Aces High Bulletin Board

General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: eskimo2 on February 04, 2007, 11:04:18 PM

Title: I built my own skate ski track.
Post by: eskimo2 on February 04, 2007, 11:04:18 PM

I was born and raised in Alaska and grew up skiing.  I raced on my high school team and skied regularly through my college years.  I now live in Tallmadge and miss skiing much.  I’m over an hour away from Chapin Forest (the nearest groomed trail); with three little kids it’s hard to get away for any length of time.

Tallmadge has only about three inches of snow on the ground but I thought if I packed the snow down onto the grass well enough I might get a good base.  Yesterday I did about 50 laps around my house in my four wheel drive van.  I packed down a 12 foot wide path pretty well.  
This morning I couldn’t believe how skiable my track was.  The packed snow is very hard, squeaky and reasonably smooth.  I tried it out this morning; it was skiable but a bit rutty in places.  I pulled out my snow blower and shot some snow onto the slightly barren spots.  I then did another dozen or so laps in the van and mashed down the high spots.  I (skate) skied before lunch and again before dinner.  In spite of the cold, I had a blast.  The time and gas that I have into making my loop is less than I would have spent driving to the nearest groomed trail.  My trail is tiny, but it’s right outside my door.  I just measured my loop from Google Earth; it looks to be 0.09 miles.  That's about 11 laps for a mile or 34 laps for 5K.

(http://hallbuzz.com/images/2007/feb/too_many_daves_1024.jpg)
Too many eskimos

(http://hallbuzz.com/images/2007/feb/ski_track.jpg)
A better view of the packed trail.

Title: I built my own skate ski track.
Post by: Sixpence on February 04, 2007, 11:17:06 PM

land shark!

Title: I built my own skate ski track.
Post by: kamilyun on February 04, 2007, 11:22:13 PM

Make those tights disappear!  :D

Shark fins are funny :lol

Title: I built my own skate ski track.
Post by: cav58d on February 05, 2007, 01:15:27 AM

Pretty cool.   Another cool thing I just read is that the first indoor ski slop for the United States is in the process of being built at the Meadowlands....SWEET.  Hope they put in a pipe.

Title: I built my own skate ski track.
Post by: vorticon on February 05, 2007, 09:31:55 AM

ah.

cross country skiing

i wondered what the heck you were talking about.