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.

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.

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.