The Moulton Journal: Spring Break for Emily

It feels like springtime in Butte: cold mornings, warm afternoons, bright clear blue skies. We did pick up some snow last week and Paul groomed last Friday before heading off for a downhill ski vacation/family reunion. Emily is home from Boston for spring break, so RTD & I have a skiing buddy again.

The moose are feeding early:

And by mid-morning they seek cool shade:

The moose, too, are anxious for spring. As Emily and I left Walkerville for a morning ski, we saw a yearling moose skylined in a fenced mine reclamation area behind the houses. Next day, the Montana Standard newspaper printed this photo of a cow and calf on a stroll through a nearby uptown neighborhood:

It was a cold morning. About 14 deg F when we left the house in the predawn, and colder at Moulton. Though the trails were a little icy (especially on those steeper, west or south facing slopes on the Sluicebox trail), we had a good "combi" ski, and skated much of time:

Poor old RTD: just yesterday it seems, RTD (aka "the Fasty Pasty") zoomed ahead on those downhills, and raced alongside on the steepest of slopes. She still runs, but not so fast. Through dogs, we learn to appreciate the trajectory of our own lives, and our aged future. Here's RTD, doing her best to keep up with Emily on the road back down to the parking lot:

And what's prettier than Emily's rosy cheeks after a fast ski on a brisk morning?:

Maybe some afternoon we'll head to the Jefferson River and catch a trout for the grill ("hook 'em & cook 'em," as opposed to "catch & release"). It's that time of year.


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The Moulton: Montana's Finest Cross Country Skiing Area

Montana Standard photo: http://www.mtstandard.com/articles/2008/03/11/butte/hjjbjgiijjebji.txt

The Moulton Journal: Springtime in February?

Wow, it's been a hectic week. The return trip from Orono, Maine, class projects heating up & students needing help, faculty union-related business, participating in the Poetry Palooza at the Venus Rising Cafe (hosted by the Butte Silver Bow Arts Foundation, see http://www.bsbarts.org/)... It all makes me glad for cross country skiing, which provides a regular link to nature and an aerobic workout where the stress slides away like snow on a steep metal roof.

I packed my Fischer E99s (the SUV of cross country skis) to Orono, and had a few delightful mornings on the 25 km of trails that loop around the edges of the University of Maine campus. Here's one trailhead next to the athletic fields:

The trails are very flat compared with Montana skiing, and they are extremely well maintained. Lots of white-tailed deer and a few moose. Though a little wide for my tastes, what an asset to have in your college backyard! They get used a lot--cross country skiing is far more popular in Maine than in Montana. Most every town (Bangor, Old Town, etc) seems to have its own trail system, and there are connecting trails so that you can ski from point-to-point most anywhere in the state, it seems.

The weather was truly Maniacal: perfect snow and 25 deg F one morning, rain and slush the next morning, -5 deg F with fresh snow on ice the next... For an Allegheny Mountain boy like me, though, it was a joy to ski amid the mixed hemlock/white pine/hardwood forest. Few trees are more beautiful than the graceful hemlock with its gentle boughs:

Or the beech still clinging to its leaves in the middle of winter:

Back at The Moulton, weather was very spring-like last week. The snow on Big Flat (aka Moonlight Flat) set up firmly, making it possible to tour about anywhere you cared to go. So long as you were out in the open and not in the woods, the snow would hold you up. For skiers new to The Moulton, Big Flat can be reached from the south end of Neversweat or from where the meadow crosses Claim Jumper. The trails lie just to the east of Big Flat, and you're never more than a hundred yards or two away from the trails. Here's RTD, trying to catch up:

Our mid-elevation hills are often big open parks on the south and west slopes. The combination of wind and sun simply make these areas too dry for trees. I love the wide open space of Big Flat, and the panoramic views of the various mountain ranges that encircle Butte. Here's the view to the Butte Flats, airport, and Highland Mtns:

And the Pintler Range:

And Mt Powell, down the Clark Fork River valley near Deer Lodge:

Winter has returned, with six inches or so of snow overnight. It was icy and warm to begin with, but quickly settled into fluffy powder. Ski on!

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The Moulton: Montana's Finest Cross Country Skiing Area

The Moulton Journal: Skiing Right out of your Boots...

