Excellent Conditions Jump Start Ski Season
West Yellowstone, MT November 29, 2004, I cannot rememeber when I set my Home Page to Weather Underground for West Yellowstone, MT. I did it because, for more years than I care to admit, I’ve wanted to attend the Ski Festival and neurotically keeping tabs on local precipitation gives me a great sense of, I don’t know what …
This year’s reports of early season doom & gloom were discouraging enough to have almost derailed our little group from pulling the trigger on this trip. They were also greatly exaggerated. We discussed but, never issued our last minute contingency plan “R”. The 3 plus inches of new and falling snow that greeted us Wednesday morning made the trek NYC -> Salt Lake -> West Yellowstone seem all the sweeter. (BTW, there seems to be an reoccurring annual rumor that the camp will be cancelled for lack of snow and every year the snow seems to arrive, just in time, along with the XC community). With the Rendezvous trail system tracked and groomed, the Festival and NORAM Supertour races were most definitely on….
This may be the 25th season that West Yellowstone, Montana has played host to cross country skiers during the month of November but, it was the first for us. For the uninitiated, The Yellowstone Ski Festival takes place during Thanksgiving Week on November 23, 24, 25, 26 and 27, 2004. Fortunately, even with oxygen deprivation you can figure out the event plan, highlights of which include a series of Nordic skiing clinics, the NorAm XC Supertour races, an On-Snow Equipment Demo and an Indoor Ski Show.
Tall Thomas Alsgaard made an early appearance on Tuesday night. He talked about his life as an XC Ski Racer and about his philosophy and approach to development, training and racing. He may be a shy individual but he’s a very amusing speaker. I don’t think he enjoyed posing for pictures with us, however. I felt bad for bugging him. He’s selling a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution rally car in case you’re in the market?
West Yellowstone is more than an ideal place to kick start your ski season. Sure there’s lots of snow but, there’s also a pervasive feeling of community. So, in addition to attending the numerous clinics, ski equipment demos, lectures, presentations and the XC ski equipment show, we schemed up this idea of putting on a FIS World Cup Sprint Race in NYC’s Central Park. That’s pretty crazy, right?
I take some credit, along with my co conspirators from Team CW-X and the Fischer Factory Squad for the idea in spite of its emergent nature. It just popped into my head while hanging out with this fine upstanding group. The morass of previously isolated thoughts and events that lead to this idea includes, roller skiing past the NYC Marathon Grand Stand and asking, why not, downloading and watching World Cup Sprints from downtown Stockholm and Düsseldorf, and talking with numerous committed and enthusiastic XC ski racers and FIS personnel, all of whom are trying to identify viable avenues to increase exposure and awareness of this sport here in the USA.
I am told the sprint format is the only economically viable format for such an event. Snow can be made on site or trucked in at a cost of perhaps, $25,000 (there a pretty straight forward formula to figure this out). JT knows the ropes around Central Park (there’s already a winter carnival, right JT?). Maybe we could leverage CW-X’s relationship with IMG. 2012? Is this making any sense?
Almost time to reset my Weather Underground peferences to Lake Placid …
Photos: Andy Canniff of Fischer Skis, Sharon Middendorf, Team CW-X
Chicago, Illinois November 14, 2004, Team CW-X XC athlete Sproule Love showed clear early season form with a decisive victory in the 
2004 / 2005 Team CW-X uniforms arrived this week. Thanks to CW-X for their support during the 2004 / 2005 season.