Cross Country Skiing

[Crankin]

These are pictures from our ski today. We had just finished skiing down the Old Farm Trail at Windblown and were about to take our skis off and walk across the parking lot.. we were done. Conditions were perfect; I skied down the Open Slope from the top of the blue part of it (sorry, the Black trails at Windblown are like Alpine trails) for the first time. Did about 7 miles. This might be my last ski of the year , since I will be away next weekend.

[mudmucker]

Today I went out with my new backcountry skis for the second time under more favorable conditions. I got 4 inches of fresh new snow last night. However in ungroomed areas, underneath was classic New England crud from melting and refreezing as well as an existing crust from the last sleet storm. So I went out to land behind my house where no one else goes so that I had to break trail. No travel, car stays in yard. If I tried to use my touring skis or even my skinnier backcountry's in this kind of stuff I know from experience I would have a miserable time, since the crud underneath gives unevenly, the skis would twist in or out, and the skis would tunnel under the crud getting caught. So I tested out the fat bc's with metal edges.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE them! I had SO MUCH FUN. I didn't think I would have so much fun. Take it down a notch for speed and it was just this lovely uninterrupted rhythm of kick and glide through untrodden quiet woods. One concern was that I thought the width would be overkill for what I want to do. But no, the width worked out great. I had great float, the ski can cut through anything and I was able to maintain control (while cutting through submerged ice crud buried lower) and able to carve out a couple of turns without the ski hanging up. The wide ski underfoot gave a really nice stable platform. Secondly, I thought maybe because the skis are on the verge of being more tele-like I'd get more drag than glide. Again, not so. They glided so beautifully and I could feel some of the camber working underneath. So glad I got the longer skis. Plus the tip stayed near the top which of course is great for float but also I could always see it - would not be good to hook a ski under an unseen buried log beneath the snow. I was unexpectedly surprised at how nice of a glide I got. These being my first waxless skis I was skeptical of the grip. They climb great with little slippage. Boy, these are keepers! I'm confident these skis can go through anything, and the beauty is that I bet my xc ski season will be greatly extended since these skis will be able to get through all the spring crap.

It was really fun today, just going where no one else was. So quiet. No people, no snowmobiles. Right outside my house, 2 miles into the woods. (Just gotta make sure keep checking cell reception since I go out alone). XC skiing is soul-saving for me but these skis will make it doubly so. I've been wanting to get backcountry skis for 12 years now - finally glad I did.

Untrodden, inviting and all mine


Pond and ridge


Other side of pond

[Kubla]

My wide skis (Rossignol BC 90s) finally arrived late last Monday afternoon. There was only a half hour of daylight remaining but I was able to take them out back for a short test run. They seem to glide well and I'm looking forward to one last big storm in the next few weeks.

Tuesday we brought the 'skinny' skis to Borderland State Park for 3 hours and almost had the place to ourselves. The trails had seen foot traffic and were not ideal-lumpy ice covered by a thin layer of snow-but the scenery and quiet made up for it.

The heavy rain we got Friday did not melt all the snow but left crust and ice behind, now topped with 2 inches of snow received earlier today. The footing was tacky, but I went out for an hour just to get some exercise. Rain is predicted for tomorrow, so any "trails" I made today will disappear.

[lph]

Anyone following the Nordic Ski World Championships? Marit Bjørgen is such an AMAZING athlete, I'm speechless! Maybe I'll even go jostle for the pleasure of seeing her live on the womens 30 K on Saturday.

[lph]

Anyone following the Nordic Ski World Championships?

I guess not. Oslo is going a bit insane here now so I tend to forget that nordic skiing barely exists outside of Northern Europe, at least as a spectator sport.

New question: anyone try the Kuzmin steel scraper on their skis, instead of glider? You basically scrape away all the worn surface until you get to fresh, "new" sole - and leave it that way. Just refresh with a light scrape-over once in a while. The afficionados say it's at least as good as glide-waxing, and a lot less mess. We've bought one and tried, but so far I've just played around with it on other peoples skis . Mine are that new still that the original sole is pretty good. Curious to see how the treatment holds up over time.

www.kuzmin.se if anyone is interested. The guy has written a whole thesis on the subject...

[Susan]

Anyone following the Nordic Ski World Championships? Marit Bjørgen is such an AMAZING athlete, I'm speechless! Maybe I'll even go jostle for the pleasure of seeing her live on the womens 30 K on Saturday.

I do, whenever I can. However they tend to show only the mens runs and not the womens, sadly. Unless, like in the Ski World Championships, the men don't win anything and the girls do, then they hype them for 2 weeks and forget about womens sports afterwards

[lph]

It's rare that I break off a ski trip because of bad radio reception. But today my plan was to ski about 15K listening to the mens relay (they were doing 4x10 K ) for inspiration. Once I got over the hill though the reception was so bad I had to go for plan B - turn around, zip home, and plonk myself in front of the tv. So I got to see Northug do the winning leg... hushing the audience and braking over the finish line.... Men. I much prefer Bjørgens way of celebrating a clear win - a flag in her hand and a huge smile.

[mudmucker]

Yesterday I went to Wachusett for some lift-service telemark skiing again. This time I went with a friend who is a more experienced tele skier than me. We knew it was going to warm up and rain so we wanted to get out there before the weather got here. The season is getting short. It was a beautiful sunny day with very good conditions. Got there nice and early and basically had the slopes to ourselves till about 11am or so. It was really nice to have someone watch my form and be able to critique it and give good pointers. It really is awful hard to see yourself. We came across another tele skier, an older fellow, who was just art in motion and beautiful to watch. We three ended up hanging out together for quite a spell and I was able to get excellent tips and advice from the other guy too ( I've never come across other women doing this). Tele Man gave my friend a helpful hint also, where he felt a great improvement after making one adjustment.

Both these guys had the hard core tele equipment. I was using my more flexy type boots so in order to speed up my learning curve I decided to go over to the ski shop and demo some beefier boots. I tried out some Garmont Veloce's (only $15 for the day). Went back out to the slopes and met up with the guys again. Sure enough the boots helped and by end of day my form was getting a lot prettier. Always room for improvement but even Tele Man said I was was "pretty much there". Just need to keep practicing.

I'm not going to want to do lift-service telemarking often but maybe once in a while. So the day was loads of fun but boy are my legs feeling it today. This weekend I'll probably get out to do a little more gentle backcountry - I still have over 2 feet of snow.