I never thought of myself as all that aggressive a skier, so when I bent the toe pin on a brand new pair of Salomon "Escape Pilot 7" boots I felt a mix of pride and disappointment. Disappointed that a brand new pair of fairly pricey boots was shot. Proud that I was setting a sub-11 minute pace on The Yankee Boy loop. Proud that I could ski so hard as to wreck a new pair of boots. But I try not to let delusions control my life, and have no doubt that Salomon is suffering some quality control/soft metallurgy issues. Here's a close up of the bent toe bar:


I've skied on a now beat up pair of Fischers for nigh on eight years, and everything BUT the toe bar is about worn out. I've been holding the soles to the boot with "Shoe Goo" this season, and was looking forward to new boots. So it goes. Here are the old boots:

Most of the time, I ski on the Fischer E99 "backcountry" skis with heavier boots anyway, but there are those perfectly groomed, fast snow days when its fun to combi-ski (wax for kick up the hills, but skating on the more or less flats) on the featherlight, skinny little Madshus classic skis. Although the cross country ski trails of The Moulton are Montana's finest, they aren't "overgroomed" like a lot of trails these days. And with the almost daily accumulations of snow this winter, it's hard for an awkward skier like me to get by on skinny, classic equipment--at least if I'm on the more challenging north area trails like The Yankee Boy and Big Nipper/Widow Maker.

Oh yeah, let me put in a plug here for Akers Ski, Inc., the "cross country specialist" business in Andover, Maine. Tim (Akers?) has offered me consistent, good advice for years (by phone), and I've bought several pairs of skies and boots from Akers. When I emailed the folks at Akers this morning about the Salomon failure, they were great! They'll take care of sending the boots back to the manufacturer, and I'm exchanging them for a comparable pair made by Atomic. If you're in the market for cross country skis, boots, or gears, check out Akers at www.akers-ski.com. Good people. Good prices. Good selection.

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The Moulton: Montana's Finest Cross Country Skiing Area

The Moulton Journal: Shifting Baselines, a Couple of Moose, and Skiing as Story

Shifting Baselines
It's a scary thought: all us skiiers are raving about what a great snow year this is. Yet, when you look at the last hundred years or so of data, it's really very average. But as humans (or Americans, anyway), we forget the lessons of history and only the recent past is our basis for comparison. Thus all of those so-called "drought" years from 1998 to 2007 are now normal, and the winter of 2007-08 looks exceptionally white and cold.

This is a good example of the classic phrase "shifting baseline," coined by biologist Daniel Pauly to explain how fisherman (and fisheries biologists) came to accept declining fish populations. In other words, it's all a matter of what you are used to. But no, it isn't: whether declining fish populations or global warming, there are real human impacts on the environment. If we do not appreciate their severity, we will end up like the Greeks or Romans or all those cultures that caused their own demise by ruining their environment [cf. Diamond (2005) Collapse].

But the snow is here, and I will get out there and enjoy it.

Moose
Since December, I've been seeing The Moulton moose cow and her calf separately. I thought that, as it seems to happen each year, the cow had driven the calf away or it had left on its own to stake out its own willowy territory. But this morning, there they were together again, feeding in the willow bottom near the Downy place (a mile or so below the parking lot), and bedded down as I returned:


Skiing as Story
Cross country skiing the trails of The Moulton is a performative act. It is something like Walter Ong and others thesis about Homer's Illiad and other oral traditions: they were never told the same way twice. Instead, the poem or song is stitched together from prefabricated parts, each with its own memorable thoughts, rich sensual metaphors, and other distinguishing features. And it's not a book that you read just once.

And so it is with a ski at The Moulton or with similar performances such as a hike through a familiar area. Each performance is a new story. In part, this is trivially true in a Heraclitean sense that "You can't step in the same river twice:" the snow, wind, temperature, light, wax, the pair of skis you're on, mouse tracks, and so forth are all different each time.

But in an equally interesting sense, each ski or hike is unique because of the way we stitch together familiar elements. Climbing across the ridge and skiing down the Buzzy Trail with its Single Jack and Double Jack is one day's introduction to The Moulton story, whereas another day might be introduced by way of a trek across the meadow, up the Orphan Girl hill, and down Wake Up Jim. Like Richard Brautigan's Trout Fishing in America, there is no one right order in which to read the chapters.

Sadly, I think, many residents of Modernity believe in and seek The One True Order. They seek the linearity of alpha-omega from beginning to end in an invariant way. They march into Iraq determined to transform diverse cultures that do not share "our" values into a democractic, "one nation under capitalism" neo-con version of Amerika.

This is exactly why we need the disorder, diversity, and complexity of nature and wilderness. It is a counterpoint to our daily experience of culture and technology, it challenges us to surrender our rational linearity, and it helps us discover the beauty of our relationship to the earth.

