Training Log Archive: Swampfox

I knew that the Happy Jack road had been closed most of the day, but I was still hopeful that if I went up late in the day, that a) the road would be open, b) the groomers would have gone up in the afternoon, and c) just maybe even the parking lot would be plowed.

It developed that the road had been plowed, the parking lot had been plowed, too (bonus!), but there had been no grooming. With very deep new snow, and me with skate skis, that meant d) lots of floundering. It was still fun to get out, and, let's face it, any day you are out in the wilds and in deep new snow and don't get eaten by snowsnakes, you're doing pretty good.

The unpredictable nature of the late season (local) ski crowd was evident today: earlier, before this last snowstorm, we had a few days of some really fine skiing, and almost nobody was up top to enjoy it. Today, colder and with no grooming and very deep new snow, a throng of skiers were out very late in the day, and into the evening. It would probably be a good thing for some PhD candidate to look into for her doctoral thesis.

It snowed all night and continued snowing lightly through the day, so I waited until the late afternoon for Yowsa! so as to get the most conditioning effect out of it,

But when I went outside, what I saw both shocked and horrified me! Someone had poached all my Yowsa!

It had never happened before, and it was really something I had never worried about before either. Laramie is such a relatively safe, the kind of place where if you don't rush outside to retrieve your morning newspaper, you don't have to worry about newspaper thieves running off with their ill-gotten newspaper.

I could tell that it had been an entire crew of Yowsa! poachers: tire tracks and blade marks left in snow remnants on the driveway made it clear the assault had included a truck mounted plow, and footprints on the various sidewalks revealed a more conventional shovel assault there.

They must have been scared off by something, however, because they had left about 20' of sidewalk from my front steps to the main sidewalk, but that was small solace.

Of course I promptly phoned the police to report this outrage, but there was little they could do, as they said they had been overwhelmed by the volume of such incidents reported during the day. They said they suspected Laramie had been targeted by a well organized group of poachers out of Weld County, CO, which is well known as a breeding ground for such nefarious activities, and that while these criminals usually target cattle, during the winter sometimes they turn their unlawful activities to the white innocence of freshly fallen snow.

Up to 115th ski day this season. We should be good to go for a while longer, at least.

Who would have guessed the big question of the day came down to: was it 77 or 79?

Apparently the answer was 79.

Roads were back open today, and something resembling grooming took place at Happy Jack today, as long as you had some imagination. Still more winter than spring today.

Extreme Yowsa! conditions, everything you could hope for--deep, heavy, water saturate snow, in deep drifts along certain fence sides, simply outstanding Yowsa! challenges for those who can't be satisfied by the ordinary challenges of taking out the trash, cutting the grass, or a little light dusting here and there in some forgotten floor corner.

Maybe it will blizzard some more tomorrow!

Quite appropriate to the first day of spring that while biking I heard--and then saw--the first robins here this year. 110th day of skiing this season. This coming week might see some of the snow up top melting away. Or not. You never know when spring might switch back to winter and new blizzards will thunder forth. At 7280', and a jet stream that tends to hover overhead, many things are possible here that are not possible elsewhere

More new snow up top, and trails remained quite soft, even after corduroying today. Despite full sun all day long, temps remained well below seasonal averages, and it was winter in all respects.

Fairly light Yowsa! work, but still fun as the uniformity of the snow depth made it possible to shoot for an unofficial PR. For a few minutes, fresh snow was flying everywhere, this way and that! Yowsa! And then it was all over.

Quite a bit of new snow again fell overnight up top. Trails were rolled and quite soft. There is about as much snow at Happy Jack as I can remember seeing for quite a while--maybe ever.

Temperatures were cold enough that by the end of the afternoon as the sun was setting, ice fogs were developing--and you couldn't escape getting that eery feeling that somewhere, probably not too far off, giant snow snakes were stirring to life again, renewed by the colder temperatures and deepening snows....

