Cross Country Skiing Bloomington 2004/2005

Thursday, December 23, 2004. Snow Emergency! We've got snow...no excuse this year...don't wait for a warm up!

Hey, we got a guest report:

John,

Frustrating first day of the year. Got out late at 10:30 at night and drove to the IU Golf Course. With the conditions worsening I could only tell that one other person had been at the parking lot in the past few hours. The wind was pretty bad from the north and carrying a lot of snow with it. So I started to look for tracks heading out of the parking lot but could find none. So away I headed and sank straight up to my knees! So much for the skinny skis tonight. I needed some good wide BC skis.

This only lasted about 15 minutes and then I turned and headed up to the truck. Maybe after the conditions settle a bit it will be better. Snowshoes would have worked much better tonite! The one time in a decade we need someone with a snow machine and a track setter.

Read your report I am glad you enjoyed the freshies. Do you know if Gnaw Bone grooms?

Cool,

Corbin

"It doesn't have to be "fun" to be Fun!"-Mark Twight

    Corbin, Thank you for your report and question. Maybe you will start a write-in trend.
    The only cross country grooming I know of in Indiana is the cooperative grooming of sharing each others tracks. Now that the snow has stopped, conditions will get better quickly. The more people who get out today in the soft snow the more tracks we will have.
    Snow really is different every time. This powder clears to the side pretty easy, so setting tracks could be harder given the depth. Though setting tracks is always work that requires an attitude of volunteerism. That is the reason I try to do both.
    I wonder what the super cold temperatures on the way will do to our snow. If it were wet now, or melting, it would get very hard to set new tracks in coming days, but if the humidity of the snow stays low, we may be ok. The best situation would be lots of set tracks then a little melting before the super cold temperatures. That would keep our tracks from blowing shut.... We will see...
    Once the tracks are set, we are going to be having fun and it will be around for a while. I haven't skied in the woods yet, but this is definitely the time to get out in the forests of Indiana.
    I was shoveling snow and warming up in the hot tub this morning. WFIU called for an interview, while we were out in the 12º tub having a glass of wine. Their reporter, Chad Buchard called back at 1 PM. He had been out skiing the streets of Bloomington at Midnight on Wednesday. He skied to WFIU/ work today.
    I heard on the radio that the national guard was called out for this snow emergency. It was illegal to drive in something like 30 Indiana counties today. Indianapolis and north of us had inches less. We are the national news story on TV and radio. Funny that it takes this much snow for some people to think of skiing... it's not really the absolute best of conditions given our lack of corporate grooming of tracks, but beautiful and a great early start to the season.    Mamoru Ito (see January 1999) in Japan learned of the snow here and wrote to be sure we were ok.

    I got out at 7PM, it was dark and the moon was bright. The sparkle of moon light on the snow was the best part. There was barely anyplace to park at the IU Golf Course. I would try starting from the IUF parking lot until the Golf Course lot is plowed. Even my 4WD Geo Tracker is having trouble, because the 12" drifted snow is building up under my car and lifting the wheels off the ground. My in-track cross country skis were no fun trying to set new tracks, though I did start a few. It seemed the tracks others set today did not go as deep in the snow as mine and were very nice, but too few. They are fast and will be your reward for going out and setting some new trails yourself. Come on everybody get out there and pay the price. Effort building trails now may pay off over the next few days. The weather predicts melting temperatures by Tuesday, but my experience says they will have missed the effect of this much snow on air temperature. I am thinking we are going to get a week out of this, but we need some who bought Back Country (wider) cross country skis to get out their and make us some trails. BC boots look like leather hiking boots if you got a set and haven't been using them because the glide was so little, this is the snow you have been waiting for. My narrow skis are just sinking in to my knees.

Friday December 24, 2004- I skied Karst Park's nature walk area mid afternoon between last minute holiday details. Looked like someone else did a short test of the snow on the west side of the park. No one had been skiing or even walking their dog on the nature walk side of the park since Wednesday. I did see lots of faint tracks from then. Without track setting equipment, we don't really need this much loft. This was lots of work for virtually no glide, but now you can enjoy my tracks. As you enter the park, take the drive to the right as far back as it goes. The city of Bloomington has cleared enough area that you can park while you ski. They are open during daylight hours, but I have skied in from the school parking lot next to the park, when I have been there later.
    Very cold, 4ºF at 10 am and 4º at 5:30 PM. The snow is still deep and powdery. The sun was bright and the diamonds are beautiful beneath our feet. If this snow melts a little and then refreezes next week with a lighter snow placed on top, then we might have a base for much of January. Time will tell.

Saturday December 25, 2004- Send your Bloomington report if you got out this day. info@bikesmiths.net
I regret having to admit to not getting out on this day. My foot to snow test in the late day said that this snow would still have been difficult to set tracks, but a temperature of 20ºF and sunny would have made the track setting more productive as the wetter snow would have molded better. We are hoping to find more quality trails set by those who did get out on Saturday as we check the trails on Sunday.