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The Moulton: Montana's Finest Cross Country Ski Trails

The Moulton Journal: Full Moon Skiing at -20 deg F

Woke up to a Martin Luther King day with the thermometer on the porch showing about -20 deg F. Radio said the airport (down on the flats, where the cold air settles) was -34 deg F. That's chilly, and the Toy started only grudgingly for it's trip to Dick's Auto for a little maintenance. As always, I had planned to ski the full moon. But my plans were easily frozen by a weather report calling for even colder temperatures that night.

I decided on an afternoon ski and waited until the air warmed to -15 deg F in the early afternoon to head up to The Moulton. As always when it's cold, the old LandRover cranked slow and gave every indication of not starting, but then the spark caught and it fired to life. I waxed with Swix Polar, and even that made for slow skiing. Surprise, though, near sunset when RTD and I finished The Yankee Boy loop and made ready to ski down to the parking lot, the air had warmed to -5 deg F.

That happens in our valley sometimes, as warm air slowly makes its way up to the higher elevations from down valley places such as Deer Lodge (i.e. the "lodge of the white tailed deer," as the indigineous people called it).

Still, I was surprised when Andrea Stierle called just as Jan & I were sitting down to supper to ask me if I was up to ski that night. "Well, sure." And so RTD and I joined Don and Andrea, as did fellow Frigidaironaut Mike Stickney.

The air was so clear that neither the lights of Butte nor the stars seemed to twinkle. The moon lit the landscape of Big Flat (aka Moonlight Flat) with that brilliant yet eerie light that collapses great distances. Butte is ringed with mountain chains of the Great Divide: the Tobacco Roots, Highlands, Pioneers, Pintler, and Flint Creek ranges stood brightly on the horizon, appearing to be a short hike away.

After our ski we stopped into the Stierles' cabin, enjoyed the warmth of the wood stove and a hot cup of tea, and talked in that easy way of tired, old friends. Back in the parking lot, as Andrea observed, "One of the loveliest sounds of winter – your truck starting when you are several miles from town and it’s -18!"

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The Moulton: Montana's Finest Cross Country Ski Trails

The Moulton Journal: A Winter's Tale

This morning, our world of sin is blanketed with the most amazing snowfall--light, feathery little bundles of interlocked flakes; four inches deep on the front sidewalk, but easily swept away with a broom. There is not a breath of wind, and walking along the flanks of Big Butte I was mesmerized watching this fluff fall from the sky, drifting down at less than a meter per second.

Yesterday dawned cold and clear. Here's the view west, with the sun just beginning to light the higher peaks of the Pintler:

The -14 deg F temperature at The Moulton made for slow skiing, but on such a day it is a joy to be outside. I warmed quickly skiing up the main access road from the parking lot, and it felt good to linger here and there where the sun lit up an opening in the trees. Breath, perspiration, and snot freeze on contact with the frigid air; cold fingers pry into the lingering soul:

The cow moose that has been hanging out in the willow bottom near the parking lot moved down the valley. Did even she feel the cold last night, or has she some intuition of deeper snow to come? Poor man that would presume to know the mind of a moose. Here she is, just a mile or so above Walkerville:

On a cold morning such as this, warm vapors rise from the Berkeley Pit (the world's largest toxic lake) and form the notorious "Pit Fog." Here it is, like brute matter brought to life, towering over the town:

The Moulton Journal: Cognitive Development & Cross Country Skiing

Skiing up and around the unpacked Buzzy Trail the other morning, and then on the closely enfolded, packed but ungroomed Yankee Boy Trail (which is, as I write this, beautifully groomed), it was all very comfortable. Not so many years ago, I found skiing these trails a contact sport.

Winter can last from November to April here in the northern Rockies. Anyone who likes the outdoors should NOT let winter keep them inside. For many years, I did a lot of snowshoeing. It's still the best way to get around steep, icy slopes and thick timber. But I gradually transitioned to cross country skiing more and snowshoeing less. There's something about the grace, speed, and sheer physicality of cross country skiing that is very compelling.

Like any activity that requires focal engagement & patient vigor* -- i.e. putting in the time to gain experience and competency -- it takes most of us awhile to become comfortable on cross country skis. Many people just cannot (or do not) put in the time. It's that way for the Christmas-New Years skiers, and similar to the opening day trout anglers, or the July 4th backpackers. For many activities such as these, the IDEA is much more appealing (and easier) than the REALITY.

