Goodbye 2020

Both of these creatures are related to me. One by blood, the other by bond.

Realizing that I succeeded in offending almost everyone with my opening image last year, I've decided to run with a photo that should have universal appeal. The one possible exception might be our good friend, Lynn, who is a passionate dog lover, but whose gag reflex is violently triggered by babies. I envision a conflicting reaction of a smile suppressed by the overwhelming need to puke. This experience is commonly referred to as "mixed emotions", which kinda sums up my feelings about the past year.

2020 has been a cruel year and the sooner we get it behind us the better. I'm not naive enough to think that a simple turn of the calendar page will put all this chaos behind us, but I am done with 2020. COVID, George Floyd, the election.....jeez, enough is enough. We have vaccines on the way (barring a variant that upends progress), racial injustice is finally being acknowledged, and the election is settled. Let's move on, shall we?

Unfortunately, even with vaccines in our near future, COVID is still going to dictate our daily lives for a while. That includes cross country skiing and activities and events at the Seeley Creek trails.

OSCR is the premier event of the Seeley ski season and a lot of you have questions. Will it be cancelled? Is it happening? If it happens, what will it look like?

The short answer is, yes, OSCR is happening, at least for now. The long answer is it will look and feel very different than in the past. Missoula County has stringent restrictions in place regarding sporting events and public gatherings in general. Historically, OSCR has attracted up to 150 racers along with at least that many spectators. That won't even begin to fit within the county guidelines, and even if it did, the club wouldn't feel good about staging a traditional race. We considered sending racers out in small waves and limiting spectators, but that seemed risky, too, plus also added layers of complexity to management of timing, social distancing, numbers of people, and on and on. Additionally, we discovered that most likely we wouldn't be able to obtain liability insurance to cover our butts when some brain dead skier wanders off the course and somehow winds up in Lincoln with frostbite.

So....here's where we are at this point, with this caveat: everything is subject to change, up to and including, cancellation. OSCR will be a DIY event. The club will groom and sign the course, using the 25k, 2-loop configuration. We will still have 5, 10, 25 and 50k options available. You can ski either Saturday or Sunday and if conditions warrant we will groom the course again on Sunday morning. You will be responsible for your own timing. We will provide a table at the start/finish that will have a book where you can log your time. (Lynn says we can allocate $10 for a clock on the table, but I'm struggling vigorously to get him to spring for the $11 version with a snooze button.) We'll compile the times and post them on the club website where all you OCD participants can discover how you stacked up to the competition. No prizes, no awards, just good old-fashioned personal satisfaction with completing the challenge. And let's face it, for most of us that's all it ever comes down to, anyway.

Before or after you finish skiing we would be undyingly grateful if you would make your way to the donation tube/metal ranger and leave the ski club a nice fat, generous freewill love offering. Along with grants and donations, OSCR is our primary fund raiser and every cent we get from it goes right back into maintaining the quality grooming that you expect to find every time you make the drive to Seeley Lake. Since this is a scaled-down (non)event we won't have the overhead we would normally have with swag, aid stations, prizes, etc. but we also don't expect the numbers of participants. Any income we can pick up from this truncated form of OSCR is welcome.

That's my understanding of where we are with OSCR at this point. Keep in mind that I am not the race director, I'm just a pretty face who was told it was my turn to be club president based on my marginal social skills and a relentless ability to keep meetings on track. I fully expect to be corrected and/or excoriated in the comments section.

O, Canada

It's been 20 days since my last post, which I realize is the source of great disappointment to some and complete indifference to others, but I have a reasonably good excuse. On February 13 I headed to Canada for a repeat of last year's hut trip and didn't return until the 23rd. It's taken me all week to re-acclimate, plus it hasn't gone unnoticed that interest in cross country skiing falls off precipitously about the middle of February every year. My first post of the year generated 250 views while my last post has about 65. Local races are over, the ski trails parking lot is nearly empty during the week and I strongly suspect that some of you slackers are playing golf, God forbid.

