Ski North Ultra

I was carpooling to the start of the Black River Trail Classic in 2023 when Allie Rykken first told me about a ski race she was working on organizing on the North Shore. She was working on making connections with the various groups who would need to be involved and there were a few other details to be worked out, such as connector trails that hadn't existed or been groomed for 30+ years, but she sounded pretty optimistic that she could make a go of it. Fast forward a year and the event was not only on the schedule, but was the final race of the Tour De Finn race series that I was planning to target for the season. I took only a few days to deliberate before signing up.

My strategy to train for ski season the past few years is to pile on as many summer and fall miles as possible and slowly bleed away that fitness throughout ski season, since coaching the high school ski team in Northfield takes up quite a lot of my training time and energy during the winter. I was worried this strategy might be inadequate to get me ready for a 100k race in March, so I didn't have any ambitions for the race beyond just finishing. I did the BCFK on classic skis in January and the Birkie Classic in February, so I at least got a couple of long classic efforts in before race day.

After a winter of great snow along the North Shore there was a meltdown in early March and conditions were looking iffy on parts of the race course, and there were a lot of unknowns about the event still with a week to go. The organizers recommended using B skis and did a great job of setting expectations for potential course conditions. I dropped off 2 pairs of skis for Finn Sisu to wax, but then later decided to wax and bring my good race skis as well. Eva and I stopped at the North Country Ski Trails near Silver Bay to ski Friday on our way up, and it was a great reminder of what single track classic skiing is like. The snow there was mostly good, soft but starting to refreeze and get fast. I've had very limited time on natural snow over the past 2 years, so it took a little bit to get used to the flow of the trail. After our ski we headed to bib pickup and then on to the Cascade Lodge where we were staying. Talking to people there who had previewed the race course they warned that it was very icy near the start/finish area.

Skiing the North Country Trails

When I got to the race start the next morning those reports were confirmed. Due to warm preceding week the snow was thin and very icy. I had on Rex N41 covered with Rode B17 for kick and it wasn't doing much in the start area, but my skis felt fast on the ice. There was a spot open on the start line so I took it, even though I didn't really want to be near the front with conditions being what they were. The temp at the start was a chilly 10°F, so I went with a thin base layer under my suit on top and bottom, and lobster mitts to keep my hands warm. The predicted high for the day was in the 30's, so I figured I could drop layers and switch to thinner gloves later in the day.

As the race started I tried to stay as relaxed as I could while also staying out of trouble. There were just over 70 starters, but the trail narrowed quickly and cornering took a lot of room due to the slippery conditions. As we started up the long connector climb to the Bally Creek trails I settled in to the back of a group around in about 10th place, and I was pretty nervous about how the return trip back down would be. It's about 10k of icy narrow trail with no classic tracks, so I was picturing a harrowing descent, and kind of wondering if the Bally Creek trails would be worth traversing these sketchy conditions for.

I started to feel better about things when we got up to the Bally Creek trails and in to some groomed classic tracks. I was with a really fun group including Adam Mahar, Thomas Kendrick, Tyler Gilbert, Louis Sirota, Zach Handler, and a couple others. It was fun to chat and click off a few easy km in a group. Then it started to snow. It was really gorgeous snowglobe style snow that made everything look really wonderful and wintery. The snow started to slow things down, and my skis seemed to be running slightly slower than the guys around me, so I dropped off the back of the pack a bit to keep my effort in check, and so I had a bit of space around me on downhills I still wasn't feeling 100% confident about.

There were a couple of short sections on this part of the trail where you turned off of the groomed trail and just bumped along through the woods on some really rough trails that seemed like they had been only skied in by the skiers ahead. That's where the arrow pointed though, so that's where we went. To me this section best captured the spirit of the event, a healthy mix of gorgeous trails, adventure, and just being out in woods. The snow continued to fall pretty steadily, and now others skis were slowing too, so I caught back in with the group ahead of me for the downhill back towards the start. 

I was efficient at the road crossing, pausing only to take off my skis and shove a cardamom roll in my mouth that I would slowly nibble on for the next down hill. An excellent aid station food, and a certain departure from normal ski race fare. The descent was no totally fine with the new snow reducing speed and adding a lot more control, so I took pretty much everything full speed except a couple of bumpy "mogul" sections. I pulled away from the group and before I knew it I was back to the state park trails and the skis off bridge crossing. The plan was for Eva to meet me there with skis and fuel, so I could just swap things around at a spot when I needed to take my skis of anyway. Since the next section was not very hilly and included some potentially rough state park trails I switched to some old skis with no kick wax and asked Eva to put some fresh kick wax on my other skis and give them back to me at 60k.

Almost 1/3 done, and everything was feeling pretty good. I saw Louis just up ahead so I ran up to catch him and we put our skis on and started out together. The new skis felt decently fast, so I took the lead as we weaved through the park. We hit one intersection with a bunch of arrows and I quickly decided we had to head right to find the connector across the valley before heading out towards the North Shore Mountains Trail. We kept climbing and climbing though, so I stopped at the next intersection that seemed to keep going up and to the North, which seemed wrong. Louis said he suspected we had made a wrong turn, and I agreed. We bombed back down the hill and out onto the two way section of trail. When we reached the 40k marker at 41.4k it gave us an idea of how much we had added on. We caught sight of a group ahead of us and caught and passed them. Then Louis pulled away from me as the terrain was going gradually uphill towards Caribou Road.

