Tomorrow is Ground Hog Day, so if the Sunnyside Marmot is to see his shadow, we need to be out there skiing.
Ski tomorrow or no shadow
Reply
Author Archives: Sonot Kkaazoot
Early registration for the 38th Denali State Bank Sonot Kkaazoot is open
Scroll up to: https://sonotkkaazoot.org/ and you’ll find the URL to the Nordic Ski Club of Fairbanks Zone 4 registration system. Early registration through 28 February is your best deal.
Rat ponds escaped chinook debris today
When you’re a PistenBully guru, you know your ski trails under all conditions, so Bill Husby and the SCUM Rat Pack hit the Rat Ponds this morning:
Sunrise was spectacular (and warm)::
and even Bill shed his hat. He definitely approved of the classical tracks on the Rat Ponds.
Wolfman JACKson leads Dan, Byron, and Bill across Rat Ponds this morning—video by Bill Husby
Seen on the Birch Hill trails today
Wolfman JACKson is emulating Dermot lately when it comes to dressing for SCUM workouts. The Silverback twins, shown above, had dermotized so that they wouldn’t get cold waiting for the slower SCUM.
Travis Kulp had groomed the White Bear and Moilanen Meadows with the PistenBully Friday night and with the 2025 U.S. National XC Ski Championships taking place in Anchorage this weekend, we had the awesome trails virtually to ourselves on Sunday.
Some SCUM take the path less traveled around corners like Dan Johnson, above.
It was a treat to have firm, fast tracks set by the PistenBully and allowed to set up overnight without having to be racing.
Happy 2025!
On the first day of 2025, we had much to celebrate. Bill Husby, SCUM groomer and classical skier par excellence, was back from his medical tests and consultations in Seattle. We missed his spirit and his quality grooming. In his honor, one of the other groomers had packed and tracked the North and South Classical only trails yesterday.
So after skiing the Tower and Medevac on firm PistenBully tracks, we headed out the White Bear to the helicopter trails on Fort Wainwright off the Sonot Connector. With 46 inches of snow this winter at the airport. where the snow depth currently is 22 inches, we are not suffering from the snow drought that Anchorage currently has. Birch Hill has received more snow and retained more of what has fallen than the airport so even though the Blackhawk trail had been packed and groomed several times this winter, the tracks and pole line was still pretty soft.
Being a wily skier, Bill chose not to lead us on the Blackhawk trail. Instead, Mike Mathers was voted that honor. Former firefighter, Mike was so much faster than the rest of the SCUM that we only saw the evidence of his headfirst tumble: the divot in the snow at the side of the trail and his snow-covered hat:
It was a magical ski, and we enjoyed the sunrise in route:
Happy New Year!
SCUM find all 12 LOL ornaments by the 5th day of Christmas!
On the fifth day of Christmas, some the SCUM were a little weary having skied 100 minus their age in kilometers on Saturday, or the age of her oldest child in kilometers. So, we skied slowly in search of the three LOL ornaments we hadn’t located.
With a hint provided by Byron, who is married to a LOL, we started out in search of #8 and quickly found it. Although a huge ornament, which Joanna dubbed the “disco ball”, we’ve skied by multiple times without seeing it because of its golden color:
Ornament #3 was more challenging because the trail on which it is located has only been skier groomed since December snowstorms. Because most of the SCUM remember skiing regularly on skier-groomed trails, we headed out.
Once we found ornament #3, Dermot decided to blaze a new trail out of the woods and made it back to groomed trails before any of the rest of us who kept on the “skier groomed trail.”
On Christmas, Eric Troyer, who joins the SCUM very irregularly, had spotted the last remaining ornament that the regular SCUM needed to find, so we headed out to where he had seen it. Finding the red LOL ornament #4, we had found our dozen ornaments.
Since Eric had helped us out, we took him out to LOL ornament #11 that he hadn’t found:
The SCUM found all 12 LOL ornaments and noticed that some of their candy canes still remain on trees, free for the taking.
