It was a snowy Friday morning, but the pistenbully tracks were amazingly fast and secure. Thank you, Tom Helmers! Even at -25 deg F, the firm tracks made it possible to ski fast enough to keep all the appendages thawed and warm.
Today’s discoveries bring the SCUM total of LOL ornaments past the halfway mark. We have located 7 of the 12 ornaments for this season.
Hopefully, the recent accumulation of almost a foot of fluffy snow doesn’t conceal the five ornaments that we need to find.
A deep inversion had temperatures a balmy -8 deg F in the stadium and -24 deg F in Shannon Park at the bottom of Birch Hill Road and City Lights Blvd. However, Bill Husby set beautiful classical tracks on the Black Loops yesterday, so we were lured down into the chilly depths where we found three more LOL ornaments.
In the black loops, there are a number of cutoffs so the SCUM group scattered, so only Bill, Greg, and Mom found ornament #3:
The other SCUM found LOL ornament #8 when they were lost in the Black Loops but Jerome was able and willing to go back down so we could document his find:
Even on a cold day, Bill’s tracks were a delight as on the N40, you could glide entirely up the uphills after tucking the downhills in the tracks. It was also possible to stride up the Competition Loop in Bill’s clean and deep tracks. As we were finishing up, the grooming crew was heading out the blue loops so likely by now they have new clean tracks, too. The Outhouse Loop really needed new tracks after the recent winds had filled the tracks with balsam poplar leaves.Today was a good day to not be skiing on skins as you enjoyed more free glide.
Enjoy the inversion and the beautiful tracks.
The SCUM quickly found LOL ornament #6 as it was on one of the Strava segments named for a primordial SCUM. This ornament is gold, not a very easy to spot color, and is located above Joanna’s right shoulder.
Here’s a close up with Thumper, who was visiting from Reno:
Mom was skiing with just one pole to avoid further aggravation of cartilage connecting her ribs to her sternum. Thus, she was looking around while she waited for the SCUM to chase Robert and Jeff downhill and spotted LOL ornament #5:
The photo makes this LOL ornament a giveaway for anyone skiing the trails regularly.
It may be chilly on the trails, but the newly set tracks allow one’s skis to glide so you travel more effortlessly than before the recent snow.
Although the Super Tour Races moved to Anchorage, fantastic skiing still awaits skiers in Fairbanks.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
With the SCUM volunteering for the recent Alaska Nordic Cup on the new Usibelli FIS ski trails at UAF last weekend, only one of the LOL ornaments of Christmas has been located. It’s not because of lack of holiday spirit as here’s the gang of SCUM looking around the trails today.
The first Frank Soos Distance Race happens this Saturday, 7.5 or 15 km freestyle starting at 11 a.m. It’s a good way to create a calorie deficit so that you can enjoy more Christmas cheer.
It was -5 deg F at the stadium thermometer shortly before sunrise today. With the first Frank Soos Distance Race tomorrow, there was poor attendance for today’s workout. The freshest tracks were on the black loops so we headed that direction. LOL #1 was the first ornament that the Friday SCUM located, but no one’s hands were warmed up enough to stop and photograph it. You can see it in yesterday’s post.
It was so cold that I’m not sure if we found LOL #4 before or after we descended Black Baron. Bob Moloney, who was skating today, doesn’t snowplow (like a normal SCUM) but did two acrobatic falls in his descent of Black Baron. We saluted our 80-year-old SCUM with our poles as he finished that trail.
I found LOL #9 as my thumb was being to throb again after temporarily thawing.
Tomorrow’s Frank Soos Distance race will be conducted under Frank’s favorite conditions: cold snow and classical technique. Hope to see you there.
Sonot Kkaazoot 