New year, new updates to the Unofficial Guide. No major changes but some updates, and fleshing out some thoughts about feeds and hydration especially.
The Guide will be updated as needed, especially with trail closure information as we get closer to the race, although with the deep base this year, trail closures may not be as drastic as some recent years.
Also, a new podcast just dropped, stay tuned for more!
The weather headline this winter has been the rain in California. A month of rain has added water to reservoirs, snow to the mountains, and mud to places it is not supposed to be. But what happens in California doesn’t necessarily stay in California, and the atmospheric river pushing into California has resulted in some interesting weather in the Midwest: wet and warm.
Notably, the City of Lakes Loppet’s Luminary event has been pushed back, because the heavy, wet snow and lack of cold air has kept the lakes from freezing as solid as they usually do (whether the City of Lakes Loppet will be able to cross the lakes in a few weeks is still an open question). Closer to home, the Birkie needs to cross the final two miles of Lake Hayward to reach Main Street, and if the ice is thin, the race can not fully take place. The race has been shortened to OO twice (2007 and 2017), but several more times it has not crossed the lake, including four times between 1983 and 1991.
Most of these years have been due to a lack of snow on the latter portion of the course, with races ending (or, in some cases, starting, since the course changed direction in those days) at Duffy’s or Rosie’s field. In most of those cases, the winters were warm and dry, and a warmup later in the season led to a lack of snow. 1983 had more snow, but a warm February appears to have affected ice on the lake, which may never have thickened below a thick blanket of snow.
In recent memory (the past 25 years), there have been five cancelations:
Since the first Birkie, San Francisco has gone over 30 inches of rain in 1973, 1978, 1982, 1983, 1997 and 2017. Of these, six years, three correlate to some sort of Birkie disruption. So there appears to be some correlation between heavy rain in the Pacific and Birkie disruptions. In this year’s case, the warm Pacific air has led to plentiful snow in the Northwoods with warm temperatures. And while snow is good, we’ve had perfectly good Birkies in years like 2012 and 2015 with lower snowfall.
What do I take from this, reading tea leaves a few weeks from the race? Right now, cold is more important than snow. The dense snowpack should be able to withstand all but the worst meltdown. More snow? Sure. But it would be better to freeze up the base and freeze up the lake rather than having to worry about snowmelt and ice. At least the current outlooks call for some colder weather building across the country (less of a polar vortex outbreak and more of a lasting cold) which might be enough to push through the lake snow cover and freeze things down.
Do you want to see yourself finish the Birkie but you don’t want to scroll through 8 hours of video?
Well Don Smith of MadNorSki has you covered. Just click here, enter your bib, et voila! the video will start when you cross the line (or just before).
Nice job Don!
Do you read this website? Do you listen to its sister podcast? If the answer to either of these is “yes” (and you’re here, so it is “yes” to at least one) I would very much appreciate a few minutes of your time to find out a bit more about who you are with a short survey. It should only take a few minutes (3-5, with an option to give a bit more information for a couple of more minutes) and it will help cater additional content to the user base.
Thanks!
Some of us went out and skied the North End Trails which just so happen to coincide with the Birkie Trail for a few meters here and there.
The North End Trails, with one roll and pass, are soft and slow.
The Birkie Trail, however, looks great. They’ve plowed a lot of the snow off and tilled everything else in. It has been regroomed since the open track this morning and set up well, and that’s before a nice cold evening. And it will certainly get at least one more groom and till before the Birkie, maybe more. I would assume the Birkie will focus on the Kortelopet course this evening and then maybe go hit the Birkie early in the morning when it’s down around zero.
Anyway, as usual, the Birkie knows how to groom and has the equipment to do it. The course will be solid, and pretty fast. It’s going to be a good Birkie.
Cowbell Fever podcast listeners probably know Jess Marion, one of the Elite Wave Marion Sisters and a top-20 Birkie finisher in 2020. Jess is a teacher and ski coach, and this year the Maine State Ski Meet was the Wednesday and Thursday before the Birkie. No big deal, her husband would fly out with skis on Thursday, and she’d take a flight Friday morning out of Boston and arrive to dinner and freshly-waxed skis for the Birkie Saturday.
