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A note from Ollie at Craftsbury yesterday:

“[please] remind the MNC skiers that they have to ski in groups of 2 individuals from different households.”

It’s difficult to do this. We’ve all been apart for a very long time, and a snowmaking loop is a great place to see friends whether you planned to or not. But please, lets all try our hardest to respect rules and regulations that are in place for the safety of ourselves and those around us. Ski areas are working very hard to let us do what we love, and we’re indebted to them for operating at all this winter. Even moreso those ski areas up north where the natural snow hasn’t fallen.

It has been a tough year for all our age groups. It is made harder by seeing ski programs in neighboring states hold practices and timetrials where guidelines are very different only a border away. It is made much harder by seeing programs within Vermont travelling in vans together, training in groups together, in some cases holding training camps outside our state together, and seemingly treating winter like business-as-usual at times.

But our club is committed to following guidance and this is a responsibility shared by all of us. We cannot control what other programs do: we can only control our own behaviors and, as I’ve told many (and our Juniors most frequently) we will all appreciate the team we have and the time we have together much more once the world is back to normal.

Please stay vigilant.

-Adam

We are reduced to skiing on snow loops this week, if you get lucky enough to be out skiing at all! Please always be aware of loop rules, reservations (if applicable) and crowd sizes.

That being said, we’re lucky to have excellent places like Sleepy and Craftsbury and Rikert who are making snow and, quite literally, making skiing happen right now.

This week will not only be pretty snowless, but also pretty cold. The combination of cold and manmade snow equals KLISTER. Many people mistake kickwax logic by assuming it is only related to temperature. Klister is for when it’s really warm out, right? Not quite!

Klister is for ice, harsh snow, and manmade snow, in addition to sloppy wet snow. Here in New England we see klister all the time, from the first races to the last. I am a big believer in “training on klister” and will often spend the first 30-40 minutes of a Junior practice furiously applying klister to skis in order to have our group spend time on this wax in the wide range of conditions we find it useful. You may have even seen some klister soup in action to get it on as many skis as possible:

Well, this week it is time for klister once again. For many of us, the first time this year! Although I must admit in my true love of klister I applied some Rossa Special last week for a night ski at Bolton…

While it might not be the most fun for everyone, I highly recommend you give it a try this week. Do not give up on classic skiing just because it’s icy out. If we all did this, nobody in New England would classic ski much at all! I encourage testing your klister skills and having a little fun (yes, it can be made fun) this week at least once.

When temps are in the teens and low 20s, it’s time for purple and blue klisters. Some of our favorites include:

Rex Purple

Start Purple

Rode Blue/Skare

Swix KX30

Start Blue

It is also important to have a binder klister. For training, the spray binders from Swix and Toko are easy to apply and use.

Here is a video below from Boulder Nordic Sport that does a great job of sharing some klister knowledge!