J2 Girls:  Bria Riggs, Gabrielle Rinne, Savannah Blide, Amanda Kirkeby, Skyler Flora, Danielle Nivinski, Camille Hartley, Tara Gallant
J1 Girls:  Katrin Larusson, Cassidy Cichowicz, Laurel Fiddler, Joelle Romo, Raylene Chew
OJ Girls: *Melanie Swick, *Annika Taylor, **Joanne Reid
J2 Boys: Sam Zabell ,Peter Holmes, Dylan Syben, Julien Bordes, Peter Carroll, Evan Vomund, Eli Yale
J1 Boys:  Patrick Mcelravey, Jordan Mcelroy, Shane Christian, Branden Deeter, Alex Koptyko, *Joe Piercy
OJ Boys: *Austin Meng

* = Accepted via Petition Process
** = Accepted via Automatic Qualification

Complete JO standings.

There were 116 racers at Auburn Ski Club for today’s President’s Cup, the 3rd and final Junior National Qualifier for this season.

Farm Team racer Elias Bucher won the 10 kilometer men’s race with a time of 20:43.7, Far West junior Patrick McElravey was 2nd at 20:47.0, and Tav Streit was 3rd at 20:53.6. Far West junior Cassidy Cichowicz won the women’s race at 23:37.3, Nancy Fiddler was 2nd at 23:48.7, and Laurel Fiddler was 3rd at 24:02.1. In the 5 kilometer J2/J3 race Gabrielle Rinne was first for the girls at 11:57.2, with Hannah Halvorsen 2nd, and Skyler Flora 3rd. Peter Holmes was 1st for the boys at 10:37.5, with 2nd place going to Sam Zabell, and 3rd place to Julien Bordes. The 2 kilometer junior race was won by Ryland Belisle and Alexandra Tinsley.

Race Results
JNQ Results
JNQ Standings
Photos by MacBeth Graphics

ASC CNISSF CHAMPIONSHIPS PURSUIT
February 18, 2012
Congratulations to today’s winners Katrin Larusson, Amanda Kirkeby, Hannah Halvorsen, Jordan McElroy, Eli Yale, and Julien Bordes

Race Results
Photos by MacBeth Graphics

With TEN races still on the schedule, it’s not too late to jump into The Sierra Ski Chase and have a chance of winning the “Overall Title” as well as a commemorative participation prize and many great raffle prizes.

Races with at least 40 seniors and masters competitors will be scored depending on your place – with bonus points added if you are older!  The final standings are decided by your total points in your best FIVE races.

Currently, Cathy Howard is leading the charge for the women with 72 points.  Maggie Fillmore is in second with 62 points and Kara LaPoint and Mischel Twining holding third.  For the men – Jeff Schloss is in the lead with 74 points, Joe Dengler with 72 and Michael Collins with 70.  See our Sierra Ski Chase page  for current standings & details on how the scoring works.

All Far West members who complete a minimum of THREE eligible XC races this season are eligible to receive the 2012 season participation prize.  New Far West members will receive last year’s prize (a t- shirt) for just ONE race (as supplies last)!

 Renew your membership, or email us at info@farwestnordic.org if you want to check if you remembered to join this year!

There are still plenty of races this season:

• Monday, February 20^th - The snow is great up at Auburn Ski Club for the Presidents’ Cup at ASC – a Citizen’s Race, Junior Nationals Qualifier & Youth Race.
• Sunday, February 26^th is the 10th Mountain Division Biathlon at ASC 10km Pro race (if you are USBA certified to carry a rifle) and a fun 3 km Novice & 2 km Youth Race.  Clinics on Saturday, February 25th if you have never tried biathlon.  (Race is scored on participation.)
• Sunday,  March 4^th - Organizers are still planning on snow and putting on The Great Ski Race.  (Final decision will be made on February 27.)
• March 10 & 11^th - Bear Valley hosts the fun weekend of Bjornloppet  Racing which is again part of the Senior (50+ year olds) Winter Games.  Why not register and compete in both?
• Sunday, March 11^th - Possible fun race at ASC – stay tuned.
• Sunday, March 18^th – The rescheduled Snowshoe Thompson CLASSIC race at Auburn Ski Club.
• Sunday, March 25^th – NEW – Summit to Wildy Race – Point to point at Royal Gorge!  Special NOVICE RACER wave to encourage more folks to try ski racing (Fundraiser for Auburn Ski Club).
• March 24-25^th – the Mammoth Biathlon which boasts the prestige of being the largest Citizens’ Biathlon Race in the US!  (Race is scored on participation.)
• Sunday, April 1^st – Mammoth Marathon – with no Gold Rush this year, this is the only opportunity to ski a long one.  42 km or 21 km (short course 10 km + 2 km kids’ race).
• Saturday, April 7^th – Tahoe Rim Tour Race (rescheduled from January) – a unique Classic point-to-point distance race (26 km Classic and Skate); 21 km (Snowshoe).
• Saturday, April 7^th – Tom’s Race – We haven’t had many classic only races this season so if you prefer a shorter race, here’s your excuse to go back to Bear Valley for a 10 km.
• Sunday,  April 15^th – Billy Dutton Uphill – 3.2 miles Uphill from The Base of Squaw up to High Camp – a real lung burner that so many folks love to challenge!

