Training Log Archive: maprunner

Took the snow coach from Mammoth to Old Faithful. Beautiful scenery, bison, elk, trumpeter swans. And even a porcupine in a tree!

Two of the other passengers had never been to Yellowstone before. It was so cool to see their reactions to everything. And one of the other passengers had spent his summers in Yellowstone as a kid (his dad was a ranger) so he had lots of good stories to tell.

Then, a bit of drama as our coach started smoking: we were leaking coolant. Fortunately, we were the first coach in the convoy, so were quickly rescued. Our groups split up into other coaches for the rest of the trip.

After we arrived at Old Faithful, we checked into a cabin (our first time in the cabins; they were great) and took a nap. Then we headed out to explore the geyser basins. We tried to walk around at Black Sands, but it was too windy. We made it back in time to watch Old Faithful go off, with only about 20 other folks around. I can't imagine what it is like in the summer, when there are thousands.

It was snowing while were out, and it had snowed every day recently. Which kept the trails in great shape. In past years, they have been frozen and chopped up in places, which made it hard to ski. This was really nice.

I slept in while Mike did his usual dawn ski at the terraces. Then we drove out to try the Blacktail Plateau again, starting at the second entrance. Just a little less windy today, but we still had to break trial. Once, we lost the trail all together (which is weird, because it's a road). Saw a beautiful bull elk on the return.

Drove along the road again, saw moose (rare!) and more big horn sheep.

Second ski of the day. We went to the petrified tree, which is a short distance. Then I convinced Mike we should go down the steep hill and start on the Lost Lake trail. Made it down ok, until I got stuck in the ruts at the very bottom, and down I went. I have trouble with transitions at the bottoms of hills. The trail after that was unbroken and very deep, so we didn't go far at all.
Then we had to deal with going back up the hill. I hate herring-boning. I know what I'm supposed to do, I just can't seem to dig in my edges enough and I always slide. Mike commented that this time he noticed that I tend to drift towards going up the hill sideways, instead of straight up. When I'm sideways, I slide, of course. Then I dig in with my arms and start cursing :)

We stop often to take photos (well, Mike takes most of the photos). Here is is photographing his favorite hillside;

From Yellowstone 2014

Drove to the east entrance of Yellowstone, through the Lamar Valley. Saw coyotes, elk, bald eagles and big horn sheep, but no wolves. Skied on the Brannock trail, where once again, we had to break the trail and deal with the wind. But this is a beautiful trail, through tall pine forests and mountain meadows. It was a lot of fun.

We stop often when we ski, for two reasons. One, we're sightseeing, so we stop and look around. Two, I'm not built for endurance activities, so we take it easy. We stop every 15 minutes to take a drink; and every 30 minutes, I ate a handful of trail mix. In previous visits to Yellowstone, I have bonked on our long days, which is not fun for either of us. I thought this routine would enable me to keep going for a week of skiing, and it did. I am only logging the amount of "moving time" according to my Garmin. Often, we were out about twice as long as the moving time.

Up at ungodly hour. But we'll be skiing in Yellowstone by lunchtime ! No internet coverage so no updates for the next 8 days. Looking forward to the digital break.

C • Go Cowboys. 1

C • Giants are tiny winy. 1

C • Eli, Elo, whatever. 2

C • Romo 1

Up very early to fly from MCI to DEN to BZN. Rent a car, stop for lunch, get to Yellowstone, rent skis, go!

We went to the Blacktail Plateau first, since it's pretty flat and groomed. Well, it's usually groomed. Today there was a howling wind and snow, so the tracks were covered and we had to break trail. We used the excuse of a bison in the trail to turn around and head back in.

We were having a nice dinner at Mammoth when all of sudden Mike looked pale and was very disoriented. He left to go back to the room while I finished dinner. When I told the waitress why he had left, she said he should be sure to drink lots of water because it's easy to get dehydrated here. That was it! I had seen this once before, when Mike got dehydrated on the way to our honeymoon (which was in Yellowstone, ironically enough). Went back to the room and gave Mike lots to drink. He started recovering right away.

Putting out more markers before today's event. We had a great turn out. My courses were a bit harder than anticipated, due to 4 inches of mushy snow. Also, it was hard t see the trails, which confused some competitors.