4th straight day of at least some snow, and after yesterday/today, there were conditions for some pretty decent Yowsa!; I cruised right through it and got done way too soon. Didn't even work up a sweat. : (

Yowsa! --so fine!

Surprised to see how much new snow there was up top. In the valley, we had about 4". It looked to me that it was more like 14+" on the ski trails. Everything had been rolled, some had been corduroyed--though that was all erased by more snow still arriving. Total winter again; fantastic skiing!

An inch of new snow today on top of yesterday's crisp, frosty corduroy made for some mighty fine skiing at Happy Jack. Considering it's spring break here, the trails felt pretty crowded with me and just 2 other skiers the whole time I was out (over 2 1/2 hours.) It will be nice when the crowds dwindle a bit.

As of the Ides of March I've skied 105 days so far this season.

O' training at Blue Mountain yesterday; legs sore today and they will be sore tomorrow, too, from the downhill running.

I think a lot of people understand being good on the uphills requires training and a high level of fitness; but being good on the downhills *also* requires training and a high level of fitness--something I suspect many never consider.

Mostly cloudy for the day, with various snow squalls passing across the valley, several of which hit Happy Jack while I was skiing. The new snow was such that the main effect was to slow the trails down. Skied long, and did a short run afterwards on one of the snow shoe trails--not well compacted yet after the recent big snow, so tougher running than usual.

It snowed more overnight, and it was so fine to wake up to see that I would get back-to-back days of Yowsa!, just when it was starting to seem it would never snow in measurable amounts again this season.

Trails were totally refreshed by the new snow. Lots of people were out skiing quite late, thinking all the pine needles on the trails had been buried. They were right.

It started off slowly this morning, and picked up speed during the day: a very heavy snowfall with extremely high water content. At last, after 3 dry weeks, conditions for off-the-charts Super Yowsa! were setting up! Yee-haw!

I had so much fun moving all the snow that I saved a little bit of the driveway, just in case the snow stopped and there wouldn't be enough more snow to provide for Yowsa! conditions tomorrow.

It was really extraordinary. Cowboys were driving huge dump trucks through town, offering to buy up snow on the spot, for immediate delivery to California's Central Valley via train, where apparently farmers want to spread it on their fields much like they might do with manure in wetter times.

Of course all the new snow closed the interstate, and that meant no skiing at Happy Jack.

Probably the large amount of very heavy snow = more trees coming down up top.

While running last night after skiing, I heard 2 wings of geese flying overhead. They were headed towards in the Laramie Valley, it sounded like, though it was too dark for me to see them.

I like the sound of geese as a flock is passing overhead. I don't like the sound of geese as they are waddling across Alameda Ave. and taking *forever*!

Quite nice out, and the longest workout ended up being biking today, followed by some skiing and running later in the day. While skiing, it crossed my mind that the last half of February and the inledning of March had been quite dry here, and that in turn reminded me I hadn't heard anything lately about how California was doing rain/snow-wise. One can only hope they're getting more of what they need (snow in the mountains) and less of what they don't need (dry heat.)

Then, in the evening, there was a conference call led by Kris to discuss details and progress concerning the upcoming Rocky Mountain O' Festival. I don't know what others on the call might have thought, but to me this inspirational banner ad by Brooke was the highlight:

From publiken

When it's time for the presidential wannabe to run his next ad, I will ask Brooke to change the chest beating slogan to "Every cliff deserves a contour", which is indisputably correct, and which thereby would go down in history as the first fact cited in his presidential bid.

Unlike yesterday, when I skipped skiing and ran longer instead, today I skied and skipped running. (It helps when you remember to bring your ski boots along with you!) Did intervals on our best hill loop, which, with a few more days of full sun and mild temps, might melt through in one spot.

The wind was at full voracious, eat-em-up levels, with many newly downed trees. Most had already been sawed up and removed by the time I was up top, but one tree across a trail had obviously just come down. Judging by how many trees have come down and appraising the large numbers of beetle kill trees left, next season is likely to feature higher amounts of fallen trees.