snow melted before I could skii. This year I resolved to go in January to be sure of good conditions. While I wouldn’t exactly call the snow “mid winter” it was still very good. Even with last week’s rain Van Hovenburg had gotten a little fresh snow on top of a hard icy base. I drove down Sunday morning and found the trails in good shape. They clearly suffered similar damage as Gatineau Park after December’s ice storm. Lots of signs of freshly cut brush dumped along the sides of the tracks. The fresh snow on a hard icy base made for some excellent skiing though and – in spite of a lot of twigs on the tracks brought down from strong winds – the skiing was great. The trails – like most Olympic sites – have a lot of transitional skiing. Steep ups straight into steep downs with not a lot of flats in between. Still they have a nice rhythm to them so it makes for fun skiing. I spent a good part of the day on site and covered most everything they had to offer. Lots of people on a Sunday afternoon in spite of cool temperatures (~12F).

Time to climb the Russian Hill

After spending the night in town I awoke to much colder weather on Monday. A strong wind was blowing and the thermometer now read 2F. I hadn’t brought any skis waxed with a cold weather wax and the idea of climbing the hills on skis that glided like sandpaper didn’t appeal too much. Instead I looked to the snowshoes I had in the car. I also had a bit of new winter hiking gear that I wanted to test out so I opted for a hike up Cascade and Porter. It’s a good trail that’s not too long and was guaranteed to be well broken out so I could test my gear with confidence that if things went wrong I could “escape” back to the car without problem. A few meters up the trail it became clear that crampons and not snowshoes would have been the right choice for the day as the well packed trail had only a couple of inches of fresh snow on it. Still my snowshoes worked like a charm biting into the hard pack surface and giving me perfect traction all day. I tried to limit my effort so as not to get too sweaty but climbing takes effort so the layers started to get damp. Kept plenty warm though as long as I kept a reasonable pace. Once up to the junction to Porter I opted to hike over there first and made the short walk with the sounds of strong winds in the treetops above me. My thought was to make the hike to Porter and back before stripping off my wet layers and putting on some dry ones. For the most part it worked well but I lingered at Porters summit taking pictures and my outer layer started to ice up pretty quickly. It became obvious it was time to go as my shirt flexed with ice but a fast hike back to Cascade and I was soon warm again. The weather was also showing signs of changing as well with beautiful bluebird skies being replaced with dark stormy clouds as I made the short trek along the ridgeline.

It was a beautiful, sunny day up until this point

Before climbing the exposed summit block of Cascade I peeled off the wet layers and put on some dry ones including my new down vest and lots of face protection. Several other groups arrived, looked at the windswept rocks above and opted to turn back as I suited up. “Not for us today” they said. Left my pack and snowshoes at the base and scrambled up the rocks to the summit. The wind was pretty violent (dropping the temperature well below 0F) but not quite “blow you off the mountain” strong so I reached the summit unscathed and grabbed a few pics. Major props to my new vest which kept me toasty warm the whole time I was up there. Back at my pack I layered down and had a bite to eat before trotting down the hill to the car. In the trees the day was quite pleasant (maybe 15F?) so I was glad I had headed out when I did. As an added bonus I was met at the trailhead by a girl from S.U.N.Y. who was conducting a park user survey. For a few minutes of my time answering questions (where did I come from?, how often did I visit the park?, etc.) I was rewarded with a steaming cup of hot chocolate! Sweet!! Would that I could find her after all my hikes in the peaks. So a good couple of days in spite of not skiing both of them. I got one good skiing day in and then tested out my winter hiking gear in some pretty arctic conditions. A few more pictures can be found here

One last view before it was time to head down