Brayton Osgood (Bend, OR) and Kristina Trygstad-Saari (Bozeman, MT) skied to victory in the 5/10K classic races in the opening day of the Aspen Valley Ski Club SuperTour. The former Dartmouth College skiers each captured their first SuperTour title of the season, with Osgood winning a tight race over a competitive men’s field, while Trygstad-Saari opened up nearly a thirty second lead over a fairly spread out women’s field. In the men’s 10K classic race,...
I’ve been in Aspen for about a week now, and it has been great. We’ve been treated to some sunny days, some fresh snow and have been enjoying some great host housing (thanks Ruthie and Al!). I took a few pictures on Thursday when we previewed the course for today’s Owl Creek Chase, but once the snow started on Friday I put the camera away.
I’ve been in Aspen for about a week now, and it has been great. We’ve been treated to some sunny days, some fresh snow and have been enjoying some great host housing (thanks Ruthie and Al!). I took a few pictures on Thursday when we previewed the course for today’s Owl Creek Chase, but once the snow started on Friday I put the camera away.
The second half of this slideshow pretty much covers it.
There are some days where it is really nice to be a skier. Today was one of those days. We skied the Billy’s Bridge and Prairie Creek Loops, which were both new trails for me. Despite warmer than normal temperatures (well into the 30s in the afternoon), the snow here remains quite cold. Hard to imagine a nicer day.
From Cosmo:
So not only did Brayton deal the mighty DC Yankee its only loss of the season last week, but he also bumped himself up 3rd seed in the fantasy playoffs. That means he and I will meet in Round 1—our 3rd and 4th weeks of competing head-to-head this season.
Lest you think I’m looking past this matchup, I’m still bitter about the tie in Week 4.
Cosmo, thank you for reminding me it’s playoff time. I will make sure to get my team in order before that sneaky Thursday game might catch me off guard. Rest assured, I’m not looking past this matchup either.
We’re back. And I’m excited. Very excited. After two weeks in Montana we made the two day drive across the border and I’m again settling into a condo on the Knoll at Silver Star (if it sounds fancy and resorty, that’s because it is). Yesterday’s drive (Bozeman to Spokane) was smooth sailing – 400 miles and 6 hours of I-90. Today wasn’t particularly hard, but it just didn’t go as fast. Between crossing the border (3 minutes) and shopping for food in Vernon (more than 3 minutes), it took somewhere between 7 and 8 hours to get up here, but we still made it in time for an evening ski.
This picture exaggerates the damage quite a bit. We had to break/tear the broken pieces so they would fit in the car while we took them to a dumpster. The initial break was only in two.
This picture exaggerates the damage quite a bit. We had to break/tear the broken pieces so they would fit in the car while we took them to a dumpster. The initial break was only in two.
This picture exaggerates the damage quite a bit. We had to break/tear the broken pieces so they would fit in the car while we took them to a dumpster. The initial break was only in two.
What a difference a week makes. When I left, we were seeing highs around 50, clear skies and snow up around 8000 feet – really, quite nice for October. Now, we’re looking at winter. There are 18 inches (and counting) up at Bachelor. “Tumalo Langlauf Club”: is getting after the grooming on Century, which means my appeals for a groomer have been answered. There’s not too much else to ask for right now. Well, “snow in West Yellowstone”: sure would be nice.
It didn’t get nearly as warm as forecasted today – we probably have the high clouds to thank for that – and the forecast is now a lot more favorable. I’m quite confident we’ll be on good skis for the rest of the week. This morning it was klister covered at Sovereign Lakes. It’s getting a little granular and greasy over there, but it’s still really good skiing. The real bonus though was this afternoon at Silver Star. Marshall and I decided to try to explore the knoll a little on the way to the mountain trails and we never made it to the mountain. The Pisten Bully and tiller were out – and the skiing was pretty good. It was a bit soft (the daytime grooming may have prevented it from setting up perfectly) and a little dirty, but otherwise pretty much perfect. With the knoll open we now have two sets of legit ski trails to train on. Hard to argue with that. My camera battery is struggling. I’m going to try to coax a few shots out of it tomorrow.
When Marshall and I decided to come up here on Wednesday there was more than a foot of snow on Main Street and perfect tracks pretty much everywhere. Since then late October and early November has happened. There’s been some melting, some transforming and 16 inches has turned into about 6 or 7. But, that’s still 6 or 7 more than just about anywhere other trail system has in North America right now. So I’ll take it. We skied at Sovereign Lakes this morning and Silver Star this afternoon. The conditions at Sovereign were significantly better than they were for the first round of Nor-Ams last year. The track is rock-hard but it was covered with a dusting of fresh snow, which made kicking pretty easy. It would have been good if someone, anyone really (we’re staying with Kuzzy and Liebsch), had brought some binder – but I guess we can buy some if it really becomes necessary. One thing I didn’t consider when we decided to come up here was that we’re still 7 weeks away from the equinox. That’s like mid-February style sun. It packs some punch. Hopefully we won’t end up on rock skis, but even if we do I’ll be okay with it. Real skiing on November 3rd (Happy Birthday Marshall) is not a bad way to start the season. Kuzzy took some pictures.
The ideal candidate will have experience making good skiing (classic or skating) with less than 12” of snow on unfrozen ground. The option may exist to groom on smooth, road-quality grades, which would make the production of good tracks much easier. Must provide own grooming equipment (snowmobile and track sled recommended). Borrowing said equipment under a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy may be an option. There will be no financial compensation, though you will build up lots of good karma. It’s imperative that the groomer can start tomorrow, as these conditions may only exist for a few days. In all seriousness, things are starting to look pretty promising for an early winter. There’s about a foot of snow up at Bachelor right now, and unlike the first snow of the year there’s not a lot of warm sunny days in the forecast. Of course it might all get rained away by this weekend, but I hope not. Either way, I’m hopeful that if there’s this much snow (or more – there’s still hope!) in 10 days, the groomers up at the mountain might start driving around. That would be great, because I already had my hack-around-on-rock-skis-without-it-really-being-training day, and I don’t really need another. But it would be pretty awesome to be on snow actually skiing before West. It sure worked for APU last year!
I have a couple of complaints about our camp this weekend in Corvallis. 1. The OSU/Stanford game was at 4pm on Saturday which made it impossible to train twice and go to the game. I chose training. 2. I got a little poison ivy (or oak or sumak) on my legs. Beyond that it was fantastic. We had perfect weather, a sweet house and some really good training. I would have been happy to have camp continue on into this week.
While the rest of the US ski world spent today climbing to the Castle in what look like very good “toughness training” conditions, I enjoyed a rest day before we head over the mountains for a mini-camp this weekend in Corvallis. Perfect weather and a change of scenery should make for some productive training.
Sunday morning was scheduled to be skating intervals on Awbrey Butte. The forecast was for mixed snow and rain overnight; the reality was more like rain changing to snow. I heard rain every time I woke up in the night, but come morning, it wasn’t raining any more.
