Marathon Season: XC Ski Racing

February is a season of transition and culmination. It is the time in the winter when he cross country ski marathon season comes to pass and the winter of training comes to prove your fitness (or otherwise).

The season was particularly exciting as I helped out the Ely high school ski teams. Having witnessed the ski communities intimate support of their racers, I was moved as both Girls and Boys teams battle hard and narrow made state against their formidable opponents. A week later I went to the Minnesota State Cross Country meet to see them compete. Overcoming every expectation, the boys team emerged as champions ahead of the expected favorites. It was a story book season and a testament to perseverance and heart that the kids put into their racing.

With that inspiration I enter the race season myself beginning with the 58 km Mora Vasaloppet. I traditionally do this race every year and help out with the waxing service before hand. This year I was particularly unclear as to my fitness level and had a new approach to racing. I planned to go out slow take my time, stay relaxed, and build speed as the race wound down. And I did just that. I finished the race in a reasonable time of 2 hours 45 min. More importantly, for the speed that I was maintaining I felt perfectly comfortable throughout the race and not even the slightest sign of cramping. As the end of the race neared the end, I was able to tell my body to push hard as I jump skated the last hill and cruised into the finish feeling good.

Turning the corner for the finish of the Mora Vasaloppet

The next weekend I looked forward to a shorter fun race... Book Across The Bay in Ashland, WI. It is low stress 10 km race that takes one across Chequamegon Bay lit by the light of luminaries. As we drove furiously after work at the ski shop and arriving only 17 minutes before the race start I discovered to my dismay that I had forgotten my ski boots back at the ski shop. I frantically asked everyone I knew if they had extra boots of either classic or skate and found nothing. I was more than frustrated! It was suggested that I run the race or get the car and drive to the finish an spectate. Eight minutes before the start I lightened up and took a new attitude about the race.... I would turn it into a true adventure to be remembered. I ran and grabbed my skis and poles and found some twine in a garbage can. The clock was ticking..."5 minutes to race start" as I attempted to lashing my skis to my running shoes. The race started just as I had finished my extravagant twine work. I double poled through the masses and managed to fall on my face multiple times as I deemed the twine completely ineffective. I ripped it off and began running... I head to get in front of the crowds so I did have to maneuver so much. I quick threw down my skis and stood on them... nothing keeping me on them. The tracks were still clogged with skiers so I went ahead double poling in the skate lane literally surfing my skis to direct them and maintain balance. Soon enough I was ahead of the masses enough to find space in the tracks. I jumped in and found that I could really make time not having to surf my skis anymore. I pounded down the track passing folks left and right. Whenever coming up behind another skier in the track I had to ask them to jump out of my path and explain my story... "sorry I can't jump tracks, I'm double poling on my skis with running shoes on" I got some wild looks, some consternation, but mostly laughs and enthusiasm. I ended up finishing the race in this fashion in 46 minutes and as I hopped off my skis at the finish no one seemed to notice. It was a great adventure and a story that I will someday be able to tell my grand children.

The next weekend cam the race of all races, the largest in North America... the American Birkebeiner. The 51 km race from Cable to Hayward, WI is a nordic skiing cultural event and a yearly tradition I plan to never miss. The race also created considerable pressure as it is a seeded wave start and this was my last season to qualify for maintaining my 1st wave status. Yet once again I planned to use my previous strategy and take the race nice and easy off the start and build.

The morning of the race was shockingly balmy as I stripped down to my spandex and waiting to start. The race began with an explosion of skiers and I bided my time. The race turn out well for me as I climbed the hills with relative comfort, as I reached the final stretches of race crossing Hayward Lake I noted the time on my watch... I knew it was time to make myself feel more uncomfortable as a personal best time was within reach.

Climbing one of enumerable hills in the Birkebeiner

I gave a strong effort across the lake and burned into the finish coming in at 2hours and 38 minutes. I was happily surprised at my success and fitness level.

Charging for the home-stretch of the Birkebeiner

My last race of the season came the next weekend as we traveled North to Thunder Bay, Ontario for the 50 km Sleeping Giant Loppet. It was a new race for me and I had few expectations to be met. From the very beginning we knew the race would be warm as temperature had already been in the 40s the day previous. The race began in the sunlight and took the first 15 km fairly easy. I felt strong and upped my pace leading my pack of skiers and slowly surging ahead to catch others.

