Sometimes I have trouble remembering exactly how long I’ve been hosting a podcast. I have a good idea about the Birkie Guide itself (the original was a blog post in 2010) but luckily the podcast feed file has the date of the first one and it was January 27, 2016. That’s more than 10 years ago! That first year we had a podcast episode with Ben Popp, another at a pasta feed the night before the race, and then the inaugural Main Street episode (a scant 25 minutes long). A decade later, I’m still chasing interesting stories about the race, and still cracking beers on Main Street after the race with my friends and, after a bit more New Glarus, anyone I can shove a mic in front of. It’s a blast, and I still want to thank everyone who reads and listens, especially when I get to meet you in Hayward (or at the start of an ultra on the North Shore, or a train from Philly to New York, or on a bus after a Worldloppet race in Austria).

This has been and will be a labor of love, that’s for damn sure, but there are costs involved (web hosting, some modicum of equipment, my copious spare time) and if you want to help defray these, the site does have a Patreon. The deal is, you put in a dollar each month (or more) and covers a bit of the outlay for this site and podcast. And if we get to 10 subscribers (we’re at 7, so most of the way there) then I order a bunch of Cowbell Fever cowbells, because who doesn’t love a novelty cowbell? The site here remains free, and our sponsors get a good deal (Pioneer Midwest waxes my skis and with code “podcast” you get skis waxed, too). I mean, if you want to cut a check, then yeah, we can figure out sponsorship as well (I actually did do a survey a user survey a couple years ago).

I know that times can be tight and the Birkie isn’t getting any cheaper (that said, you get what you pay for, and that’s a good thing). Neither are skis, or wax, or boots (I just needed a new pair of classic boots and thank goodness the shop had an older pair, because it would have been hard to part with $700 for this year’s model, even if it is a boa and Jessie Diggins is wearing it). You can be sure we’re not about to set up a paywall, or have exclusive bonus episodes, we’re not that fancy. But if you’re lucky enough that you are in a position to be a Patreon, well, I’m honored that you appreciate my now decade-long project. As always, you can give a rating or drop a review or shoot me an email or find me on Main Street (look for the guy in the media bib). I appreciate that just as much. Especially if you find me on Main Street and hand me a brat (with mustard and extra kraut).

I have a list of podcasts I would like to record, and it’s not short! A few I’m already starting pre-production (lining up guests, etc). It’s been a busy past year (I have a 15-month-old and have accompanied him and my wife on a bunch of her work travel) so I’ve fallen behind, but am going to try to commit to more podcasts this year.

So thank you for reading, listening and, if able, supporting the next decade of the Cowbell Fever Podcast!

And … no news is good news.

2025 we weren’t really sure at this point if we were going to have enough snow at this point and didn’t find out until mid-month.

2024 was, well, we know what 2024 was.

2023 had lots of snow, but was warm enough we weren’t sure the lake would be frozen enough.

This year? Enough snow, tons of ice, and some warm weather upcoming but nothing too hot. Good trail, good grooming, not much to worry about. We have a podcast with Ben Popp (a Poppcast?) talking about the race, and it sounds not too bad!

We’ll make some changes here as needed but for the most part, we’ll see you soon in Wisconsin!

For the first time in two years, the bridge is going in over Main Street. And it’s only 7˚ there! (The wind chill is about -25˚.)

If you want to get your fix of the Birkie Trail before race day, right now is your last chance. The trail closes at midnight and is closed Monday and Tuesday before the Open Track event on Wednesday.

If you go elsewhere, I wouldn’t expect busy trails with this weather:

Mostly sunny and cold, with a high near 0. Wind chill values between -25 and -35.

We should all be thanking our deity of choice that the Birkie is Saturday (Partly sunny, with a high near 22) and not tomorrow.

If you’re skiing the Open Track, bundle up. Temperatures will barely crack zero (although winds should be calmer). Thursday and Friday will be up towards 20.

At the first Birkie webinar, they said they really needed about a foot of snow to have a good race. 10 days later, the results are in and Hayward has received 13″. It hasn’t been the thick base-building snow they would have liked, but it’s a foot of snow and it’s been cold, and with 5″ coming yesterday and a bit more during the day today, the Birkie should be in business for a perfect trail.

This is quite impressive given the situation two weeks ago, when the trail had lots of visible grass and dirt. Hayward had seen a total of 6.3″ of snow in all of January after a nearly snowless December (and one which had a warmup at the end which melted anything which would have been there. Here’s a photo from Skinnyski on Jan 26 from Jack Burns:

Here’s Mike Keyes on Jan 18:

It was a bit of a hopeful/gutsy call by the Birkie staff to put their faith in the weather forecast (and, to some extent, climatology) and go with the full course, but we will all be rewarded with a course which, I expect, will bear no resemblance to what it looked like a few weeks before.

(* probably, but isn’t that always the case?)

As you may have heard on the Birkie’s webcast, or as you may have heard on our podcast, the Birkie has gone out and sampled, prodded and tasted the snow and they’re confident they can get the race to Hayward. That’s why everything south of Gravel Pit is closed to skiing: to give them the best opportunity to keep the course in the best shape they can get it in given the conditions. You may see some twigs or grass, but you’ll mostly see snow, for 50 kilometers (55 if you’re striding), from Cable to Hayward, as it is meant to be.

A bunch of notes!

