My work schedule this week was a bit funky. I was running a bunch of tests, some of which took many hours to run. This meant doing some work at night, but it also allowed me to have some time off during the day. I wanted to use this free time to ski some place new.
I noticed that the Sheep Mountain 150 sled dog race is this weekend. I figured that the groomers would be out in force, buffing the Sheep Mountain and Eureka trails in the week before the race. By going mid-week I could avoid the typical weekend snowmobile rush. It sounded like a great opportunity, so I packed up my gear and hit the road early in the morning.
Road conditions weren’t great, and it took almost three hours to get there. I started skiing at 10 AM. The day was clear and cold, perfect for testing some new gear (overboots, ski pole pogies and long underwear). As soon as I started skiing, I knew I had scored big. Within 5 minutes, I crossed paths with a groomer on a snowmobile and, voila, a perfect trail just for me! He remarked that the trails were in pristine shape for the race, and that I had them all to myself. “Enjoy. You and I are the only ones out here,” he said. Yeehaw!
The only problem was that the snow was so cold and dry (overnight low was about -10 F) that skating was extremely difficult on the flats and impossible on the uphills. I was wearing a huge pack and that made it even harder to skate. But the classic skiing was great, even though I didn’t have kick wax on!
My original goal was to ski a 45 mile loop. But I quickly realized that was out of the question at my shuffling classic pace. So I just cruised along doing whatever technique worked best. After the sun came up, I was able to skate occasionally.
It was a spectacular ski. The sun was shining. I saw five moose and only four people – and two of those people were trail groomers! I managed to ski a 22 mile loop. After skiing, I made a pit stop in the Eureka Lodge to fuel up for the drive home – a cheeseburger, fries, and a bottomless 25 cent cup of coffee.
It was a long drive for a day trip – I spent just as much time driving as skiing. Not a trip to do everyday, but on this day it was totally worth it. Check out the photos…
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