Anyone get out in the snow in Minne or Mohonk, after the big snow a week ago? Must have been nice for a while after that. I'm guessing it's washed out pretty good now, nothing left?

yeah I guess I got out.
after that storm 4 days skiing in heavenly conditions.
one day did 25 miles of classical, blue wax day.
xmas eve day one day rest day and running on xmas day.
I just got back from Lake Placid after 3 days in a row at mt. van hoevenburg. conditions not the best except for yesterday which was great. day before yesterday we took the biathlon shooting range course. that was really fun.
my friend was a ringer. on her first clip she got 5 out of five hits!!!!
turns out that she grew up in one of those gun families.
I didn't do so bad either... 5 out of 5 on my 2nd clip. we drove back down today.

now there's snow down here... expect to be skiing in good conditions through the weekend.
we're not skiing minne, only mohonk.
happy new year all!

cool... I think we might be skiing tomorrow, then. there's really nothing quite like a blue wax day!

Hey Phlan, can you give any info on the biathlon course? I used to compete a while but had heard you needed to take a summer safety course to do it now. Not that I'm in great skiing shape anymore, but it might be fun to break out the old "creature" and see how it shoots again.

hey chip. you can get the info at

http://www.orda.org/newsite/todo/winter/biathlete.php

I'll post pics shortly. I enjoyed this so much am going to look into getting a biathlon rifle myself.

conditions here are actually anything but good. :-( mohonk was closed yesterday. a lot of snow that was there was just blown off the trails. there might be a little snow in the woods but it's probably very spotty. I'm probably headed up to lapland lake tomorrow.

yea it's ugly up there. we ended up "post-holing" the undercliff road. the sign out at rhododendron bridge was not up to date with the open/closed status of the trails...

I skied at North Lake yesterday. Some of the sheltered roads/trails were OK but far too many spots had inadequate base resulting in more rockwhacking than gliding.

looks like the Dacks will be solidly in condition by this weekend.

got a feeling there might be local skiing again after the storm tomorrow.
posted pic of the biathlon thing. here.

http://www.gunks.com/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=1589

Snow cover looks a bit sparse. What day was that pic taken?

we got up there saturday the 27th - sunday was ok conditions I think this was taken Monday. it had gotten very warm sunday evening and a lot of snow melted including around the biathlon oval.

overnight it all turned to ice. so this was the icy sparse day. however, on that day there was still OK skiing in the woods. they are sooo good up there about doing everything they can to make it skiable. chopping up the ice. etc. etc.

however, overnight it snowed like nuts so the next day was great conditions. so then we had to stay another night. overall not a bad trip at all despite that one day.

will try to post a couple more pictures from the trip. we got into woodchuck mode in that small cabin. (the cabins at mt van hoevenburgh which are run by Wayne and are great) there is a photo of "cousin itt" which was pretty funny.

I've known Wayne for many years and stayed a few times in his cabins. Most memorable was the entire week when it didn't go above 5F and was hitting -40 or below every night. I think that was Feb of '87. Ice got to about an inch thick INSIDE the windows. Great to ski out the door and onto the biathlon course. I'm feeling inspired to get out again. Thanks.

yeah Waynes place sure is a trip. we call it "Wayne's World" ...

some XC photos I just posted, more inspiration.

http://www.gunks.com/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=1592&ppuser=47

there's also the photo of "cousin itt" in there... anonymous... but some of you might even know her...