However when the afternoon sun reached it's peak the snow turn to sticky slush and at the same time the course began to climb. Despite the conditions I still felt strong and charge the hills as best as I could expect. However the last 10 km was flat and went excruciatingly slow. I finished in approximately 2 hours and 40 some odd minutes and was happy with my results.

The season came to abrupt close as the temperatures sky rocketed to full fledged spring feeling and the snow quickly melted away. It was a good race season for me and I was please with my racing. I was a bit shocked that I was in as good of shape as I was, and could only attribute it to long joyous skis in the BWCA! I look forward to the next season!

Winter Camping: Cummings Lake

Sun setting through trees of the BWCA

After what seemed an eternity of unreasonably frigid temperatures, the North wind eased it's blowings and winter eased its ferocity. With the weekends filling up with plans, I decided this would be my last chance to try my hand at Winter camping. In desperate need of sleep, I slept late and spent what was left of the morning plotting my adventure. Due to the constricts of time, I chose Cummings Lake as I had heard word of it's beauty and it had easy overland access via the North Arm trails.

Exiting my car at the trail head, I starred into the snow covered forest and the wonderland that lay ahead of me. I was not the first to set tracks in the new found powder that had been laid upon the ground by a blizzard the week earlier, and it made the travel easier. I had made strides to have the lightest of gear and as little as necessary, however I found that it was difficult to keep my pack under 45 lbs. The amount of insulation and clothing layers needed to safely be warm is not to be under estimated and had burdened my pack. Fortunately skiing does have the impact factor that backpacking does.

Skiing towards Cummings Lake

The landscape was covered in heavenly white as the snow clung to every outcropping branch and I sped onward in awestruck silence. I looked to the sky noting the position of the sun and then to my watch. It was 3:30 pm and I knew I would have to "huff" it to get to Cummings Lake before darkness would fall. The trail ahead gradually became narrower and the number of down falls more frequent. The trail emerged into a bog whose beauty is was accentuated by the winter and the horizon opened to reveal Cummings Lake.

Bog Beauty near Cummings Lake

The rippling sounds of a stream lay apparent nearby and warned me of the possibility of thin ice. I trudge cautiously prodding the ice looking for signs of slush or thinness. After a 100 yards or so, I became slightly complacent and upon looking ahead of me. In seeing that the snow had slumped oddly ahead of me, I stabbed my poles below me confirming a foot of slush underneath. I frantically about faced and sped to safer ice. I threw my poles to the snow and ran my skis over them, effectively removing the slush that threatened to freeze and render my skis glide-less. After prodding the ice for quite some time, I realized the effort was futile. The load of snow over the last weeks had forced slush over much of the lake and a clear path across was unlikely.

I found a comfy parcel of shoreline and set up camp. However, I found that my bindings had frozen solid to my boots. Throwing my down jacket on I set about making a fire to thaw them. After getting a small blazing fire going, after an hour my boots where still firmly affixed to me skis. I could think of no other option than to take them off. I grabbed my sleeping bag stuff sack and placed them over my socked feet and trudged closer to the fire, laughing at my own ridiculousness.

My feet adored in stuff sack while my skis/boots thaw

I used my breath to finally melt the remaining ice and get my boots to release from my skis. Having accomplished this and getting a quick meal I settled in for the night in my bivy. I was surprised at the comfort I had, and was only minimally chilled through out the night inside my 15 deg down bag, lining my -30 deg synthetic bag.

Squeezing into the bivy for the night

I awoke to the morning dawn and prepared for my rude awakening. I opened my bivy flap to -23 degree air and scurried forth applying every piece of clothing possible to my shivering frame. I threw together a quick fire, scarfed a quick breakfast, and set myself to packing. I went between the fire and my tent often as it took 5-10 minutes before my feet and hands would again be painfully cold. Finally after all was packed I stood by the fire for the last time and nervously covered it over with snow. Worried my feet wouldn't stay warm I took off skiing at a furious pace in effort to create some heat. An hour later then feeling started to comeback to my feet. The time and landscape passed quickly, as the trail ended and I found myself driving myself back to comforts of my cabin.

Winter camping on it's own is not a joyful experience, nor does experience it alone add to the experience. But it is an exercise in vulnerability and survival that reminds me of the fragility of life and the comforts of modern life. For days I found myself sweatily overheating as my body slowly adjusted it's thermostat as it realized I was longer struggling for warmth.