Sunday December 26, 2004- The temperature was 18ºF at 8:15 AM & 22º at 5 PM. I am hearing disturbing rumors of warm temperatures (like 45 to 60ºF) by the end of the week. I expect those highs to fall short, but our hoped for long term skiing is questionable enough that I must encourage you to get out now! If the talk of "volunteering" to set trails had you thinking "too much work", others have done lots of trails at the IU Golf Course and now setting new ones is also much easier because the snow has compacted quite a bit. Great glide and a nice temperature. I saw four or five others out during my ski starting from the Club house and skiing over to the IU Foundation, then back around the back side of the main course. One man from Kansas, whose parents live here took credit for setting the trails this year. He said it was a lot of work, but the snow was actually faster on Saturday. Great snow that should last until at least Friday, when we might get rain. Here is my tip... if we do get rain, put on your breathable waterproof clothing and ski in the rain. There is no better skiing than that, save perhaps a freezing rain on snow.

Monday December 27th 2004- My camera broke on Thursday. Please someone send me a Monroe County XC skiing picture from this week.
This was a beautiful day for XC skiing, but I didn't. We had friends friends fly in from Louisiana and we spent the day at museum and theater in Indianapolis. What a day to miss. Anyplace with even one pass of skis would have been great all day. The temperature rose from single digits in the early morning to 25ºF by 6:30 PM. Beautiful thick frost on everything all morning... the first time the trees have been all white this year. As I wrote this at 10:30 PM the moonlight is so bright that night skiing tonight would have been an experience to remember a lifetime. I hope you got out, if you did, send a short report for me to add here.

Tuesday December 28th 2004- Beautiful, wonderful skiing. At 7:15AM, I started out from behind the IU Foundation. The sunrise was fantastic, red , red, red. The snow was pink. Chasing a small herd of small deer, as the ski turned less red, I followed ski tracks into the woods. Setting tracks was easy even in the woods as I went to an outlook on the west side of the golf course lake. The woods skiing was not so great on that terrain, so I drove over on Matlock road toward lake Griffy. I followed in one other persons ski tracks set earlier on loop trail, .3 mile. The city should plow that parking lot.... get out in the woods or someplace today. This is the best skiing ever. Tomorrow might be rain, but with rain pants and jacket... it will still be great. Tuesday night with a warm wind out of the South snow was sliding off our metal roof and crashing to the ground shaking our whole house.

This day the news was of the largest natural disaster in history. The tsunami puts in perspective our little snow emergency that was two days earlier, world news.

Wednesday December 29th 2004- We continue to entertain visitors from out of state and today drove to the Indianapolis 500 Museum and then some antique shopping and Bloomington sightseeing through car windows.   We didn't get the predicted rain and fog, but I had to watch this beautiful snow melting, knowing that I was missing some of the fastest snow of the year. I was disappointed that this snow did not have more power against the nearly 50º winds from the South that came in all night. Some grass was appearing and by Thursday, snow might even be less than grass again. Remember... All skiing is water skiing.... If it is white, it is skiable... Snow on the wane is always skiable... Get out their and enjoy this snow... Who knows, this could be it for the season,... but we doubt it. Still those who wished this snow gone are getting their wish.

Thursday December 30th 2004- I got up early to go out at the first hint of sun. The radio reported the dense fog that I was driving through. The temperature was 41ºF at 8 AM and because of the fog, it was barely light. As I made new tracks to the nature walk area of Karst Park, I wondered if there would be enough snow on those trails to make it worthwhile. More than worthwhile, all of the ground was still 90% snow covered. The tracks set by others were at least 90% still skiable, fast and the scene was beautiful.

As I exited the back of the nature area I was soon passing the sign that said Soccer field closed, "stay off the grass". As I skied the middle of the soccer field, no grass was in sight, in fact everything was white! The fog was the color of the snow and even if not for the deaths of over 100,000 people with Sunday's tsunami and my cousins passing, a vision and thoughts of heaven would have passed through me:

Martha A. Decker, 67, a resident of Frances House, 3322 Frances Lane, died 9:45 p.m. Monday, Dec. 27, 2004, at Howard Regional Health System. She was born Aug. 31, 1937, in Fort Wayne, a daughter of Lawrence W. and Meta C. (Schultz) Decker.

I returned home to donate to the American Red Cross and St. Francis House of Kokomo. Even tearful moments are better on skis.

2004 year end wrap up: Unbelievably by sun-down of the 30th, every bit of snow was gone except for some very small, piles of snow left by snowplows. Nine ski days were recorded by this point in the 2004/2005 XC ski season. The death toll from the Tsunami passed 150,000. Iraq seemed ever worsening. The term "blog" entered our vocabulary to discribe what this X-C ski web space has been doing since 1997. I look forward to many more ski outings in 2005.

2005

The first 5 days of 2005 where above freezing or else this would have seem like the Colorado Rockies. The 6 inches of rain that brought record flood waters to the area would have been 60" of snow.... is that right?

Our snow history:

Snow days '97 /'98 Snow days '98 /'99 Snow days '99/Y2K Snowdays '00/'01 Snowdays '01 /'02 Snowdays'02/'03 Snowdays '03/'04