So, anyway, I was compelled to jump in the Subaru with Steve and Chris for the almost 1800 mile round trip pilgrimage to Dezaiko Lodge north of Prince George, B.C. You can learn a lot about people while being held hostage in a compact SUV over the course of four days and what I learned is that Steve seriously needs to work on his border crossing techniques. To wit: to avoid an ass chewing from the border guard it is best to have your passport ready when you arrive at the window, even if there are no cars in front of or behind you. Second, when the guard inquires about firearms, the first word out of your mouth should NEVER be "uuuhhhh". And third, know how to operate the car's electric windows for chrissake. When the guard requests that you roll down the rear window it is bad form to randomly push inoperative buttons while muttering under your breath "jeez, that seems like the right one, huh, maybe there's some sort of lock" as your spouse takes over communicating with the guard who is growing ever more skeptical by the second.

A hut trip provides a prime opportunity to work on social skills in a cramped space over the course of a week. Little skills like learning to play well with others, sharing, not farting whenever the spirit moves you, keeping your sweaty, stinking feet off the coffee table, and not giving utterance to every random thought that enters your mind. To my surprise and dismay, it turns out that other people have something called "feelings" and they generally resent having those tender things stepped on in random fashion. It's hard enough to comply with social conventions on an occasional basis, but seven days in a row is a true challenge. My best guess is I earned a score of "Mike is trying, but needs improvement", but won't know until this fall when invitations to return are handed out, or not.

The biggest reason for going is the potential for untracked, endless powder. Last year we were hosed in a big way when the wind started howling on the third night and crusted over nearly everything with the exception of a few random tree shots. This year the tables were turned and we were greeted with bottomless powder that persisted through the first three days before it started to firm up a little and get a slightly windblown in some places. Overall, though, conditions ranged from good to excellent and the week was the stuff of dreams.

This run was just a few minutes away from the lodge.

The fourth day we woke up to blue skies and took the opportunity to go high.

Powder so deep it looks like I'm walking downhill.

Steve Sheriff posted a short video on his YouTube channel.

Fresh skin track mid-morning.

The B Team after deciding who from the A Team gets ostracized for the remainder of the week.

Sticky Snow

"The snow is really sticky today".

I can't begin to count the times I've heard that lament as some hapless classic skier is trudging down the trail with 3 inches of snow, plus or minus, glued to the bottom of his or her waxless skis. The snow is fresh and the temperature is inevitably hovering around 32 degrees and the poor sucker who thought it was going to be a fabulous day of skiing is instead floundering in misery.

Most of these victims are casual skiers. In fact, most of them probably won't ever see this post, but I'm going to continue as a public service, even though I know the majority of my readers are insufferable elitist snobs like myself. Since they're casual, occasional skiers, there isn't much thought given to preventive maintenance, which is a shame, because with just a few minutes of prep their anguish could be avoided.

Here's the deal: when skis glide on snow friction is created between the bottom of the ski and the snow, which melts the snow, especially at warmer temperatures. If the base of the ski is untreated the water penetrates the base. The water that has penetrated with the base now bonds to the snow on the trail, and the snow adheres to the base. And now we have sticky snow. We're not gliding and we're pissed. The kids are pissed. The wife is pissed. And you know what that means. It's gonna be a long drive back to Missoula.

So what's the cure? There are multiple products available on the market that you can apply to the fish scales on your ski base. MaxxWaxx, Maxiglide, Toko Express Wax....the list goes on. Most of it is reasonably priced and simple to apply. Wipe it on, rub it in, wait a few minutes, ski. Most skiers who use this stuff wait until they're balancing on a pyramid of the dreaded sticky snow before they take the time to apply it. The most effective way to employ this stuff is to put it on before you start skiing. Better yet, wipe it on before you leave the house. That will give it plenty of time to bond with the ski base and also gives you one less thing to do at the trail head. If you use skin skis there's plenty of stuff out there to choose from. I use Swix Skin Care but only because I got a deal on it. I'm sure there are plenty of other products that are equally as effective.

What really amazes is me is how many casual skiers are totally unaware that these waxes are available. Somebody sold you these skis, so why did that sales person let you out the door without a can of MaxiGlide? Mostly because, depending on where you bought your skis, the majority of these sales people are clueless. If you buy your gear at a specialty shop, you're going to pay a little more, but you're going to get better gear, it's going to fit you and you'll get better overall service. In any case, I can't tell you how many poor saps I've encountered who are slogging miserably away, or even walking back with their skis in their hands, who had no clue this stuff exists.

Save yourself some anguish. Shell out 10 or 15 bucks and put the fun back in your skiing.

That's my public service announcement for the year. There may be more rants or tirades coming, but no more posts for the edification of the citizenry. I'm done.