Awestuck on the North Arm

When was the last time the world opened up and poured into all your senses until they were overflowing? Do you recall the feeling and can you replay the remembrance in your mind? Some find it on mountain top, in the resonance of music, amidst a river, fast in prayer, amongst dear friends, clinging to a rock, or in the love between souls. The list has no end.

On this day one of those such moments graced my life.

The sun rose upon a transformed landscape giving light to a foot of snow that clung heavily to the scene. Whole trees weary from the weight of the gripping snow leaned to touch the ground. As I drove away from my cabin I was greeted by the first of many inspiring sights. I passed through perfect tunnel of bent trees with the clinging snow blanketing their limbs. I smiled broadly at the exhilaration of bursting through snowy columns hanging limbs finally emerging to open skies.


I left work early, I couldn't any longer stand the thought what I might miss outside the monotonous hospital walls. There was never a doubt as to where I would go. Since the age 4 every summer I had walked the trails along the North Arm of Burnside Lake in wonder. And now I felt strongly pulled to them again. I drove faster hoping to have the woods to myself.

I pulled into the trail head and found that I was alone with the surroundings. I threw my small pack on my back, mounted my skis, and left the civilized world behind. A mere 50 yards in I was already enamored with what I was beholding. Every step floated upon clouds of untouched powder of shin to knee deep in depth. The trees bent so as to greet me.


I stopped in stood in reverence to the sheer silence around me. Not even a breath of wind nor a rustling branch dared interrupted it. Kingly boulders rested capped in a crowns of snow upon the buried and barren bedrock.



Going unnoticed, a grouse leapt from the trail beside me and landed on a limb eye level with me sounding it's alarm a yard from my gaze. We stood without motion eying one another for a long while, before she took flight to a distant limb. Any other time my hunter instinct would have elicited more drastic action towards a grouse, but it was clear that the bird had become clumsy amongst the snow. It would have hard enough time with the season ahead without my attempting to skewer it with a ski pole.

The daylight was waining and the tree's limbs shown golden in the rays of the falling sun. Despite the dying daylight, I couldn't stop; around every corner was painted a unique beauty and I was entranced.


I looked to the pink sky and noticed the white moon still ascending. I welcomed the darkness. In the dim light I set my pack down pulling out some warmer gloves, a down vest, and a headlamp, and headed into the darkness. The trail ahead was lit as if a lantern was hung in the sky. In the moonlight I sailed down powdery slopes heading back.

I drove home in a awestruck and content, brimming with bliss. My heart felt bloated as if over fed with beauty. The greatest tragedy couldn't wipe the smile from my face. Back in the warmth of my cabin, I sat wishing I could have shared the experience with someone else, wondering how would I ever find the eloquence to describe the sheer awe. Even now the preceding words feel inadequate.

Through it all, this day will be preserved amongst the fondest of memories, a day I will hold on to....

Ely Winter: The Kawishiwi Triangle

The air had grown cold; it would leave you breathless in the morning rays. The land outside my cabin had been draped in white, the snow clung to tree limbs ornamenting them in beauty. The icy grip of winter had transformed the lake outside my window to a frozen playground.

As a lover of winter, I had taken to the snow with frequency. The usual was cross country skiing on the local groomed trails. But here on the door step of the wilderness I found that there was more to be explored and skis would bring me where my wanderlust would take me.

However the winter air had grown frigid as temperatures reached no higher than -5 in the peak of daylight and regularly crept to -25 below in the darkness. I made a call on New Years Day and shortly thereafter found myself in a parking lot with two other companions staring across the windswept lakes. Out beyond the horizon we would trek the Kawishiwi Triangle. The daytime high was -6 and as we crossed the first lake my face was numb as the wind had a nasty bite. I am a warm bodied soul, however on several occasions the small bit of flesh exposed outside of my balaclava was ghostly white with frost. Over the course of the trip, we battled slush forced up by the river's current, which would freeze and kill ever bit of glide your skis may have had. I managed to narrowly avoid going through the ice on one occasion. And the trek wouldn't have be complete without an instance of hearty bush wacking through a thicket of alder (the northwoods most frustrating shrubbery). We skied into the darkness anticipating the rising of the moon.

