Whitefish Whiteout

Brimming with confidence and coming off of a chill week after the Castle Mountain Skimo, I was pumped to tackle the Whitefish Whiteout. I’ve never really put together a good race in Whitefish, so with my new found speed, I was looking to put an end to that streak.

After a great sleep at the Duck Inn, I hit the start line with just a couple short warmup laps. But off the gun, the legs were ready to go and I took off with my usual fast start. Typically, I am reeled in shortly after and I settle in for a battle. But nobody came. I measured my progress with frequent glances behind. Were they letting me fry out here on my own? I put my head down as to not encourage my chasers further and hit the summit in 27minutes after opening up at the very top.

After regrouped with Travis, Ben, and Mike, we skied the rest of the course together, enjoying the fresh snow on the descents. I managed to slizzer my way out of most of the trailbreaking duties on the bootpacks. On the final two climbs, Travis and Ben suffered from skin failures, and it was just me and Mike on the final cattrack drag race to the end. I attacked early on and held on to take the win!

New course was fun and included some skiing beyond the boundaries of the resort. The skiing was awesome and I came home with some great prizes from the sponsors and the resort.

Castle Mountain: Guess who's back!

Sprint Action. Photo from Mark, the organizer of the Fernie Lizard Skinner race  on January 23, 2016

After racing well at the Vert 180 and putting in some good training at camp and over the Christmas break, I was looking forward to Castle. Brent, the organizer, even decided to throw in Canada’s first ever sprint race to kick off the weekend. 

The course was shorter than what I had raced, a vertical of only 40m, which happens to be in the same ballpark as Edmonton Ski Club. Dave and Brent had managed to chisel through the groomed run to create the transition areas, but the skintracks were not as hacked in so skinning technique would be important. 

I was paired up with Nick and Matt for the first heat. Nick crashed right off the start and I got my skis tangled up, but I managed to chase down Matt to win the heat. In the next heat, I was paired with Travis and Ben. Not wanting to get caught up in traffic, I attacked after the 3^rd switchback and rocked the bootpack hard. Then I had trouble stepping into my skis, even blowing a ski and watched myself slide back into last. I was having fun and wanted to see if I could put down a dialed run, Nick too was looking for redemption and we were able to gather another two for a “B” final of 4 racers. I was able to match Nick up the bootpack, but again I had issues stepping in. I need to be more patient.

The sprint was lots of fun and having two races over the weekend really made it worthwhile for those travelling from further away.

Kylee had rented out a condo for a bunch of us skimo types to stay in. This was awesome, we all got to hang out together, eat good food, and go to bed uninterrupted by hostel shenanigans. Great idea!

The next morning was the main event and the legs were well loosened up from the sprint race. The resort was getting blasted with winds so skiing was smooth. I took off hard off the start and only Nick and Eric were able to get ahead of me. I watched Nick keep attacking Eric, not convinced that the pace was high enough as “Peter was still there”. When the course veered off the cattrack and onto the switchbacks, I focussed on skiing smoothly, nailing my kick turns and keeping Eric in sight. 

The bootpack was a good time. I only had the faint bootprints of Nick and Eric to follow, which were getting covered up by the wind. A couple of spicy downclimbs with exposure below, but I was able to find my way around a crux feature that was a hot topic of post-race discussion. 

Down the descent and up the steep cat skiing road. Still in 3^rd place, I might just pull this off. And despite my frequent looking back acting like a magnet to Travis and Ben chasing behind me, I did pull it off. My best race since moving back from Canmore. Yup, pretty awesome to be working full time, pulling in real dollars, training in the river valley and being competitive with my past life living the dream in Canmore with only a part time job.

Ski Mountaineering Competition Canada camp

Well, we missed the boat on Asulkan this year, but the Alpine Club of Canada generously provided us space at Bow Hut for a couple of days of eat-ski-sleep-repeat. The glacier toe made for some easy laps and we were able to mostly able get to the fresh snow before the wind got to it.

Bow Hut. With shit barrel capacity for 30 people!

heading up for a frigid Mt. Gordon lap. Some crevasse weaving on the icefield.

Martha finding great snow down to the hut. She and Michelle cooked some delicious food!

Adam as well.

Rocky down low, but good snow higher up where it is sheltered from the wind.