The 3rd and final JNQ is this weekend at Auburn Ski Club.
Skate distances are 10 km for all J1/OJs and 5 km for all J2s.
In addition, all juniors that participate in ALL 3 JNQs this year will receive the cool NEW JNQ T-shirt!
Junior Nationals Qualifying Criteria, Team Selection Procedure, and Petition Information can be found on our  Junior Nationals page.
Check the current Junior National Qualification Standings.

Selections to the 2012 Junior Nationals team shall be announced on TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2012.

Paco’s Valentines Race
February 12, 2012

It was a beautiful day at Tahoe Donner for the Paco’s Valentines Race. Farm Team racer Elias Bucher won the men’s 15 kilometer race with a time of 33:28, Tav Streit was 2nd at 33:46, and Farm Team racer Gus Johnson was 3rd at 34:16. Farm Team racer Kara LaPoint won the women’s race with a time of 40:24, Cathy Howard was 2nd at 40:55, and Far West junior, Melanie Swick was 3rd at 41:58.
The junior race was won by Claire Lang-Ree.

Race Results
Photos by MacBeth Graphics

It is with a sad heart that I write, but I am sure that you were wondering about our conditions anyway. We have decided to cancel our 2012 Nordic Holiday Ski Races.
 
Unfortunately, we are in the same condition as many of the ski areas in California, low on snow. At this point, we do have our trails open and the skiing is good where we have coverage, but there are more than a few spots along the Glacier Point Road where the asphalt is exposed. It is now necessary to remove your skis on the way to our Glacier Point Ski Hut.
 
In order to save the snow we do have, we have not been able to groom our trails for more than two weeks now. Our estimation is that we will need more than a foot of new snow in order to be able to run the machines out on the trails, without doing damage.
 
There is snow in the near forecast, but the optimistic guess is for up to 8 inches over the next couple days, then sunny again through the weekend. In order to allow people to cancel their room reservations and readjust their plans, we felt compelled to make the call this weekend.
 
Thanks for racing with us in the past and we hope to see you again next year. We hope the conditions are better in your area.
 
Sincerely,
 
Dave Bengston
Director, Yosemite Mountaineering School
(209) 372-8344
 

Far West Nordic Community:
 
Just finished up a week of Ski For Light International practice and competition sessions here at Soldier Hollow. On the 10th anniversary of the opening ceremonies of the 2002 Winter Olympic games here in Utah, the 37th Annual Ski For Light International competition began in the Olympic Stadium for Cross Country events at the Soldier Hollow facility.
     
The snow here was very sparse, but the good news is that it was cold at night and they have state of the art snow making machines which had been churning out piles of snow each night for 3 weeks prior to the competition. The day before our first practice session, there were only 2 km of groomed trails, but the crew at Soldier Hollow put in a long night before the first practice session and plowed the piles of man made snow around the course. We ended up with 5 km of amazingly well groomed trails which crisscrossed the landscape, had a lap around the Olympic Stadium, and had several steep inclines and descents to make things interesting.

The tracks and conditions were excellent all week, until Friday, the day before the race.  By 10 am, on Friday, February 10, it was already 40 F, to ultimately reach 46 F that day,  and slushy. Klister was barely holding and even then, you needed some shade to get a grip. The tracks on Friday got washed out quickly and the big question of the event was what wax to use for race day on Saturday, which was forecast to be the same as Friday.

Surprisingly, this time Old Man Winter decided to come watch the race and he brought  a morning of cold, crisp, 20 F weather to harden the tracks for the race. The grooming was perfect, almost manicured. Very fast, hard packed snow  was on the menu. I ended up using CF 8 for my outer layer of glide wax over two coats of base, and added some Rode multi grade kick wax over some base binder for the hills. After a warm up session, I added just a swirl of additional Rode multi grade and corked it in while killing a little pre start time on the start / finish line. This combination gave me fish hooks up the cold snow for the first set of steep hills, and glide so fast that I had to hold back just a bit for fear of tumbling on the corners.

I was told it was solid overcast skies overhead which created a white out effect for me at start time. Imagine looking out over the course and being in white out conditions in which you could not see the classic tracks, not even see your skis, but it was not snowing.  Not much wind at all, in fact.  This is how I start most of my cross country skiing sessions as a blind person. No way to see the tracks, the turns, the pitch of the curves, what is coming next, how steep the hill is or how long the climb is going to be, where the edge of the bridge is, and so on. This is where the Ski For Light  Guide comes in.