Happy New Year! May you find good health and great friends on the trails next year.
SCUM find 3 more LOL ornaments
After the Christmas and Hannukah feasts, the SCUM were delighted to find newly groomed and tracked trails on the blue and black loops. We set out, hoping to find additional LOL ornaments. However, we were easily sidetracked onto the Sunnyside Trail by Jerome. We saw the change of color in the skies instead of the actual sunrise.
Once we got onto the black loops, we ran into fellow SCUM, Byron Broda and Dermot Cole, who aided us in finding two of the LOL ornaments. Joanna spotted #12 even though Byron and I had skied past the ornament earlier without seeing the bright red sphere:
Although Dermot didn’t spot the second ornament, we saw the ornament about the same time we saw him:
Off the newly set tracks, Byron aided us in locating an ornament that we had skied by multiple times since the ornaments were hung. The ornament’s gold color effectively camouflaged it.
With today’s haul of ornaments, the SCUM need to find just three more: #3, #4, and #8.
SCUM find 2 LOL ornaments
With temperatures in the Birch Hill stadium at 20 deg and the White Bear trail groomed to absolute perfection, a small group of SCUM oozed out in search of more LOL ornaments. Byron, Jerome, Joanna, and I skied leisurely so that we could scan the woods for ornaments. We were rewarded with LOL ornament number 10:
We also spotted a new SCUMometer at the bottom of the White Bear with the unmistakable Dermot Cole penmanship. Thanks, Dermot. This gives us important data for our workout logs.
The trails were absolutely beautiful at the bottom of the White Bear where the winds seldom blow:
Jerome remained in the lead throughout our tour of the White Bear and Moilanen Meadows. He was going so fast that he missed LOL ornament #1 that we found in the Meadows, so Jerome skied the Meadows twice to see the ornament.
With today’s haul of two ornaments, the SCUM have found half of the 12 LOL ornaments of Christmas. We’ll keep skiing and looking for ornaments 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, and 12.
Happy Holidays from all of us.
SCUM ooze to winter solstice
With winter solstice rapidly approaching, the SCUM ventured out on the Sunnyside trail in hopes of capturing sunrise. The clouds prevented seeing the sun, but Robert Hannon, one of our wayward journalists, joined us today, so we needed to document that.
Later, we found LOL ornament #9 (our 4th one), and once again Robert posed in front of today’s SCUM ooze:
You’ve probably seen a herd of cattle, a flock of sheep, a pod of dolphins, a school of fish, or a pack of wolves. But, when was the last time you encountered an ooze of SCUM?
Thanks to Byron Broda for coming up with an appropriate collective noun for us.
SCUM find sweet tracks set by new groomer
Temperatures were a little chilly on Sunday, so the SCUM waited until today to decorate trees on Birch Hill trails with candy canes. Skiers are welcome to them as long as they make sure that they properly dispose of the plastic wrappers. Some candy canes are clearly visible, but three of them were put in a spruce tree on the downhill near where Mother SCUM dislocated her shoulder 4 weeks ago.
While decorating trees, the SCUM were very pleased with the opportunity to enjoy Randy Foland’s stellar debut of grooming and setting tracks with the PistenBully. And while enjoying his fast tracks, we spotted LOL ornament #2.
When we ran out of candy canes, we skied the rest of the newly set tracks. Here’s a short video of the SCUM following Rudolf on Randy’s new tracks on the Outhouse loop:
After the Outhouse loop, we followed Bill as he wanted to check out all the trails that Randy had groomed. Sometimes following Bill means skiing trails differently than how they are laid out. Rudolf missed a turn on the Tower Direct.
With many SCUM leaving to spend the holidays with their families, we enjoyed spending today’s ski spreading sweet treats on the trails. We savor the friendships made while skiing.
Randy, welcome to the grooming team! We really appreciated your trail grooming today.
Sonot Kkaazoot 