We live in a society that thrives on fantasy. People read the catalogs and maybe even buy the gear. They imagine wonderful adventures and learn all the lingo. In some sad vicarious way, that seems to be enough. And many others simply become so sucked into "work" and related activities that they do not clear the space & time in their lives for meaningful exercise and knowing nature. Again, for such folks, watching a wildlife movie on TV seems to be enough.

Cross country skiing and touring can be a little scary (especially for folks who come to it in middle age and who are not natural athletes) until they develop their fine-motor balance muscles. After that, it's not so bad. I had a lot of inner ear problems as a kid and have terrible balance (I can't balance on one foot without visual clues), but figured out the skinny ski thing OK. I'll never be a racer or a master of graceful tele turns with light skis on steep slopes, and that's OK too. As Clint Eastwood's character, Harry Callahan, says, "A man's got to know his limitations."

Most skiers, as they develop skill and confidence, will learn to wax for various conditions and will probably end up owning several pairs of skis. For the beginner, it need not be so complicated. A good quality pair of "fish scale" or no-wax skis and boots will suffice. Increasingly, new skiers begin with relatively short, wide skis. Although slow and a bit heavy, these wider skis help with balance and stability, especially on areas that are not groomed to perfection.

If you are lucky, you will have friends that ski, and who are willing to encourage you. In my own case, there was Mark Goebel back in Bradford, Pennsylvania. As my Assistant Scoutmaster, he was kindly insistent that the troop include some cross country ski outings in our "camp every month of the year" program. And, upon moving to Butte, my new friend Dave Carter introduced me to the local trails and helped get me past the psychological impasse of waxing. Thanks guys!

Cross country skiing takes a little practice. For many people, the best advice is (as the Nike slogan says), "Just do it." Most areas have lots of flat areas (such as parks or golf courses) to practice on, and soon the hills will seem easy. Come winter, what's a hiker and backpacker to do? You can't just sit inside and molder in front of the TV. So take up cross country skiing, or at least its slow cousin, snowshoeing (there are even hybrid snow shoe-skis, made by Karhu I think). These winter activities are the closest winter thing to hiking, with all the attendant exercise (it's good for everybody), communing with nature, and being part of an active, outdoor community.

* Focal engagement and patient vigor are terms developed by the philosopher of technology & modern life, Al Borgmann, in his book, Crossing the Postmodern Divide (University of Chicago Press, 1992). I highly recommend this book.

The Moulton Journal: Being Close to Nature on Montana's Finest Cross Country Ski Trails

My daughter, Emily Munday, looks forward to a ski outing or two when she is home from college in the winter. I can see why. In part, it is the physical experience of aerobic exercise in fresh, cold air. There is also a chance to commune with nature through quiet, muscle-powered locomotion--observing various tracks, laughing with the chattering pine squirrels, flushing the occasional grouse, watching the big cow moose that lives in the meadow below the parking lot, and knowing the niches where lodgepole pine, Engelmann spruce, and Douglas-fir make their home. The Moulton ski trails greatly enhance this experience. They are narrow, winding, and vary constantly in grade. "Attention must be payed."

Here's Emily on Little Nipper:

Like all trails at Moulton, it takes its name from a mine or mining term. Nippers were the guys (often boys or young men) who sharpened tools and brought them to miners in locations throughout the mine. Because of their travels, they were also the "newspaper" of the mine. At The Moulton, Little Nipper is a delightful, intermediate loop for classical or skate skiing.

Here's Emily preparing to descend Widow Maker on the Big Nipper trail:

"Widow maker" had at least two meanings. It was a loose plate of rock on the roof of a drift or stope that might fall and crush a miner; and the term was also used for the pneumatic (compressed air-powered) drills that created clouds of dust that caused "miner's lung" or silicosis (also known as a Buzzy--the name for another Moulton trail). At The Moulton, it's part of the challenging Big Nipper loop--as indicated by the trail signs.

