(Scroll down to results that we uploaded on 3/11/22)

A large group of SCUM and friends headed out on their Virtual Skiathon today at 10 a.m.

All photos (except where noted otherwise) were taken by Eric Troyer, who warmed up for the Virtual Skiathon by skiing the 26 mile Chena River to Ridge Endurance Race on Saturday. Corrine Leistikow also skied the 26 mile Chena River to Ridge Race.

Although “the graveyard” (aka Miller Hill) section of the Skarland Trail hadn’t been groomed, most of the SCUM and others managed to negotiate the ungroomed sections, but none as skillfully as Sam Bishop.

Because this blogger was the course sweep, I am unable to provide captions for the Skiathon photographs so I’ve invented something to cover the Olympus digital camera advertisement that accompanied Eric’s photos.

I’m not sure what our videographer was doing as the SCUM discussed the Skiathon course.

During the Frank Soos Distance Race #3, The Unpleasantry, I was passed by Thomas St. Clair holding a broken pole in one hand and skiing outside the tracks with just one pole. I mentioned to our group of skiers that Bill was perhaps part of a growing trend.

Then today, Bill headed out to Smith Lake to keep him at the top of our Creme de la SCUM team in miles earned for our 2000-mile relay on the Race Across Alaska Winter Challenge. I hope that this didn’t jar any of his fractured ribs and that he will soon join our workouts again.

Are you getting tired of skiing the same trails here in the Fairbanks area? Scott Brucker would like folks to come try out his ski trails in Minto in hopes that we’ll help promote his trails for future ski events.

He emailed:

I’d like to invite you and some folks for a personalized ski session of my trails. It was about 3 weeks ago I had a ‘jib’ ski and skate skied 14 miles of my trails, it was absolutely glorious. I’m trying to obtain/build better drags and figure out a way to put corduroy in the trail. I exploded my snow drag the other day, which really pissed me off when the hitch failed and caught a tree. I figure if I show people it is a good trail, they will pass that on by word of mouth and might be able to help host a race or get school ski programs to come out this way.

Here’s updated google earth Imagery of my trail system.

Roughly 400+ cords of wood now cut and stacked in the past 7 years. So exciting to see the scars I’ve let on the planet. I added about 1.5 miles to the trail from last year. Here is an image of a 9.5 mi route.

They can be combined with other trails for 24 miles of skiing if I really wanted to, but I’ve found maintaining that much trail is exhausting, time consuming, and costly. Right now I’m maintaining 14.5 mi trail as my longest, and a total of 17 miles of trail. 

A trip to Minto might make a perfect spring break trip.

Contact Scott if you’re interested: email: sbrucker@yksd.com