Kongsberger Ski Club

(view from Elephant Rock) Report and Photos by Joy Cordell   If you ski a mile or so up the Lost Lake snowmobile road and take a right on a residential road, you'll soon find a faded State Parks sign with a nordic skier illustration and the name High Horse Trail. Like me, you may wonder when this trail was built, why it never comes up in discussion, and why it isn't groomed.   (Tim at the south entrance of the High Horse trail) This trail is included on Forest Service maps, thanks to Tim (of Snoqualmie Nordic Club), but only a few know about it. Running parallel to the P2C trail, it lies above the P2C, winding through forest and hills.  Initially, Don explored it as a potential trail years ago and marked it with Todd and John. Todd, who was "the Forest Service guy" at the time, was very enthusiastic. But then he retired.   Checking it out   After Tim took Jeff and me to the entrance of the trail a few weeks ago, we decided we needed to try the rest of the trail, so we

Many thanks to Rob Corkran for this awesome report from last week's World Masters in Canmore and the photos! *** Canmore is one of the more spectacular settings for any ski race. Situated several hundred feet above the valley floor on which the town is located, a row of castellated peaks looms directly above the sprawling stadiums. The stadium complex is subject to storm winds, but the trails are primarily in protected forest, with the exception of one area of meadow. Though much of the forest consists of trees of maybe 100 feet in height, few parts of the trail come without a view... either straight up at the peaks towering over you or straight ahead of you as the trails tend to be aligned in the same north-south direction as the peaks. There were three competition trails cobbled together from the myriad of trails in the provincial park, each overlapping in spots, ones of 5,10 and 15 kilometers all beautifully undulating. They were all on intermediate level trails. My wife, Suzann

 Suzanne, a long-time KSC member, had a fantastic World Masters last week in Canmore, taking home a first place and two thirds in her competitive age group.  Given my eternal quest to get more women participating in ski racing, and knowing that Suzanne is not only an excellent skier but also smart and focused about her training, I asked her if she would write us a report, about both her race experience last week and her strategy through the last year leading up to her successful races.  And she did!  Here is her report; I love her attitude, that competing is FUN, and doing the work it takes to compete well is FUN, and for my money, her last paragraph is pure gold.  Learn what you can from this, and get yourself fired up for the new training/ski season! ***** Finding my groove at 70   I just returned from my 4th XC Masters World Cup in 11 years. This year it was held in Canmore, Alberta, site of the 1988 winter Olympics, an extraordinary setting next to Banff National Park. I would have

Another banner day for a ski race at Cabin Creek!  Blue skies, lots of skiers, lots of snow ... we could get used to this!  If you've thought about the 50k but are intimidated by those spandex people flying around the course, or the prospect of five laps seems a little much, then read on.  This awesome race report by an anonymous back-of-the-packer could be just the nudge you need to ramp up your training this summer and challenge yourself to sign up for this great event next winter!  See you there! *** The nice thing about skiing the Ozbaldy at the back of the pack is that you get a chance to see some of the skiers twice - once at the start line and once when they come around again, having already completed an extra lap.   Though the sun was out and the sky was blue this year, I noticed that not many of the skiers had their "I'm having my best race ever" faces on. I assume this is because the trail could only be described as "squishy".  This was not a race