Snowshoe hares (Lepus americanus) seem to prefer the spruce and willow habitat of Big Nipper. All but the ear tips and eyes turn white in winter, they are largely nocturnal, and so they are seldom seen. But their tracks are very distinctive, and the big feet help them travel over snow and elude predators such as coyotes whose feet punch through the snow:

One of the joys of hiking or skiing with Emily is that she notices things that most of us speed past or take for granted. Here, she pointed out the mouse that had been coming & going from its den beneath a rock:

Good luck back at college, Em. And bring back a few new bumper stickers for the Land Rover. The ones you decorated it with in high school are wearing a little thin:

The Moulton Journal: Winter Solstice Party, Moonlight Ski

How often does the Winter Solstice occur with a full moon? With that happy coincidence this year, and a dump of fresh snow, a large group of friends converged on Don & Andrea Stierle's ("DnA") cabin at The Moulton. Highlights of the party included food (of course), dancing naked around a pyre (well, just kidding about that naked dancing), and moonlight skiing. Here's Andrea, the gracious hostess (for info on DnA's research, see the recent New York Times article at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/09/us/09pit-.html):

At least one of two things is necessary, I think, if you are going to live in Montana. ONE, you need to like snowy, cold weather and the kind of outdoor activities (such as skiing) that go along with it. And/or TWO, you need a good circle of friends with whom to socialize. Without at least one of these, you will gradually succumb to cabin fever as the blustery storms of November turn to the long dark days of December, or when the bright and sunny but frigid cold days of January and February turn to the brief false hopes of spring that come in March, or when winter settles back in for the duration of April only to give way to renewed false hopes of spring in May which leads to a big snowstorm in June that bends your lilac blossoms to the ground.

Here are some of those friends, heading outside and circling a large pile of beetle-killed lodge pole pine slash:

Don't stand too close--that's Bill "The Pyromaniac" Macgregor dancing around the woodpile, pouring on the gasoline (we really should do an intervention next year, and hand him a can of #1 diesel instead):

Feel the burn. Without the annual winter solstice pyre, the days would grow shorter and shorter as the light of the sun and all are hopes grew dimmer and dimmer. Next thing you know, we'd all be building religious shrines on the ridges, such as "THEIR Lady of OUR Rockies" (see http://www.ourladyoftherockies.com/). Thankfully, that's not happening. This crowd will settle for a good old pagan bonfire:

And a ski, helped out by the Good Samaritan Groomer (aka Paul Sawyer) who spent that morning laying down the corduroy. Turns out there wasn't much moonlight, thanks to a heavy cloud cover that helped keep temperatures at a reltively balmy 8 or 10 deg F. Here's Butch Gerbrandt, Emily Munday, and RTD at Amalgamation Junction:

At the Winter Solstice we are like Robert Frost's traveler (or Emily), standing long and contemplating alternative futures for the New Year. All good wishes for whatever path you take:

The Moulton Journal: Last Ski at Mill Creek?

The Moulton area just north of Butte/Walkerville has picked up some snow the past fewe days, so my every-other-day trek over to the "Mount Haggin Skiing Area" near the Mill Creek pass might be over. It will be good to get back to the challenging and varied Moulton trails, and why drive 25 miles when you can drive 5?

The snow in the Mill Creek pass area is very good, and though it's about the same elevation as Walkerville it is typically about 10 deg F cooler. Typically, green Swix kick wax (0 to 10 deg F) is about right for an early morning ski, but here's Roly-the-Dog (RTD) posing on a recent "extra blue" morning:

The cooler weather on the Big Hole side of the Continental Divide has not deterred the pine beetle invasion. Entomologists tell us that it takes a week or so of c. -30 deg F weather to suppress the pine beetle population. These cold spells were common up until the late 1990s, however since then Global Warming has really kicked in. Our annual precipiation is about the same as the longterm historical average, but overall temperatures average consideralby warmer, and extreme cold spells just don't seem to occur at all. Here's a view of dying lodgepole pines along the flanks of Sugarloaf Mountain. Given the rapid spread of the beetles, probably the trees that are still green will be dead within a few years:

Wednesday of this week was downright balmy. The Mill Cr pass area received several inches of fresh snow, early morning temperatures were near freezing, and RTD & I paused while I corked some purple wax into the kickpockets of my skis. This also gave me a chance to photograph a tiny "snow spider"--they are common in the winter when it warms to near or above freezing, and must have antifreeze for blood:

Here's RTD posing for a "first tracks" pic on our way up the Little California loop:

Up along the level, top-most portion of the trail, a big cow moose dashed across the trail just a hundred feet or so ahead of us, making me glad that RTD is well behaved about such things. Moose can get downright pissed over dogs that chase them, as Dave & I found out when my little hound, Nellie, chased a big bull moose in the Highlands. It turned on her, and luckily we were not far from Dave's truck.

The Moulton Journal: wind erases all

Wind erasing our tracks.

Wind, breath, pneuma, spirit, logos:
In the beginning was the wind.

