Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Course for Saturday 2/2/2013

 
The course this week will start just above ski patrol, ascend traversing under Reggies and Easy Street lifts to gain Silver Nugget, follow to the top of the Central Express, descend the upper traverse to triple 60.  Descend Triple 60 straight until just prior to base, then traverse skiers left under Gallery lift and Holiday lift, Transition below Holiday.  Ascend climbers right of Holiday terrain park until the base of Parachute, look for bootpack far right side of Parachute, ascend this until you gain the entrance to the downhill crossover from West, travel uphill on the crossover to West, see below for further.
Once at west take a immediate left onto short bootpack to the top of the wildside lift, then descend Thunderbird to base of EasyRider lift.  Next ascend the middle trough between the Thunderbird area and the Dodge Ridge lift, staying to the climbers left mostly to avoid downhill traffic.  Then descend back to Easy Rider base.  Ascend directly under easy rider (lift should not be running) then ascend up to gain cat track, turn left, follow cat track through two switch backs to gain the crossover trail, ascend the downhill crossover from Central, all the way to the top of the Triple 60 chair.  Descend the upper traverse to Alpine, descend Alpine until just prior to base of central express, carefully cross under lift skiers right to transition just skiers right of Central Express lift base.  Skate or skin to the finish (same as start).  Have fun, be safe, wear your headlamp on the ascents.

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Vertfest Mt Bachelor Report

So I decided to drive down to Bend in a quick turn-and-burn (leaving at 3am) to participate in the Vertfest race.  Crazy, I know, but, actually, I had a great time.  I got down there with an hour to spare, and got to see the Mt. Bachelor ski area for the first time. 
The race went pretty good. I didn't have time to look at the course at all, and this would prove to cost me the race.  Normally, I am not the fastest guy at a race, so I don't have to worry too much about getting lost.  Well, this time when the gun went off, I sprinted the first 200 feet or so and only had one guy in race garb fairly close.  By the time I got to the first transition I had probably a good 15 second head start on the second place guy.  So, on the first descent, I was skiing along, and skiing along, and then I started to wonder if I had missed the transition.  I slowed to look for markers and the second place guy went whizzing by, dang it!  I quickly gathered myself and sped to the transition, arriving 30 seconds or so behind. With a fast transition and some quick skinning, I regained the lead and led the second ascent.  On the next up-to-down transition, I had a bad transition, and Jason (the other race dude) had a good transition, so I fell behind a good bit.  The last uphill I managed to get close to Jason, but I just didn't quite reach him for the next to last transition. Again, a bad transition for me and a good transition for Jason equaled a second place finish for me.  A win would have been nice, but, that is also what I really like about Skimo racing, always looking for ways to improve and become more efficient.  I walked away with a nice pair of skis for my efforts, and raced home to make it to bed by 9:30.
photo: Tapper Photography

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

1st Summit Series Race

Well, the first official race of the Summit Series took place on the 11th, participants included myself and Lowell!  Lowell and I did a variation of Lowell's loop that he does frequently.  This is a great circuit as it has a little of everything to keep things interesting.  We pushed the pace, and tried not to run into the hordes that were out riding lifts.  Since it was just Lowell and I, Lowell was awarded a chocolate cake for the 50 and over category win, and I kept the other cake for the 50 and under category.  Hopefully the next race on the 25th will have a better turnout.

Lowell getting ready
Lowell finishing the long booter

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Course Update for this Friday's race

A couple changes to the course; the first descent that starts on Triple 60 will not traverse across Gallery or Holiday runs, the ski area does not want people traversing / racing across beginner runs.  Instead the descent will travel to the bottom of the T60 chair, and go around the bottom of the Holiday Lift, then transition to the up.  The second change is the second descent down alpine, again the ski area does not want us traversing under the terrain park, so this descent will travel straight down alpine and loop around the bottom of Central Express.  I think this will be interesting as the finish will be uphill and over from here, so people will have to decide to skin up or skate to the finish, a good lung burning finish.

Monday, January 7, 2013

First event of the series

This friday will be the inaugural race of the series, come check it out.  We'll have the pleasure of suffering on Lowell's race course, check out his great description here.  Hope to see you out there!