My Ski For Light Guide was from New Jersey, had a nickname of “Bull” and  reminded me every once in a while that hitting him was like hitting a wall, so “listen carefully.” He was / is an amazing athlete, and very fast on his skis, once he added some glide wax after the first day of practice.  Chad, the wax guru at Tahoe XC prepped my skis well as my guide could not keep up with me on that first day….or was it all the sprints up the first 200 m of track at Tahoe XC I did in preparation for this event.  Either way, we were a bullet train on the tracks, and only once did I run into the back of my guide who stopped suddenly to avoid another without any time to tell me to stop.

I use a very sophisticated dual 24 GHz frequency radio headset with full duplex functionality and 6 hours of hands free, constant talk time.  With this communication set up, my guide was able to whisper information about the conditions, tracks, turns, course layout, traffic ahead, and the location of the edge of that pesky bridge. He could be ahead, beside, or behind me and guide me around  the course, but we settled into a rhythm with him leading and me following.  It was the only way I could get the data about turns in time to take them at the speeds at which we were  moving.

Skiing blind is very different than for sighted skiers. The  slightest turn in the tracks at speed will toss you out of the tracks unless you can anticipate the curve, how sharp it is, and what comes right after the turn.  Here is where the oh, so important, guide comes in, together with practice time on the course to memorize as much of the course as possible so that timing issues can be worked out. Sighted skiers can just jump on the course and adjust quickly to what they see in terms of conditions, curves, length of straightaways, etc. and need little time on the course to work out timing matters. The need of the visually impaired competitors to familiarize themselves with the course is why this  event is a week long affair.

As things turned out from practice runs, I was the Number 1 seed, and that came with a bit of anxiety as I had never before been in this position, and only started skiing 1 year ago.  What the heck, I said to my guide.  “Just another workout” is what I whispered to him through our headsets as we stood  listening to the national anthems of  all 8 countries represented in the race. Nothing like being first out on the tracks in a time trial format race.  My biggest fear was falling as the Number 2 seed was a former World Cup Champion from Canada, with sponsorships and a quiver bag full of skis. He also had a very fast guide to take him around the course, which meant that if I fell, he would be right on me as the start splits were only 30 seconds apart.

And then the count down.  5….4….3….2….1…Beep, and we were off.  
We took off and the tracks were fast.  I actually had never been able to practice on the track with no one in front of me, so the experience was like a whole new race course. I fell 3 times, Ugh, primarily due to the fact that I was hitting the hairpin turns at speeds I had never been able to practice, and at one hairpin turn I nearly skied off a ledge. Good thing I could not see it. 
 
Long story  short, I clocked the fastest time on the course of all the 34 competitors, despite the three falls, and took the gold medal in my class with a time of 18 minutes, 21 seconds.  The next closest competitor was the World Cup guy from Canada who came in 2 minutes behind me, although he was competing in the partially sighted category so he, too, took the Gold for his class.  Asking around after the race, no  one could remember the last time a totally blind competitor had won the overall time trial race.

Of course, I was not happy with my performance as I fell three times, but I guess there is always something on which to work for next time.   Funny thing happened after the race.  It appears that a US Para Olympic coach was at the event and wants to talk to me about pursuing an Olympic career for the next Para Olympic Winter games in 2014.  It turns out that for the 5 km distance, I am one of the fastest blind skiers in the US at the moment.  Not sure what I will do with this opportunity, but it does provide some motivation for The Great Ski Race coming up in early March, from Tahoe City to Truckee, snow willing….and if the creek don’t rise.
 
Another funny thing is that today, Sunday, the day after the race, it finally began to snow here, and it is the first snow in over a month. What timing.
 
On the guiding front, there is a real need for fast guides at this race.  I was told that one of the main anxieties of the guides was to be out skied by their blind skier. Not sure if this occurred during this competition, with others, and I am pleased to say that my guide was right there, telling me through our headsets to “dig it out” as we  took on the final 500m steep climb to the finish. It would be wonderful if some fast Far West Nordic members considered joining the Ski For Light International community for one of these annual competitions as new guides for the organization. The better the guide, the better the blind skier can become, and universally, every guide seems to experience their own breakthroughs during the week, no matter how good they are.

As for the Ski For Light International organization itself, I will leave you with its motto.  “If I can do this, I can do anything.”  I heard of amazing stories of individuals who had never skied before in their lives, and at the end of the week were able to actually ski a full 5 km in the noncompetitive rally which occurs after the actual race.  I stood at the finish line to cheer others on after my finish, and I heard many very emotional moments being shared between guide and skier as they crossed the finish line and began a new  journey in their lives.

Walt Raineri

PS, if any Far West Nordic member is interested in becoming a guide for Ski For Light International, please feel free to email me and I will forward the information on to the organization for next year’s international competition which will be held during the last week of January, 2013, in Michigan. The experience could enhance your life in ways you cannot even imagine.