Things are in full swing out here in Yellowstone.  This week has reminded me of the Yellowstone Festival of old, great skiing right here in town, tons of people and blue skies.  The trails are in really good condition right now.  I have been here for two weeks and have seen fresh snow every couple of days.  Every trail in town is open.

The sprint happened yesterday and it turned out to be a good warmup for the races this weekend.  An interesting course, a point to point with a couple short hills and a long gradual up and down approach to the finish.  It was a good chance to shake out the jitters for the races coming up.  The race reminded me of the old junior olympic lineup with a prologue to start out the week. 

Being here for two weeks has given me a chance to check out the town, although it is much the same since the last twelve times I have been here for Thanksgiving.  My favorite thing to do is to check out the live grizzly bears at the discovery center.  A few pictures below.

Hallsey setting up the Fischer wax room.

Some more  of my favorite local wildlife.  I will try to get some pictures up of the actual skiing over the weekend.

I have been in West Yellowstone for four days, and after a snowstorm and a few nights of snow showers the skiing here is fabulous.  

Yesterday BethAnn and I had a visit with the Caribou middle school.  We talked about nordic skiing with five different health classes.  To spice up our talk we challenged the classes to name all 15 Olympic winter sports.  The fifteen sports - bobsled, luge, skeleton, alpine skiing, nordic skiing, freestyle skiing, ski jumping,  nordic combined, biathlon, snowboarding, figure skating, speedskating, short track speed skating, curling, and ice hockey.   The winning class was able to name 13 of the 15 sports.

The most common wrong answer – snowmobiling and snowshoeing

The most creative wrong answer – cabbage chasing

The two sports no class was able to name – short track speed skating and nordic combined

The winners - Mr. Deprey’s Period 5 Health!

Thanks to all the students for listening to us and thanks to Mr. Deprey for having us!