Kongsberger Ski Club

Rachel's photo Joy's photo What kind of person does this, throwing diapers and ironing boards and all kinds of assorted gross things out into the forest? And what kind of person gives up their Sunday to head out to the Cabin Creek snow-park and pick up all that crap, making one small corner of this messy world a nicer place? I know the answer to the second question: KSC stalwarts!  Here are some reports and photos from the clean-up day: Suzanne: Was it May 18th or January 18th?? Despite snow, sleet, rain and mud, Kongsbergers showed up en masse for the annual spring interchange/parking lot/stadium clean-up. Neither dirty diapers nor rusty chains nor tiny bits of goo packets, (nor mattresses!!) escaped the eyes and hands of the picker-uppers. A recycling brigade rescued glass bottles and aluminum cans from the general trash bags. A group of he-men (I didn’t notice any she-women among them this time [ed. note: Don points out that Esther was hucking with the best of them!]) took c...

  Rob Corkran photo Jan Guenther is easy to admire: the owner of Gear West Ski and Bike Shop in Minnesota, she is a perennial age-group winner at the American Birkie and World Masters Championships. In the summers she's an Ironman triathlete, an open water swimmer, an outrigger paddler, a trail runner, a bike racer. But at age 65, there was one thing she hadn't explored yet, and that was back-country wilderness skiing at altitude. So when her friend suggested they tackle the 40-mile point-to-point Grand Traverse back-country ski race this last winter, traveling high-mountain wilderness from Crested Butte to Aspen, she was all in. So that meant a scramble to learn a whole new sport -- new skis and boots to try and buy, new hydration packs and safety equipment to try and buy, new experts to talk to and learn from -- and somehow figure out a way to take all the sea-level Minnesota-flat training and transform it into trackless backcountry skills at altitude. She and her friend made...