• There’s obviously contingency plans, but with more snow on the north end, the revolve around a single, long loop and nothing like last year.
• The snowmaking trails will remain open for training through race day (or close to it) and the rest of the trail north of Gravel Pit will be open the rest of this week. It will likely close at some point before or during race week.
• There’s some snow in the forecast for this weekend. If it comes, it will help a lot, although it will be more cold and dry snow, and the Birkie could really use some moisture.
• That said, the cold temperatures, down to -20˚ every day, should help the grooming team harden the course as they prepare it.
• They’re focused on downhills, and a few in particular: the south-facing downhill after Gravel Pit, the long downhill after Bitch Hill, and the downhill to Duffy’s Field. The most worrisome hills are those which you can’t see the bottom, meaning people are more likely to snowplow (so … don’t snowplow). So there will be shovel crews heading out to try to throw more snow on those areas, email ben.popp@birkie.com if you want to sign up for a shovel crew starting … today!
• You may not want to use your best skis for this race (but then again, since it counts for wave placement, you may!). If you have brand new skis [raises hand] you have a decision to make. I think I’ll probably use mine, but it may not be a wise choice. It certainly won’t be like the 2007 fast grass and graupel ski to OO, but might not be the thick carpet of snow we’re used to.
• There may not be classic tracks set on the southern portion of the trail so, classic skiers, take that under advisement.
• The lake, bridge and town should be in fine shape. It’s been cold and there’s no thick blanket of snow on the lake so there’s plenty of ice. No water skiing or ice skating this year.
• Temperature-wise, the weather looks great. As much as the Birkie might love a sunny day around 35 to put some moisture in the snow, the current forecast doesn’t have temperatures above about 22 until race day. The snow that is there isn’t going anywhere. But there are no big storms on the horizon, so it’s sort of more of the same.

And in case you were wondering, I’d guess there’s now a 90% change we go to Hayward. And the other 10% is nearly all a 45 kilometer loop, but even that’s unlikely. Guys, we did it. It’s not 2024 anymore.

Good Friday morning … here’s the latest on snow in Birkieland.

Wednesday evening’s snow fell quickly and steadily and blanketed basically the whole of the Birkie Trail with 2 to 3 inches of snow. The Birkie groomed the whole trail on Thursday although there are likely still thin spots and it is certainly not enough to allow the race to take place on the full trail, but it’s a start.

And that’s good, because something is coming this weekend. It will snow, the question is how much, and where the storm and gradient sets up. There will almost definitely be more snow as you go south, and the current forecast for Hayward sounds promising:

The latest snowfall forecast
favors the greatest potential for 3-6 inches of snow along and
south of US-2 in NW WI and south of MN 210 in Minnesota. The
highest of these amounts are generally favored along and south
of a line from Hinckley to Hayward to Park Falls where there is
a 20-40% chance of 6" or more snow accumulations.

There are ifs there, though. If the storm tracks south by 50 miles (as some modeling suggests) then it could be around 0.2″ of snow water equivalent meaning 2 to 4″ (and this is relatively light snow) but then others suggest it could be further north, with more like 0.4″ with the same ratios and 4″ to 8″ isn’t entirely out of the question.

So we’re still on a knife edge here, but I am willing to slightly change my predictions to:

5% just manmade loops (~13k)
15% manmade + some natural loops (~20k)
35% long single loop to OO or Boedecker
43% full Birkie to Hayward
2% something else

We’ll know more on Saturday evening, and a lot more on Monday. As Ketzel said on the podcast, she doesn’t envy the Birkie staff having to make this decision, but hopefully it will snow enough that they will move forward with the full Birkie taking place and hoping for a couple more inches of snow before race day (which is likely in the longer term modeling), with the fallback of a long loop at Telemark.

Hope. It’s still alive.

Wisconsin notes from the Birkie staff update:

• Not so bad conditions up north
• Not so great conditions down south
• Always want to get to Hayward, but need to make a call ~10 days out (the lake is solid)
• There is better snowmaking, the goal is to put everyone on snow, realize it’s a race*
• The goal is for the race to count for 2026 wave placement (open track doesn’t count)
• Birkie needs volunteers!

Schedule:
Feb 10: course announcement, live update
Feb 17: Live Q&A

Courses may be shorter, length will depend on the total length of the race, they can model out how people will move through the course. Classic may be a different day

Okay, so we need several inches of snow this week to at least give them the potential to start putting up the bridge. Any way that happens? It’s not impossible. Let’s look at today’s model data:

18Z GFS: 3″
12Z Euro: 6″
12Z Canadian: 7″
12Z GFS: 5″
06Z GFS: 6″
00Z Euro: 10″
00Z Canadian: 8″
00Z GFS: 7″

Okay, so the good is that the average of today’s model runs drops 6.5 inches on Hayward. The other bit of good news is that the bigger storm this weekend would have a northern cutoff, so it’s possible Cable could get 4″ and Hayward 7″ and that could be the kind of needle threading that would help the Birkie at least kick the can in hopes of getting a bit more snow next week (there’s an active storm pattern if it doesn’t get suppressed too far south).

The not so good news is that the models are trending less over the past 24 hours and this weekend’s storm track will matter a lot:

Not so bad: this morning’s Euro with a stronger storm further north.

Not so good, a weaker storm further south on this evening’s GFS.

This Thursday’s storm is probably good for 1-3″ of snow; there’s an outside chance of a bit more if it all lines up just right.

Which means, watch this weekend. If it can get in the 3-6″ range, then we may be in business. If it fizzles, well, better luck next year?

What does all this mean. Here are my best guesses for what we get:

20% race just on manmade at the trailhead (~13k loops)
20% race on manmade plus some natural snow (~20k loops)
25% loop to OO and back (45k single loop)
33% full course to Hayward
2% all hell breaks loose cancelation

Hopefully not too pessimistic! We’ll know more by later in the week.

* this is a reference to the 20-years-ago Man vs Beast race of Fox, where the zebra’s goal was to “realize it’s a race” and was then parodied on Family Guy.