It was a heavenly moment watching the darkness pierced by the moonlight rising out of the white pine studded horizon. I looked back to see our black silhouettes against a canvas of luminous white snow and our tracks a silvery line tracing into the distance. The winds grew colder and maintaining warmth became more challenging. I began to realize how vulnerable I was. Hours from civilization and warmth, needing keep the fire of exertion tended and stoked we could not stop skiing. When we arrived back to the car, I found that my boots were frozen to my skis and bindings hopelessly clogged with ice (sans the slush) as the temperature gauge read -13. Through the beauty and ruggedness of the boundary waters, we had traveled 22 miles in all. As I hopped in the car in my socks and put on borrowed shoes, I couldn't help but crave the unusual: a gas station rice cripsy bar.

For days my cheeks and nose remained as a rosey reminder of the trek. And a week later the skin from my cheeks peeled away, evidently having been been frost bit. It was day to remembered and possibilities opened to me.

First Descent?

The Horizon line on Kawishiwi Falls
(those are people in the distant foreground)

After days in the hospital with dreary skies overhead the sun came out for day. I went out searching for whitewater. I left my cabin somewhat lethargically and hopped into the car to check out the local falls.

Kawishiwi Falls is not unknown to locals nor is in inaccessible. It in fact lies just of the main drag and is only a short hike. When I came upon it I felt my excitement grow. I scurried around the rocks like a small child taking photos from various angles and pondering lines in my head.

The main line on the Falls

The first thing to be discussed is whether it is truly a first descent or has someone in the past taken to this falls? In the months to come I will undoubtedly inquire with locals as to if has been run in the past.

As for the line there are two. Firstly the main line which is clearly obvious and looks promising. The one danger is that it manages to drop vertically onto a rock pile at the finish. But upon finding some pictures online of the Falls in the spring, it appears the pool below fills up substantially in the Spring flows and may cover the rock pile safely? (see comparative photos below)

For comparative sake... (bottom photo is credited Jon Davis via Flickr)

The second line looks equally interesting as the Falls drops over approximately 5-8 ft mostly vertical drop into a hanging pool. The depth of the hanging pool is unknown to me at this time... but I will scout it soon. The from the hanging pool it drops over another ~15 ft vertical falls. The depth of the pool varies, but I will probe it for certain soon enough.

In short there are some strong possibilities for a great couple lines on this falls. In the coming days I plan to put in below the falls at the current low water levels and poke around to see the depth of the pools.

A New Place To Call Home

After a fall filled with the delivery of newborns into the world, mixed with the occasional adrenaline of the lower St. Louis, or relaxing trail run up the North Shore, the daylight became more sparse. The clock ticked away the time as my days in Duluth waned.

I drove Northward in truck filled with all my belongings to my new home. I drove up to my small rural drive to my cabin on the shores of Lake Burntside near Ely, MN. I found myself within the reaches of the Boundary Waters Wilderness surrounded by beauty I had only known in my visits to the area.

The sunset over Burnside (from my kayak)

As the days pass I find myself pouring over maps, exploring the waters on my door step, and running over the trails out my back door. The season's change is at hand and as the waters come to freeze and the snow falls I will find the adventures and possibilities without limit in the winter.

Sturgeon Falls

After hours in the hospital dreaming of being on the water. Seeing the levels at Sturgeon falls imminently dropping, I had to make a trip up there before flows were too low for play. So along with Nora, I made the 8 hour drive into the Canadian landscape. After a night, sleeping in the car I woke Saturday morning and eagerly got onto the water.


The wind was ferocious, as we paddled out into white caps and the sky mottled with grey clouds.
Sturgeon Falls was looking smaller than I had yet seen it, and yet the features were more than enticing. Fortunately, it had rained in the nights previous bumping up the level at Sturgeon Falls, and providing just enough water for eddy access.


The day was a cold one and I spent more hours on the water than the few times I remember being on shore resting. Moreover, was warmer being on the water paddling my heart out, than inactively munching food on shore while the wind swept away what little body heat remained. And so it was that I managed to log at least 5-6 hours of paddling time.

slept heartily and woke to the sun shining glorious as the wind had taken the clouds with it as it blew away. Upon paddling and portaging up to Sturgeon Falls, the river was looking gorgeous. Without wind the water flowed like moving glass. Truly a piece of nature's art. It was even more surreal paddling on the placid flowings. It was excrutiating knowing I had only three hours of paddling before I would drive 8 hours homeward. But the time came and went too fast. I drive home content, and glad that I taken my one chance at getting up to Sturgeon Falls for the year.