Noel Schutt » Fox Island

First snow of the season

Noel — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 03:03:22 +0000

We finally got the first snow of the 2011–2012 winter. I got out early on Saturday and set tracks on most of the paths at Fox Island, with double tracks on the wider ones. We had the busiest day of rentals we have had in a couple seasons. Sunday morning I went in early and skied most of the trails, the fun ones more than once. The owls were quite talkative on Sunday just before sunrise, and all five types of woodpeckers that frequent the park showed up sometime during the day. There were a few spots I had to shovel snow onto, but the trails were in amazingly good condition for the number of people who had skied them. The warm front was delayed enough to ski all day. But overnight a warm front came in with a thunderstorm, and now the snow is gone and I’m dreaming of winter again.

Snow and rain

Noel — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 01:06:15 +0000

We finally got enough snow to open the ski rentals at Fox Island for several days. It’s raining tonight, but we were able to ski for six days. On a couple of the days, there was just enough snow to use my good skis if I was careful to avoid rocks and sticks. I’m still hoping we’ll get a real snow sometime this winter.

2007-2008 skiing wrap up

Noel — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 16:11:21 +0000

Skiing is over for 2007-2008. This winter I upgraded from waxless skis, improved my technique, and explored new trails. The past three winters I spent almost every skiable day working at Fox Island, so I didn’t have a chance to ski other places. This year I worked at Fox Island over Christmas break. The rest of the winter, I drove to the closest snow as often as possible. I went to Michigan three times, but was able to stay in Indiana most weekends. I finally made it to Chain O’ Lakes and Pokagon. One week I had to drive south to snow. I wasn’t able to make it to any races this winter, but I was able to improve my endurance. Last year I usually skied an hour before and after work. This winter–other than Christmas–my skiing was four to six hours a day on weekends. I’m not quite as strong as I was at the end of last winter, but my endurance is much better.

My hill-climbing technique on classic skis is much faster than it was at the start of the season. I now have much more glide for less effort. Since I had never skate-skied before this winter, my skating technique has improved even more than my classic technique. Over my first two days of skating, I became much more efficient. My style still needed a lot of work. A week ago I made a major improvement to my skating. I was doing a loop that was taking me twenty minutes at 90% effort. I tried some changes to my style and my time dropped to fifteen minutes and my effort dropped to 85%. I then spent a few hours waxing my skis, and my time and effort dropped even more. I think that I switched from a V1/V2A hybrid to a better almost-V2A technique. My V2 and V2A style really needs work, but I’m a lot closer now.

Last week was spring break, so I had time to iron many coats of wax into my skis. They should be much faster next winter. I finished with a thick storage coat of wax and put my skis away for the winter.

Comparing skis and exploring new trails

Noel — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 02:28:57 +0000

We had three skiable days this week. On Wednesday, I took my new classic skis to Fox Island. There was just enough snow to ski. After an hour, I ran out of new trails to break, so I switched to my old Fischer BC Country Crown skis. This was my first direct comparison between waxable touring skis and waxless ‘back country’ skis. It is amazing how much faster the waxable skis are.

On Thursday, I spent some time on the Country Crown skis at Foster Park. There wasn’t enough snow to go over my tracks more than once. I ended up skiing in a spiral around the golf course. I missed the extra glide of the waxable skis. Foster Park used to be my standard skiing spot. The past couple years I spent most of my skiing time at Fox Island.

Friday, a few guys from the Fort Wayne Kayak (and canoe) Club went skiing at Chain o’ Lakes SP. I have spent lots of time canoeing at Chain o’ Lakes, but had never been there in the winter. The snow map showed twice as much snow there, so I decided to join them. I arrived late, but caught up quickly. The conditions were better than predicted. There were enough sticks poking through the snow that I decided to use my old skis. I skied with the group for a couple hours, then by myself for a couple more hours. It was a great day. The snow was (mostly) good, there were snow covered trees, cirrostratus clouds, and fresh trails to break. Chain o’ Lakes is a great place to ski. There are easy flat trails and some good hills. The winter traffic is much lower than I expected, so the snow was still in great shape. I skied an easy 25 km.

I was going to try the trails at Pokagon SP this morning, but the warm weather and rain started early.