Editor's Note: We're guessing that this article was submitted (by Frank Luckai of the Big Thunder Nordic Ski Club) after reading the recent article How Cold Was It? Guys, be careful out there.
The veteran team in the wax trailer was caught reminiscing about their own proud coming of age ceremony many years ago before global warming took hold. While the details may be a little foggy, the pain of the ceremony was still close at hand (so to speak).
This year some of our own young Big Thunder midget skiers (names withheld to protect the newly initiated) have taken the first steps to cross country skiing manhood. It happened with little ceremony and fanfare on the Sundown trail during the O’Cup race with the temperature at about -16° Celsius and a wind chill, at speed, of -30° C.
It starts with “it†feeling cold, then the beginnings of numbness and finally no feeling at all! After crossing the finish line and obvious panic on their faces they headed for the warm confines of the athletes tent to survey the damage.
Many of the veteran skiers let the younglings deal with this in their own way. They asked their buddies, is yours frozen? How about yours? Some of the other youngsters (other than a similarly frozen senior skier) didn’t know what to make of this weird behavior.
Finally with the slow thaw and ritual scream the ceremony had ended. Congratulations from all of us that have learned (and are still learning) the hard way….
