After a week of shoveling out from the two recent storms that dowsed the area with snow and rain, the SCUM were delighted to ski in firm PistenBully tracks today. However, the only photos taken were when they ventured off into the ungroomed snow.

Here the SCUM set “old school” tracks on the Old Tower:

And here’s what the White Bear trail beyond Sonot Junction looks like:

Joanna and Norma were feeling adventuresome so took off and skied Moilanen Meadows following these set tracks:

In addition to finding two downed trees on the trail, they found a Winter Trails sign:

Norma led them out of the Meadows and back to the Birch Hill stadium but the chilled SCUM had already headed home.

They’d return for their first ski of 2022 as part of the Ski Your Age in Kilometers event on Saturday.

If I recall correctly, it was mid-20s below both at the top of the tower and at the biathlon range. The thermometer on the red building said about -15 deg F.

If you dress properly, even -31 deg F, you can enjoy beautiful trails and scenic lakes without leaving Fairbanks. Being part of the Nordic Ski Club of Fairbanks grooming crew, Bill Husby enjoys skiing on trails maintained by others. So, on Monday, Bill headed out on the Rat Ponds tour that had been groomed and marked by Stan Justice. These photos show what he found:

And here is Bill’s documentation of the tour:

Fortunately, for us wimpy skiers, a strong temperature inversion has now set up, so we can avoid the cold temperatures Bill endured by skiing high. However, this post shows, with some advanced planning, enjoyable skiing is possible regardless of the temperature.

After “racing”¹ the 15 km Frank Soos Distance Race #1 in slow, newly fallen snow on Saturday, some SCUM skiers were actually willing to follow directions.

Here’s what SCUM looked like on the Outhouse loop after skiing the Sunnyside trail to section line on Sunday:

And here we are enjoying the view from the Sunnyside trail at Powerline cutoff:

Although most of us only managed to ski 5 km in an hour on Sunday morning, I was able to “claim” one of the LOL’s 12 ornaments of Christmas, specifically, #4:

The recent snows have definitely improved the trails (a huge shout out to the NSCF groomers, you guys rock) and this cold weather will allow the tracks to set up firmly. If you properly dermotize, you can claim more the LOL 12 ornaments of Christmas. I just need 11 more.

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¹“Racing” in SCUM parlance means skiing a course without taking rest stops. Our speed is definitely relative only to standing still. Thanks to all the patient race volunteers!

The Black Loops retained significant snow pack from the early season snowfalls. So when the groomers set tracks on Wednesday and Thursday, they didn’t punch through to leaves in very many places. Thus, firm, glistening white tracks awaited us today. Temperatures in the stadium varied from -10 to -12 deg F over the course of our workout.

Here are four SCUM on the N40 loop:

In order to savor all the Black loop tracks, the SCUM first skied the Black Hole loops via Black Baron. It was likely close to -19 deg F at the bottom of the Black Abyss. The tracks were fast so the wind chill was significant.

However, we didn’t want to miss out on skiing down into the Black Hole over the old luge run. Nothing like doing the Black Cross on your second outing on skis, but that why Bernardo is a SCUM. Here’s an edited version of Robert’s and Bernardo’s descent of the bottom portion of the Black Cross hill:

Here are the SCUM again on the Flat Black section after having done the Black Hole loops first via Black Baron and the second time via Black Cross and returning uphill via the Black Funk. The skiers on skin skis were noticeably slower on the downhills, but weren’t quite as maneuverable on the corners as those of us on “old style” classical skis.

By the time I reached my car, I looked like a reverse pumpkin. However, now we have done all the black loops (and variations) this season.

I think there are now enough trails with set tracks for the SCUM to safely resume their Sunday group workouts.

With the temperature at 33 deg F, I was shocked to see the snow depth in the Birch Hill parking lot go well above my ankles. Joanna and I had made the right choice of bringing our no-wax classical skis as the snow pack was HEAVY as the 0.49″ of precipitation on Saturday amounted to only 2.8″ of snow at the airport.

I had been worried about having enough kick in the above freezing temperatures, however, kick was not a problem. Grabby glide and downed trees and branches were the challenges on our lovely first ski of the season.

After skiing around the relay loop, we’d warmed up enough to make our first snow angels of the season. However, the snow was so heavy that it was a real strength workout to make a snow angel:

We did ski the entire Tower loop in a record time of just 1 hour and 10 minutes! However, we were shaking the snow off trees leaning over the trail and picking up branches.

Here are two trees downed over a power line on the Tower loop:

and here’s a downed tree on the Tower just beyond the G-1 cutoff:

We actually did make it all the way to the top of the Tower and took the requisite selfie:

We also made a little snowman for the sign. That thermometer said it was only 30 deg but that was hopeful not real.

Coming down the tower was more fun for Joanna with fishscale skis than with my multi-grip, rubberized no-wax skis. Joanna has provided the caption for this video writing: “It’s the longest, steepest, fastest downhill coming out of Tower! Who’d have known it could be done so slowly!?” Anything’s possible with the right gear and determination.

Here’s hoping that the NWS is wrong and temperatures don’t increase to the 40s this week. Because it was an absolutely lovely morning to be out on the trails. The stadium was shrouded with fog as we finished our 3.79 km maiden ski of the season.