But remember that the Unofficial Guide suggests arriving early, because for long-distance travelers, anything can happen. And in Jess’s case, that anything is a foot of snow falling on Friday between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. in the northeast. So Jess had a backup plan: she kept her original Delta flight on Friday morning but the JetBlue flight was sold out. Delta has canceled its first two flights out of BOS on Friday, with no guarantee the later flights will make the trip and if they do, they may be quite delayed.
So, as Jess stood coaching on frozen slush with lousy cell reception, her husband was airborne on his way out, and I was in a car. But I love to play amateur travel agent, so I got to work. What about an early flight out of Bangor on Friday; the snow won’t hit there until 8 a.m., although it’s a long drive and would strand a car hours from her home. Another option was going to be to outfly the weather tonight. New York is getting hit, but DC and Detroit aren’t. Nothing to Detroit, but American does have a late flight from Portland to DC. With seats available. Ding ding ding! Jess: book this, fly to DC, overnight there, and then take your pick of flights to Minneapolis on Friday. Don’t worry about money, this is the Birkie we’re talking about. (As another skier friend of mine says, “this is a problem that can be solved with money.) Sure it may be hectic, but for the Birkie, you have to make sacrifices.
Not exactly what you want to see on a tight Birkie schedule.
Watch out for Jess, though, I wouldn’t be surprised if she channels this into a stellar performance on Saturday.
It’s Thursday morning, the sun is rising, and I’m pretty glad that we’re not skiing the Birkie today. The Birkie start area, at 7 a.m., is reporting -20˚. Skiing at -20˚ can be fun, maybe, but standing around at the start waiting to start skiing at -20˚ is almost definitely not fun. But the Birkie events are all later today, and temperatures should reach well above 0˚ today by the time the Hayward events take place. And -20 should freeze the Birkie trail up well.
So let’s get to the details:
Thursday evening may feature some snow in Hayward, but most of the precipitation will stay south of US 8. For those driving later on Thursday from the Twin Cities or through the southern two-thirds of Wisconsin, expect some snow. It won’t be heavy, but 1-3″ of snow from Chicago north to Eau Clare and the Cities is likely.
Friday for the Kortelopet should be cold to start (but not as cold; around 0), but sunny, not very windy, and should warm to about 20˚ by afternoon, so a decent day for spectators and skiers. Reports from Duluth, which has similar snow to the Birkie, is that it is reasonably fast, so it shouldn’t be sandpapery, although the new snow and cold weather may affect this if it isn’t fully groomed in. Hourly temperatures (from the NAM 3k model):
9 a.m.: 7˚
10 a.m.: 11˚
11 a.m.: 14˚
12 noon: 16˚
1 p.m.: 18˚
2 p.m.: 20˚
3 p.m.: 20˚
Saturday for the Birkie will be warmer still, and breezier. We’ve seen this weather before and it’s really quite nice.
7 a.m.: 5˚
8 a.m.: 9˚
9 a.m.: 14˚
10 a.m.: 21˚
11 a.m.: 25˚
12 noon: 29˚
With an afternoon high (the model only runs to 60 hours) from other models around 32 or 33. However, the Canadian model is not quite as warm, with temperatures in the upper 20s. In any case, it should be sunny and breezy, with the winds kicking up as the day goes on and most skiers will face a headwind on portions of the course heading southwest, and out in the open, so especially down Sunset hill and across the Lake. That said, it won’t be a cold wind, so it’s not a bad tradeoff for, you know, not starting at 20˚.
And it should be a lovely afternoon in Hayward, back for the first time since 2020.
PSA: Remember that the Birkie Trail is closed today through race day. Yes, even with the new snow.
There’s no question about snow for this year’s Birkie (although it sounds like the trail was littered with leaves and pine needles during a windy warmup on Saturday evening, the new snow will cover that). Given the following weather conditions, which would you most like to ski?