Royal River Valley Rumble

Kurt and Geoff put on a great race. The course featured some steep climbing and I found that I had to spend the flatter sections recovering. Just getting over an illness, but the legs felt good for 7th place.

Got the drone out

Nothing good comes from going east

Head west, young man.

To the west lie the mountains, to the east lies flat plains, ice storms, salted roads, corrupt construction companies, and cities with too many people trying to get to the same place at the same time.

The further west you go into the mountains, the deeper the snowpack. On the east side of the mountains, the wind and the cold leave little quality snow to be skied.

On the west side of the road. glaciers have carved the mountains into bowls that catch the snow. On the opposite side of the road, flat, featureless piles of rock are scoured by prevailing south westerly flows.

The best skiing is often found to the west.

This is the general rules, but as with most rules, there are exceptions. For one, variety and curiosity are forces pushing one to explore unfamiliar areas. And sometimes, it does snow more to the east.

Skiing on the west side of the road the previous day, we struggled through breakable windslab. The next day, we explored east of the road and found soft snow after some tough trailbreaking through facets. 

After skiing what could be the worst snow that I skied all season (sastrugi), we spent the next day on the east side of the road and found untouched snow even a week after the previous snowfall.

Head far enough east and the mountain starts to have features found on the west side of the road. 

Glaciers have left their mark east of the road, but they still struggle to hold snow.

Smoother mountains on the east side of the road allow for skiing on all aspects. Helpful for chasing corn snow as the sun moves across the sky.

It is possible to get surprised by unfamiliar terrain. This run was longer than it looked from the top!

Ken Jones Classic, Devon Blizzard, Sunridge Fatbike Race

I was pretty pumped for the concluding race of the 2015 SMCC season. After arriving home from Europe and getting some good rest, I was able to put together a consistent string of good training starting with a couple of fatbike races. I enjoyed the cyclocross style format which had us completing 4-5 laps for a total race duration of ~50minutes. 

Ripping the berms at the Blizzard bike race in Devon. The volunteers at the Devon Bicycle Association did an excellent job of preparing the course: packing it down, and putting sand on the icy sections

The Sunridge race had a little more elevation change and included more singletrack and I really enjoyed it!

The course at Lake Louise is dialed in and after being cancelled in 2014 due to cold temperatures, I was looking forward to racing there again. Rain falling overnight with the freezing level somewhere around mid mountain meant that we wouldn't have to deal with the cold. 

Lots of race suits out today. There were a bunch of people chomping at my heels on the first 2 climbs.

The race starts early in the morning and I was not disciplined enough to grab an adequate warmup after the race briefing and morning uplift. That said, after a couple of weeks of ski-mo intervals on Edmonton ski club, I felt really good for the first 5 minutes of the race! My shins really started aching as the groomed trail got steeper and I  settled into 3rd place occasionally looking back to see an epic back and forth battle happening behind me. In addition to many faces that are starting to become regulars in the race series, it was impressive to see Jakub Sumbera not far behind, even though he was racing on much heavier touring gear.

Looking ahead to the 2nd climb, I saw just a single set of ski pole marks in the snow. Travis was breaking trail. Extremely impressive. I upped my cadence through the soft track and distanced myself from the chasers. I skied smooth but really suffered when the final climb steepened. This year, I didn't have Eric Carter chasing me down the final descent so I skied more relaxed to the finish.

Race notes:

-Travis did a lot of trailbreaking

-Jakub is pretty fit to be able to hang in there on heavier touring gear

-There is a big chase pack of skiers brewing up behind me. They are already chomping at Steve Sellers' heels. 

-The Zamzow kid puked on the first climb. Now that's dedication!

-Only 7 females total raced. Anna Sellers had an impressive race in the Junior category. Kylee had to abandon the race early on with some lung issues, leaving only Martha and Michelle to contest the elite race.

-Junior Kevin Hinni put down the 3rd fastest rec course time and emerged from the epic back and forth junior battle for the overall. Hope he sticks with it!

Poles for Ski Mountaineering Racing

I don’t come from a ski racing background (cross country or downhill). I didn’t know that you could spend $100 on a small brick of wax that makes ski bases so slippery that skins can’t stick to them. And I certainly didn’t know that you could spend $500 on a pair of poles! Frankly, I didn’t see the point of spending more than $40 on a pair of sticks that get bashed and crashed or lost, stolen, and forgotten. Fancy grips, pole straps, baskets, adjustment systems, and exotic materials promising greater strength, stiffness, and lighter weight don’t really justify the additional cost. I just wish that cheaper poles came with powder baskets, especially since everyone and their dog is now skiing on fat skis and should theoretically be chasing after scarce powder, not bashing gates on groomed runs.

Lately, I’ve been using cheap but flexy $20 Komperdell xc poles for my backcountry skiing. I don’t have much desire to change the length of my pole throughout the day. The skinny xc grips are pretty good for plunging into the snow, and the xc basket and tip provide enough float and don’t get in the way when I’m scratching across an icy sidehill.

But skimo racing is different. The clock is ticking. Each time I lift the ski poles up to plant them again further up the mountain costs me energy. I’m not a double-poling xc skier reaching high and crunching down low demanding ultimate stiffness, but I prefer not to have to think about my poles bowing under my measly single pole plants. So I use my trusty Dynafit SR Race poles. But like any concerning ski mountaineering racer, I’m wondering if they present the best bang for the buck, and what sort of performance advantages I can obtain for minimal costs.

This scale shot had me curious. Here Yannick Ecoeur's Swix Triax 1.0 ($400+) poles are shown to weigh 146g in what I am assuming is a 140cm length. XC poles are often quoted in g/m without grips and baskets, so it is nice to see a real world weight.

Ski mountaineering poles are nothing more than xc poles with larger baskets and straps that are easy to get in and out of (Leki’s shark system is also very popular for ski-mo), possibly with reinforcement. One can buy ski-mo poles off the shelf…er web from Dynafit, Ski Trab, La Sportiva, ATK-Race, Crazy Idea, Gabel, Komperdell, and Leki among others, but I wondered how the value of these compared to much more common xc poles, especially if they were placed on sale!

So I looked into the weights and costs of various ski-mo and xc poles. Many of these weights are claimed, some are verified by others, and some are estimated by comparing a verified or claimed weight of one pole to the unit tube weight (g/cm) of a pole from the same manufacturer. The measured and claimed weights (from skimo.co) were for lengths varying from 125-140cm, so to make for a fairer comparison of weight, I scaled them (g/cm, including grip/basket, although actual g/cm goes down as poles get longer). So after checking Skintrack.com for your optimum pole length, the DyNA will probably be the lightest out of the poles on this list. Lighter than many $300+ xc poles! Those black diamond traverse adjustable poles will be more than twice as heavy. Generic alpine poles (Komperdell Carv Pro) are also  near the top of the list of the worst g/cm.

XC and ski-mo poles ranked in terms of g/cm (less is better), either based on measured or claimed  weights(at 125,130,135,140cm) or estimated  from the claimed g/cm of the pole and adding the basket and grip (usually 60-65g). Interesting how there is a slight jump between the  Komperdell nordic classic and the aluminum Dynafit SR Race in the middle of what is otherwise a smooth distribution.

But what poles give you the best bang for the buck? I then compared the online sale price (retail is for suckers) multiplied by the g/cm. 

XC and ski-mo poles ranked in terms of $*g/cm (lower is better). Many aluminum poles have good $*g/cm as Aluminum is light and cheap! This high end XC poles have high $*g/cm.

Here my $20 Komperdells lead the pack. The Dynafit PDG pole seems to offer competitive value and light weight. My SR Race poles give up ~90grams to Dynafit’s best offering. And if you are interested in buying new poles, note that skimo poles like the Movement X-race carbon, Komperdell Nepal 10, Dynafit PDG Expert, and Gabel Piera Menta carbon give you pretty good bang for the buck, along with being pretty light!

What is the relationship between pole price and unit weight? One would expect that as you spend more and more, you are saving less and less weight. This is an exponential relationship and it is plotted below.

But how does ski pole weight affect exertion and overall race times? What about breakage? I've only seen/heard of carbon poles breaking (PDG, RSR, DyNA, "CT1 are too fragile for skimo").

*Updated 2016 with Black Diamond's poles. Vapor 1 and Helio are extremely competitive weight-wise. Will also add Dynafit Speed Vario and C2 ultralight, 2 adjustable poles that weigh ~180grams! Dynafit PDG pole is now the Dynafit Speed pole