Hope you’re ready (especially if you are skiing the Korteloppet).

The trail looks great. Lots of snow, lots of webcams. And a nice transformation if you had a cached version of a webcam like I did:

That’s not too bad! The rest of the trail looks great, too. Cloudy, with a little spitting snow. I wound up being on a late flight so I’m inferring form the amount of snow on the ground in Minneapolis that there’s a lot of snow in Birkieland.

As for the weather …

The consensus is that it will be in the 20s to start for the Birkie, rising to around freezing during the race. As for the snow, there’s likely to be something. Probably around an inch, but with a ± of about … an inch. There could be nothing, but I’d expect at least a coating on the trail, and maybe after the groomers can groom it in, i.e. right before the race. So it won’t be hard, by any stretch of the imagination.

However, the snow will slow down travel tomorrow morning, so leave plenty of extra time to get to the start. An additional half hour may not be a bad idea, especially if you’re coming from further away. Warm, falling snow can be come ice, especially on any grades or hills as cars churn it below their wheels. So, take it easy, take it slow, take your time, and get ready to race.

Then, on Saturday evening, a heavier system moves through, with several inches of snow (but a sharp cutoff near the Birkie) and strong winds. If the Birkie was Sunday morning, it would be a mess.

Can we complain? Probably. Should we? Well, no, probably not. There are certainly worse places we could be.

We may produce a podcast from the Expo today to put on the radio when you’re driving to the start tomorrow. If not, find us (me) in Hayward (look for a guy with a media bib and a backpack full of beer) to get on the big podcast!