Not your ordinary canine. Wolf scat adjacent to the ski trails.
Nothing like a little plus sized fecal matter to get the ski season off to a rolling start. Me and Rocket came across this healthy specimen last week on West Morrell about 100' off the ski trails. There is a consistent abundance of fresh wolf sign both there and on the Auggie cutoff but I haven't been fortunate enough to spot a live one, yet. They're out there, though, and it's only a matter of time before some poor, unsuspecting shuffler becomes an unwilling part of the food chain. Thank you for your sacrifice! We appreciate you!
Seeley has been imminently skiable for a couple of weeks now and our grooming routine has been motoring along, but the parking lot hasn't been more than half full at any given time. Which is a mixed bag, because while it's nice to have the trails all to ourselves, it's also gratifying to see the grooming efforts being appreciated by the Missoula masses. All the trails are in prime condition, but this afternoon (Sunday) there were only seven vehicles in the lot when I left at 2:00. With the cold weather in the forecast I don't expect that to change drastically until after Christmas, so if you want some solitary skiing now is the time to grab it.
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So I composed the above two paragraphs three days ago, gritting my teeth the entire time because for some mysterious reason, when I typed a letter I had to wait 5 to 10 seconds before the little beggar would appear on my monitor. Which was like this: keystroke..............................................................................................................................................letter appears. So I tried entering an entire sentence and waaaaiiiit..........................................................................
.....................................................................................................and magically the entire sentence would suddenly appear complete with misspellings and words that needed editing. Yes, I do edit what i write, as difficult to believe as that may be. Anyway, I notified the person who administers the site for us and naturally she ignored me for three days and is still ignoring me, which hurts me, but today I went back on the Wix site where we produce our website and dang, it works the way it's supposed to. I dunno, I spent my entire professional life mired in the world of lumber production, I don't know nothin' about no computers. All I know is now it works, and I can pound out a seamless stream of endless drivel without interruption, which is what God intended for me. Just like He intended for that hapless shuffler mentioned above to be devoured by a bloodthirsty pack of remorseless wolves.
OK, now for some real news or more accurately the possibility of news. All you long time OSCR aficionados are well aware of the number one rule of OSCR: expect the unexpected. Our plan for the 2023 version (or iteration, the word du jour) was to ski the traditional Rice Ridge route since there was so much whining, pissing, moaning, rending of garments and shedding of tears over the two-loop course. However! we learned a couple of weeks ago that there is a state timber sale that is taking place on the race route that may throw a proverbial wrench into the works. Well, heck. We're told that it's only a 30 acre sale and they should be out of there well before the 4th Saturday in January. The hope is we can count on that, but anyone who has been involved with the timber industry or government land agencies knows that the best laid plans often go astray. Breakdowns, bad weather, poor follow-through, you know the possibilities. Anyway, hope for the best, plan for the worst, which in this case most likely means a return to the two-loop course, unless someone else has a better idea that I'm not in the loop on. And if you truly despise the two-loop course, ski the 25k one loop, which is actually a pretty fun ski.
All right, the drivel has an end after all. Merry Christmas, y'all, and God bless us, every one.