This morning was the weekly TC Dept ski. Lori & I, w/ KelpieTheDog and RTD, went from Motherlode up Buzzy, then around Big Nipper and back. It was a blustery day on the heels of a blustery night, and my tracks from yesterday were barely discernible even in protected areas.

Not a long ski, but a discursive one--dissecting the nature of signs, Lori's goals in the MS project, the virtues of old & young dogs. On our way up the road we met Rick Rossi, dogless and on new skis. His ski buddy died of bone cancer and I was saddened to learn this. Owners of true companion dogs may be a diverse lot but we share an animal bond that, for better or worse, reflects truly on our own nature (if we dare to look).

Wind, that "spirit that moves in all things," erased our tracks as surely as it snuffs out the life of our dog. Short-lived companion, relative to us. Eventually the wind snuffs us out too. If we listen to and read canine companionship, then we can learn this lesson although we might never really accept or understand it.

Some beings endure longer than others. Methuselah the biblical guy lived 969 years. Methuselah the bristlecone pine is pushing 5,000 years and still going strong. And some signs endure longer than others. Gramps carved his name into a board on a horseshed wall in 1911 and last time I visited Cobb Hollow (near Nichols Run, NY) it was still there. Near Moab UT you can see 100-million year old dinosaur tracks. The wind just hasn't gotten to them. Yet.

For me it's still a matter of putting one foot (or ski) ahead of another and making tracks. In light of yesterday's thoughts on teleology, am I getting anywhere? Maybe to the next tree or to the next downhill run. And maybe that's enough.

The Moulton Journal: purple haze

Yes, it was a Jimi Hendrix experience this morning. An inch of snow fell overnight and the temperature hovered around 30 deg F. Off and on, new snow fell softly to the ground through air so quiet that you could hear the flakes' gentle hiss. The exercise-opiates were surging this morning.

Two loops around the north trails--one alone with RTD, and then one with Lori & Kelpie.

Wow. After several days of not skiing, I was getting grumpy. In town, even on the hill in Walkerville, no more than a dusting of snow accumulated overnight. But I trusted to faith, knowing the ability of The Moulton to pull snow like a magnet from the dry culdesac of the west slope of the Great Divide that is Butte.

Swix Purple fills a small niche in the ecosystem of kick wax. Blue Extra seems to work tolerably well most days even as the temperature approaches freezing. But when it's that warm (but freezing or below) with new snow, it's Purple time.

I discovered another virtue of Purple this morning. It provided great grip and I could walk up even the steepest hill on Yankee Boy, yet released with a simple kick as I went back to gliding once I crested the top; this I knew. What I did not know was Purple's weird braking effect: as I began a descent the skis were virtually frictionless. However, as my speed reached a fast pace I could feel a gentle but distinct deceleration--which I appreciated given that the runs are very icy under that new snow. My hypothesis: as the speed of the ski accelerates to some critical point, it generates enough heat to cause a transition in the snow. The warmer, transitioned snow sticks to the Purple and brakes the ski.

Probably this is one of those micro-bits of practical knowledge that occurs only a few times in the life of a recreational skier, like those rare moments on the river when you find just the right drift/dry fly combination and you can trigger trout to strike at will.

But that is what embedded knowledge of nature is all about-- appreciating the unique and varied nuances of our world. As the great Enlightenment-era biologist Buffon said, "There are no species, only individuals." Like snowflakes or stepping into rivers, each occurs only once.

The Moulton Journal: a good skinny day

Paul finished grooming Saturday and yesterday brought an inch of fresh snow and the predawn morning temperature was in the high teens: all in all, good portents for a fine skinny ski day. Most days, I step into a pair of Fischer E-99s: a not-too-heavy back country ski, traditional 210 cm length but a bit on the wide side with some side-cut and steel edges. They are the 30-06 rifle of cross-country skis, able to do about anything I can do and a lot that I can't. [And on days when I'm sure I won't scuff the pine-tar off, I'll be on a beautiful old pair of wooden Head BC that I picked up "brand new" (never had bindings installed) for $10 at a Butte pawn shop. ]

But today was a day for the classic skinny Madshus. They are a lot faster than the E-99s, of course, and with my mediocre sense of balance I can barely stand up in them. Light but stiff, they hold wax well and conjure sweet visions of racers of yore. They are lovely on a groomed track, and the closest I ever come to enying those who skate ski.

Lots of work to do today, so I was on the snow at first light and kept it fairly short--a couple of loops around Nugget and then back down to the truck. Saw Rick Rossi's rig, he's back into his daily ski rhythm by the looks of things. And oh yes, the moose was out too.