Bill Husby scouted out the Rat Ponds virtual tour on Tuesday so he could “herd” the remedial SCUM around the course today. He instructed us to meet promptly at 10 a.m. today at the Seventh Day Adventist Church and School. In the pre dawn chill, I quickly discovered it wasn’t 39 deg there like it had been at home when I checked the thermometer before breakfast. I put on all the layers that I had in my car (my second closet) but still was slightly underdressed for what was to be a leisurely 12 km tour.

After awaiting for late arriving Robert Hannon, Bill was able to line us up for the first and last time of the morning. Dermot was skiing out of the tracks with his fish scale skis so that their noisy gliding wouldn’t disturb the rest of us.

Bill led most of the ski, which is a novel approach to herding SCUM:

but we do follow the leader, in this case, Kent:

The nearly full moon was overhead as we enjoyed the tracks that Stan Justice had set for this virtual tour. Thank you, Stan!

The sky after sunrise was delightfully orange.

The tracks were so enticing that even Dermot had to use them at times. As seen below, around some of the larger ponds, Stan had set two sets of tracks so that you could ski around the ponds more than once and see slightly different terrain.

Stan had marked the Rat Ponds tour with red plates that not only gave directional information but also informed the skiers of historical landmarks and recent sections of land and trail acquisitions that have expanded Creamer’s Refuge. The SCUM really appreciated these markers as they gave us an excuse to briefly rest.

We encourage other skiers to use these trails as they are perfect for the beginning skier as the trail is virtually flat. There were a couple of tricky herringbone rises to keep the ski interesting:

Because the trails are predominately in spruce forests, skiers are spared the birch seed and branch debris in the tracks after a chinook wind event. However, temperatures on these trails are comparable to the Fairbanks airport so don’t expect the Birch Hill inversion. Also, sections of the tour are on dog mushing trails (where there are no set classical tracks) so be alert for dog teams.

Thank you Stan Justice for grooming these trails for a wonderful virtual tour.

Although our fearless leader (and grooming hero), Bill Husby was injured and unable to join the remedial SCUM for our Friday workout, we prevailed in his absence. Bill had warned us that the downhills were fast, faster than anytime this season. So we decided to head for the black loops, where the lower volume of skier traffic would make the downhills safer.

Without Bill or Dan Johnson today (and with Dermot, starting well behind us), it wasn’t a popular decision to head down the black loops, but being SCUM, they begrudgedly followed. We found lots of tracks, fox tracks in the new snow, including around this den.

As we were finishing up the N40, we had to make the decision whether to take the Black Baron cutoff or head for the luge run on the Black Hole. Being a cautious skier after multiple injuries, Mom headed down the Black Baron where a snow snake grabbed her ski. Uninjured, she got up without removing her skis or dignity:

As we were finally extracting ourselves from the Black Hole, we turned around and saw Dermot Cole behind us. Unlike the rest of us, Dermot was skating so didn’t have the excuse of kick wax shearing in the tracks as an excuse for a fall. So to make the rest of us feel better, Dermot deliberately fell while standing in place:

In going down, Dermot jointed the rest of us who looked like we’d rolled in powder sugar:

All of us agreed after skiing the black loops on Friday the 13th, that the trails were lovely and that conditions were perfect for our early season fitness. Here’s the smiling crew as we finished our recovery ski of 6.7 km with 185 m of climb.

If you haven’t already done so, please donate to the Nordic Ski Club of Fairbanks trail fund so we can keep having fun on the trails this winter while doing our part to flatten the COVID-19 curve.

https://nordicskicluboffairbanks.wildapricot.org/Donate/

You can also drop contributions (cash or checks) in the Iron Ranger as you enter the Recreation Area from the main parking lot.

It was a lovely day for a ski walk up Ester Dome today.

No one fell and no one damaged their ski poles.

The remedial SCUM headed toward the Tower loop for our normal Friday morning workout of multiple ascents of the Fort Wainwright alpine hill. However, today we were greeted with sunny blue skies and decided to take a different trail to the towers. En route, we encountered one of the Fairbanks North Star Borough Summer Trails Challenge signs. However, we were upstaged by a cute bear cub:

Not wanting to be accused of harassing wild life, the SCUM left the cub to his gymnastics and went on to do their three ascents of the Fort Wainwright alpine hill. Afterwards, wayward Robert signed the rock to document his rock carrying efforts from 17June.Don’t you want to join the successful few who have carried the rock up the 0.83 km under the Fort Wainwright alpine hill chair lift? We’ll be back there again next Friday.

In an attempt to add a fresh challenge to our ski walking up the Fort Wainwright ski hill, this season the SCUM added carrying “the rock” that Allen Doyle (former Equinox Marathon winner and Sonot Kkaazoot skier) used to slow himself down when training with the SCUM last summer.

As reported here, Bill Husby and Robert Hannon were the first SCUM to carry “the rock”, previously estimated to be 30 pounds:

https://sonotkkaazoot.org/2020/06/17/scum-hill-training-rocks/

Several weeks later, Carl Hemming carried “the rock” up the hill in a backpack.

https://sonotkkaazoot.org/2020/07/24/rocky-ii-the-scum-workout/

Because Carl is a retired Alaska Fish and Game fish biologist, we asked him if he had a fish scale that we could use to weigh the rock. Being a professional at estimating fish by eye, Carl didn’t need a scale. However, Dan Johnson, our retired nurse and EMT administrator had one and offered to bring the scale and a shopping bag to hold the rock to today’s workout. So before we did our 3 ascents of the FWW ski hill, we officially weighed “the rock” and it was lighter than all our estimates at a mere 20.2 pounds:

Bill Husby in official Sonot Kkaazoot orange tank top holds “the rock” in Dan’s fish scale

Bill was the only rock hauler that showed up for today’s workout and his estimate of the rock’s weight was the closest to today’s measurement (Carl was fishing and Robert was recovering from a tough night). However, the three gramps and I did three ascents of the FWW ski hill in the unfamilar sun today.

Three Gramps wait on platform at the top of FWW ski hill for me to finish

We walked up Beacon Road and down the Tower Loop to the Birch Hill parking lot where our four silver Subarus awaited us.

4 SCUM owned silver Subarus (that match our hair color)

My car like my carcass was the oldest model at the workout today.

Join us on Fridays at 9:00 a.m. We also let skiers with blue and red vehicles to ski walk and carry the rock.

Without an Equinox Marathon in 2020, there’s no problem social distancing while ski walking on Ester Dome. Today Bernardo was so far ahead of me, I didn’t even see when he crested the top.

However, most of the SCUM still had their masks handy, just in case, we couldn’t social distance.

All photos by Joanna Fox

Enjoy ski training outside, but make sure you are well separated from your training partners while breathing hard on the uphills. We had no problem with a group widely varying in age and fitness. Today we were able to climb above the fog, but didn’t really appreciate the sun above Henderson Road until we were heading back down from the dome.