Today we were grateful for car heaters after doing our three ascents of the Fort Wainwright alpine hill. Bernardo started an hour early so finished before the rain changed to snow. Likewise, Bob decided to do just one ascent. However, Tim, Robert, and I did three ascents (because Bernardo had already set the bar that high).

Here we are before our last ascent:

After our three ascents, when we were walking back down to the Birch Hill stadium and our cars, we noticed streams flowing down the trail. Seeing as our feet were already thoroughly soaked, we didn’t need to waste energy dodging the puddles.

One SCUM travels out of town to have cold and wet adventures:

https://notquiteoverthehillcorrineanderic.blogspot.com/2023/05/reframing-stupid-summer-ski-trip-in.html?

However, we were content to dodge the construction in the Birch Hill parking lots, and get our workout done. Some of our fellow SCUM were building fences, teaching paddling, waiting for furnace servicing to be done, or waiting for a flight into Kanuti National Wildlife Refuge. We missed them, but our dryland training will continue for 4 or 5 months yet.

This spring, we skied on Friday, 5 May 2023 at Birch Hill on groomed corduroy and three weeks later, we ski walked up the Fort Wainwright alpine hill, which some of us felt was steeper this year due to isostatic rebound. FXC Masters workouts start next week, but the SCUM are older and slower so need to start sooner. We’ve been ski walking up Ester Dome for three weeks. This week the Birch Hill trails had dried out enough to resume ski walking up the Fort Wainwright alpine hill.

We welcome anyone to join us. For our Wednesday Ester Dome workouts, we meet at 10 a.m. at the Ester Dome Road bike trails parking lot. For the Friday FWW alpine hill workouts, we meet at Birch Hill at 10 a.m. The full Ester Dome route is 10 km with about 455 m of ascent and descent. Today’s workout involved only 2 repeats of the FWW hill in preparation for 4 repeats by the 4th of July. Depending upon how one attacks the hill, the ascent is 155 to 160 m in 0.84 km, so roughly a 19% grade. If you cannot train every day, these workouts will yield large benefits for a short investment of time. Bill Husby suggests that if one of the SCUM misses a workout, he must bring beer for the rest of the group in order to be reinstated.

Today we got a jump on our on-snow training for the 2023-2024 training year as roughly 5 km of the trails had been groomed this morning. Although there is ground showing on the Relay loop and some frozen water hazards in the stadium, the skiing was amazingly good and fast this morning.

Enjoy! Thank you to everyone who has donated this season to the NSCF grooming fund.

With light rain this morning and temperatures staying well above freezing overnight, Dermot Cole and I decided to crust ski this morning starting at 10 a.m. The entire White Bear trail had been groomed on Friday, and White Bear to Sonot Junction was groomed Saturday morning. On both those days, we had enjoyed the fresh corduroy, so we were surprised to see that today, Sonot Cutoff looked like a stream bed.

However, except for the lake forming on the White Bear at Sonot Junction, the crust on the trails was relatively firm and skating was enjoyable. The trails had a vegetated appearance as the rain had concentrated the tree debris at the surface.

We only saw two other skiers this morning, but saw and heard geese and chickadees, and saw fresh moose tracks. At Beacon Cutoff, I wanted to check the temperature on the thermometer posted on the junction sign, but the snow did not hold my weight even with my skis. I was able to stay upright for several minutes, but would Dermot help me? No, the journalist had to get his phone out to record my data collection attempt.

Crust skiing is an adventure, but mishaps happen so having a ski buddy is helpful. There’s still lots of snow on the trails so hope for some cooler night temperatures to allow the groomers to work their magic. They’ve already groomed 189 days this season.

Although the Birch Hill trails were groomed this morning, most of the SCUM were not skiing on them. That was because we got “Schmoker”ed yesterday.

Because both Jesse and Christina had encouraged FXC Masters to do pickups when we ski, Mike Schmoker suggested on Sunday that a good SCUM workout would be to do intervals between each of the cutoffs on the White Bear trail. Seeing as Mike was the first SCUM to successfully finish the 50 km Sonot Kkaazoot, he commands certain reverence from the rest of us. Fortunately, White Bear had been groomed only to the Sonot Connector on Wednesday. However, Sunnyside had been groomed, so I modified Mike’s workout to do intervals between the cutoffs on Sunnyside.

Here are the unsuspecting SCUM before the intervals. Joanna had excluded herself from the workout because she was leaving for Costa Rica on Sunday and didn’t want to get injured before then. Therefore, she assumed the role of self-appointed coach and videographer.

Here’s a demonstration of Byron being Schmokered on the uphill section of the Center Sunnyside loop:

It sounds like the rescue helicopters were flying overhead as the back of the pack SCUM finished our Center loop interval:

We were too wiped out to take an after photograph on the Outhouse Loop. Instead, we stopped on the White Bear at the Biathlon Range. It was such a lovely day that we took an extended recovery ski on the White Bear and Moilanen Meadows. Enjoy the groomed trails while we have them.

This morning at 10 a.m., the only SCUM present were the over 70-year-old group of SCUM and two kids, Joanna and Greg. Greg was just arriving as we were heading out, so I told him he’d have to find us on the Black Loops.

However, leaving Birch Hill stadium, we followed fresh grooming down the White Cub to the Biathlon. At Zoomer Cutoff the grooming ended but, we decided to continue skiing out the White Bear. Byron texted Greg but got no response. We found the slightly icy surface made for faster skating and good balance practice. Owen was on classical skis but the fast tracks compensated for his less than perfect kick.

After finishing White Bear (and Moilanen Meadows, which hadn’t been groomed in over a week), we noticed that Sidewinder had been groomed. Thus, we headed down Sidewinder with the goal to ski the down to Big Surprise Cutoff and then back up on the sprint loop. However, one of our M10 SCUM had a little bit too much speed on one of the key downhill corners, so took the route less traveled.

The snow on this route was a little too deep for Don to execute his previously demonstrated kick turn, so he removed his skis for his retreat, which all his fellow SCUM were able to enjoy, including Greg who finally found us.

With less skiers enjoying the trails now, when you have little mishaps, the likelihood of having witnesses decreases. Unless of course, you’re SCUM. Then your pals will make sure there’s lasting evidence to remind you.