Kongsberger Ski Club

 On his 12th American Birkie, Rune clearly has the race totally dialed, and here is his report: At the finish, I received a pin for having completed my 12 th  US Birkie.  Given the lack of snow last year, I decided to skip a year but happily returned this year to amazingly good Birkie conditions.  A few inches of fresh snow a week ago followed by blistering cold temperatures all ended in a perfect Birkie day with temps around 14 degrees and adequate snow coverage for a great race venue and a finish up Main street with crowds cheering. What a day! This year, I decided to drop down from the Elite Wave to Wave 1, thinking it would be a less stressful race in Wave 1.  As it turned out, there were several fast skiers in Wave 1 to ski with and by avoiding the accordion effect of the Elite Wave, I believe my choice was worthwhile. There are 4 distinct sections to the classic race, the first 15k to the high point, then the next 13k to OO (midway poin...

 David Evans has done a lot of cool races in his athletic career, but somehow never the American Birkie. That changed last weekend, and here is his fun race report: After all these decades of having sundry Carleton buddies regale me with their tales of  having skied "The Birkie," and after last year's measly fake-out 30K on similarly fake snow, I was finally able to classic ski the full Birkie on 2/23, from Cable to Hayward, WI - which at 53K is a little "fuller" than the skate race's 50K.   You must earn your early-wave honor badge at Birkie, so any rank newcomer like myself, and despite protestations and appeals, is required to start behind most of the assembled 5,000+ of the day's uber-fit guests.  So of the classic race's 6 waves, I was in the 5th, meaning that in parts of the race I was making altogether feeble attempts at pretending I was Mikaela Shiffrin as I slalomed back and forth from one track to the next, trying to claim brief respite and...

  It takes a volunteer village By Joy Cordell The real stars of an XC race are the volunteers who make the magic happen. Here's a broad sample of the people who came out on this snowy (yeah, really snowy) freestyle Stampede 15k and 5k race on Sunday. Look closely and you'll notice some of the volunteers took on multiple jobs (lookin' at you, Frank and Anne!) Special kudos to Grant, first-time race director, and Andrew, first-time chief of course, who pulled off a solid. We didn't get a picture of them today but you can easily spot them as likely the two tallest guys in the Club. [photos and  captions  from Joy] Linnea sorts the parking. Katherine greets in the parking lot. Frank greets at the trailhead. Cascade Backcountry Ski Patrollers Curt, Scott, Erik, and Chris keep warm while they wait to go out to the delayed race. Food chief Esther and stadium set-up Holly confer in the kitchen. Carey and Suzanne take a break after setting up the sound system and food tables. Ti...

Yeah, it snowed, enough to cause chains-required notices at the pass and a race delay of half an hour. But the race finally did happen and as Chief Timer Augustina reports, the day was "beautiful and magical," and everything went smoothly.  The overall top three finishers in the 5k were Andrew Nikitin, Fiona Sirois, and Amy Betz. In the 15k, the top three men were Tyler Quinn-Smith, long-time KSCer and now Minnesota boy Chris Queitzsch, and Peter Manolis. The top three women were Ashley Nichols, Mona Deprey, and Amanda Worthy, here from Boulder. Of note: para-skier Gabriel Heming finished strong today after being spotted at Hyak yesterday, finishing up a li'l 20k workout on the Iron Horse trail! Another cool thing: to see family names like Podkorytov, Privalov, and Sirois appearing more than once in the various races! Here is a link to race pictures taken by Gabrielle Ghizila: https://1drv.ms/a/s!AsW_ZW_dR1u4ya5cCZeJWy6OTXHcEg (All of these photos are from Augustina)

 Jane Ritchey was a big-time ski racer back in the day, and now in her 70s, she’s been bitten by the racing bug once again. She headed down to the Teacup Classic last weekend with Rob and Suzanne and sends us this report. Sounds like we can expect to see her on many more start lines! *** (Rob Corkran photos) The Gunnar Hagan 7.5 K was so exciting for me at 77 years old, I couldn’t wait to go race again. Suzanne and Rob Corkran, my sponsors, invited me to join them at the 2nd classic race at the Teacup Nordic Center near Mt Hood Meadows, following the Virginia Meissner Classic race near Bend that Suzanne raced and reported on for KSC. I had raced in Oregon around the Mt Hood area in the 1960’s and 70’s before the Teacup area was established, so after looking at the trail map and reading about the course, I decided it would be fun and a perfect reintroduction to travelling to an event. I am grateful to Suzanne and Rob, without whom it would have been a big stretch for me. Being part ...

  A number of KSCers made their way to the Methow for last weekend’s Ski to the Sun on what looked like a gorgeous weekend. Erica reports “ a beautiful day to embrace racing in community,” and sends this photo of the junior KSC/Momentum relay team, which finished 5th. Erica Swanson photo Other finishers included classic skiers Rune (second place), Jeff Hashimoto (7th), Pete Spiegel (13th), Alex Horner-Devine (18th), and Spider Burbank (33rd), and skaters Michael Evans (5th), Grant Goheen (86th), Todd Merkens (101st), and Jeff McGrew (124th). Women skaters included Mona Deprey (8th), Erica Swanson (21st) and Avery Shinneman (35th). Clearly everyone had a fun day!  Erica Swanson photo Mona was second in her age group, with only former Olympian Laura McCabe ahead of her. Here is her fun race report: *** It was a great weekend in the Methow Valley with cold sunny weather. I got there on Thursday and skied parts of the course both Thursday and Friday. My biggest concern was keeping...