As I neared the road crossing I saw Karl Holub on his way back with nobody else in sight. I cheered him on and he called out that the turnaround was poorly marked as we crossed paths. I got to the road crossing a few minutes later, still not having seen any other skiers on their way back. I spotted Zach crossing the road as I was coming up to it. Based on this I assumed I needed to keep going. There were no blue arrows, only 2 red ones, one pointing forward on the trail and the other pointing back, and no volunteers at the road crossing. I ran across the road and up out of the ditch on the other side. My watch was telling me to turn around, and I quickly reached an intersection with no markings in any direction. At this point I went back down the hill ran into a few other skiers who were just arriving at the turnaround. We spent a couple of minutes deliberating if this was the turnaround point, and generally agreed that it was. Then out of nowhere Abe Peterson, who was not in the race, arrived and was able to look up the map on his phone. This confirmed we were supposed to turn around. Abe offered me a bratwurst, but I was feeling antsy, already having spent 7 minutes or so milling around deliberating the course, so I declined and headed back up the trail. 

I pushed the pace a bit on my way back since I felt like I had wasted quite a bit of time deliberating at the turnaround, and quickly put a bit of time into the group I had been with at the turnaround. When I got to the next aid station I mentioned that people had gone out past the turnaround. Eva met me there as well with a change of skis. She had added a layer of Rex 30G to the skis I started the race with so I switched back to those for the remainder of the day. Having kick again and being told I was in 2nd place motivated me to keep the pace up, and I felt like I was moving really well for the next 10k. When I got to the aid station around 60k though I was starting to get hungry. They had quesadillas there so I quickly scarfed one of those down along with a cookie and kept cruising. 

This aid station is right at the base of a climb that lasts over 10k and gains about 1000ft of elevation. It was getting quite hot by this point in the day and that combined with the sun and the effort of climbing really pushed my heart rate and internal temp up. I kept reminding myself that I still had 40k to go and that I needed to chill, but it felt like there was never a place to just relax without stopping. I did stop briefly once to take off my skis and scrape a bit of ice off the bottom. It was only a couple of small chunks, but I could feel them dragging and occasionally stopping my ski. I looked at my watch once when I thought I was getting close to the top, and it only said 64k. I had hoped to be close to 70k already, ugh! This 10k section took me an hour and it was by far the most difficult portion of the race. I started to get hungry again and took a gel, then shortly after ate a granola bar. I kept imagining that there was a group right behind catching up to me so I didn't let myself stop much, even though I justified that it would be totally fine if I dropped from 2nd down to 5th or 6th.

I made it to the aid station just past 70k without anyone going by me, and quickly grabbed some food and got back on my way. Dalton Struck passed me on the way back down the hill. It was pretty warm out by this point in the day, and my skis felt slow for much of the descent, with occasional icing in the kick zone. As I was descending I saw Louis and Brock at different points on their way up, so I knew their detour had cost them a lot of time. 

The descent was good recovery, and I finished the rest of my water, hoping there would be aid at the bottom. It turned out there was not, and race director Allie was at the intersection pointing me back up the hill, so I charged on into the climb feeling tired but ready to face it again. I quickly started to heat up on my way back up the hill towards 90k, and reminding myself of my theme for the day - address issues as they arise, don't just push through - I stopped and took off my race top and baselayer. The bibs were pretty substantial, so I figured that would be enough to keep me warm, and I still had my lobster gloves on from the morning, so my hands weren't in danger of getting cold. I shoved my removed layers down my race tights, the only convenient storage I had available, and almost immediately felt much cooler and at a better equilibrium for the climb. I started to get pretty thirsty and took my last gel liquidy gel just to get some liquid in my mouth, knowing I only had 45 min at most until the aid station.

The rest of the trek up to the aid station was pretty uneventful, and when I got to the aid station up at the Deeryard I was thrilled to see Eva there waiting for me. She dug my extra layers out of my tights and force fed me a granola bar while Kira Stolen filled my water bottle, then I was back out on the trail. Even though I was pretty tired I didn't want to linger at the aid station in case there were others close behind me. My skis felt a bit faster the second time down the long descent, the temps were starting to go down along with the sun and the snow was getting a bit icier. I don't remember much of the final descent except being really tired and excited to reach the finish. The last 1/2 km or so leaves the well groomed Norpine trails and heads back into the state park. There were some pretty significant bumps, and several signs warning skiers to go slow and even recommending taking off skis and walking. I kept my skis on and somehow stayed on my feet through this section, with a liberal amount of snowplowing, and made it across the finish line! There were volunteers there collecting bibs, but they seemed unsure about asking for mine back since I had no shirt on underneath it. Eva was waiting there to take my skis and give me a jacket though, so I quickly did the swap and we waited at the finish to see the top woman finish just a couple minutes behind me, then Tyler and Thomas shortly after that. My finish time was 8 hours and 18 minutes. I told Eva I thought I was in 3rd place, but she told me that some of the skiers who had taken a wrong turn did a modified course to get to their 100k and I was the 6th finisher.

A bumpy finish

We walked down to the post-race food building, all of us racers excited to share stories and compare notes about the course, navigation and getting lost, skis and snow conditions, and there was a lot of excitement about the day! There was also some debate about the results with people skiing different courses and how that should all be accounted for. The post race food was hot and good, and it was fun to hear everyone's hot takes about the race. I was pretty wiped out, so Eva and I headed back to the hotel so I could get in a nap.

I've been excited about this event since I heard of it, and the first edition definitely lived up to expectations! The chance to ski and race on so many new to me trails that really showcased North Shore skiing was amazing. I loved the mix of conditions from the rough trails hacked in to make the race course connect, the beautiful grooming on the Bally Creek and Norpine trails, the random bumpy paths through the woods, the road crossings and aid stations, and the rollercoaster of a finish made this event a great adventure, one of the most unique events I've done on skis.