Really only 5 and 6 sound like good conditions for a race. 1 through 4 sound like pushing the border of Type II fun. Remember 2014? Option 2 might well resemble that (and option 1 not far off). Option 3 would be better weather conditions, but more soft snow to fall apart on the climbs, turning the race into a much-longer-than-normal slog. 4 and 5 don’t sound too bad, with 5 being a bit better with the sun, but still cold, especially waiting around for the start. 6? It sounds not too bad.
Of course, these are the next eight days in Birkieland, with #6 being Saturday. #5 is Friday for the Kortelopet, which is not too bad given the later start and shorter distance (and sun). The open track race is going to be cold and soft, but with an untimed, smaller field it should stay in good shape. And the extra ski traffic, combined with all of the grooming the Birkie will undertake over the next six days, should create a firm, solid skate deck and rock-hard classic tracks for a pleasant day on Saturday. The only potential downside is that there will be an overall headwind, which may be especially pronounced on the Lake. But that’s a small price to pay for otherwise almost-perfect Birkie weather.
Stay tuned for a final discussion about the weather with Chief Meteorologist Ketzel Levens which will be posted tomorrow or Wednesday.
It’s been a pretty incredible run of Birkies weather-wise since 2003 if you ignore years ending in 7. Still in all, it’s been the best 20-year run for skiing a full course, and to think back that from 1998 to 2002 there was a cancelation, a race that was shortened to 25k and a race that finished shy of the lake.
No such worries this year. Sunday will be a warm day. Cloudy and in the upper 30s and perhaps low 40s. It may be warm enough to melt the top layer of snow a bit as it will be reasonably breezy, but I doubt it will fully transform.
Not that it really matters. Temperatures drop tomorrow night and a long snow event begins on Monday. Most of this snow will fall with temperatures steady at or a bit below 10˚, so it will be a dry blanket of midwest snow and will certainly get blown around a bit as winds Monday and Tuesday will be strong and gusty. What the Birkie chooses to do with it is anyone’s guess, although with the open track event on Wednesday they will probably want to till it into the older base so that the trail sets up well (and it should).
Wednesday through Friday look cold. Well below zero overnight with highs struggling to make it to 10. Wednesday and Friday should at least be mostly sunny with light winds, and given that it’s late February, it should feel warmer. Not warm, but warmer. The snow should be mostly done by the open track event, but I would expect the skiing to be soft.
Then the big question: race day. It’s coming into more alignment that the cold high pressure bringing the cold air should move south and east, allowing slightly warmer air to come in on its backside. Friday night will still likely be cold, down to around 0 if not colder. But Saturday the sun should be out, and the temperature may reach into the mid-20s by mid-afternoon which, with the sun, may feel positively springlike. It’s unlikely to be much warmer, but a slower pattern could result in a colder day. The NWS right now says overnight low around -6˚ and a high of 22˚ and that sounds just about right.
We’ll check in with or Chief Meteorologist on Tuesday on the podcast for a final forecast. See you all soon!
Bib order
Those of us lucky enough to have snagged an Elite Wave start got two interesting emails (if you don’t care about this, just skip this post). First, our bib number. In general, in recent years, the Birkie has given you a bib matching your finish from the year before. Finished in 92nd place? You ski in bib 92. Finish in 200th place? 200 for you.
They then inserted other skiers into the unused slots from people not skiing (people who petition their way into the elite wave: IYKYK) and if the Elite Wave started out with more than 200 skiers a few numbers over 200 might be used. (For women, it would be 500+finish place.)
This year something seems to have changed. I’m not exactly sure what it is—and I should note that none of this matters one bit—but they seem to have ordered everyone and then assigned numbers, so everyone is skiing ahead of their place. It may be that they ranked previous year skiers and assigned the bibs in order, and then put new skiers at the end, or that they ranked everyone by expected finish, and assigned the bibs. We’ll know on race day. Maybe.
Ski Marking
The big thing, though, is fluoro waxes. They are banned for everyone, but the ban is being enforced for Elite Wave skiers. Here’s a summation updated with some clarification from the Birkie office of the 800-plus word email which was sent to Elite Wave freestyle skiers: