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! 

I made a trip over the border this afternoon with Mark Rossignol and Steve Ayotte for what will probably be the last road bike of the year.  We parked across from the Limestone border crossing and biked into New Denmark and up the famous Klokkedahl hill.  We had a good day for it, clear and cool, but not as cold as it has been the last week or so.  Some good climbing on our route, we started on Lucy’s Gulch, mid-ride we hit the Klokkedahl (1km at 18%), and then finished out with Mill Hill.  Some pictures below

Some nice view of New Brunwick on the top of Mill Hill

I have not skied in October since the days of freezing my butt off in Fairbanks.  That changed this weekend when we got hit with a snowstorm friday that left us with some good skiing for this time of year.  I was able to get in three good ski sessions over the weekend.  Will Sweetser and Tom Campbell did a great job grooming a 5k loop at the Snowy Mountain Trails.  And Mark Rossignol groomed his trails at the Rossignol Field of Dreams.  The weekend of skiing up here was a great success only because of these people.  Thanks everyone!

 We skied all morning on friday and then spent some time in Marks cabin sitting around the fire. 

This is why we get so much snow up here .  Praying  to the snow gods.

I am back in Maine for a few weeks and I have a few things to share.  The first is that it is snowing right now out my window.  Not just a few flurries, but really coming down.  Just a few minutes ago the local forecast told me to expect 4 – 7 inches by tomorrow morning.   

The other thing is that since I have been home the County has been in the middle of the potato harvest.  I seem to get a lot of questions from people about what it is that folks actually do up here, and my answer is farming.  Right now there is a lot of action out in the fields.  Potatoes and broccoli  are the major crop.  My usual quiet runs through the farm fields are now filled with big trucks and harvesters.  

Thats snow coming down

A real recovery meal.  I saw this beauty on a run yesterday and carried it all the way home.

We woke up this morning to a couple of inches of snow on the ground here in Lake Placid.  Also on a hike this past weekend Garrott Kuzzy and I ran into some snow on the top of Mt. Marcy.  And some strong winds.

Not much of a view at NY states highest point.

I am leaving for Lake Placid in the morning for the fall camp, so summer must be officially over now.  Below are some pictures from my summer:

Paddle night every Wednesday on the Aroostook River

Skiing tracks in Bend

BethAnn trading in her .22 caliber for some heavier artillery

Italy

Bill Green from Channel 6 news in Maine made the drive up to Fort Kent today to take some footage of the Olympic hopefuls in our group.  We rollerskied all morning, did interviews. and the biathletes shot their guns.  We had perfect fall weather for the event, cool and sunny.

One of the objectives for my latest trip to Italy, besides skiing my butt off on the glacier and eating some cannolli,  was to rent a road bike and ride the Stelvio from top to bottom.  I was inspired by an article that a friend gave me before I left.  The article was titled Stelvio, and it was in the english cycling magazine Rouleur, issue #7.  Great article, with great pictures.  The author Richard Moore calls the Alped’Huez with its 21 switchbacks, the fun-sized version of the Stelvio.  He also claims the Stelvio is the highest paved pass in Europe (I had heard the second highest) .  I have always had a fondness for the Giro d’Italia, and most years there is at least one climb from the Bormio area, not always the Stelvio, but sometimes.   I had a great ride up the Stelvio when I did it a few weeks ago.  A few pictures below.

The Italians love this guy.  I sat through a one hour special about his life on italian TV, I didn’t understand a word, all in italian.

The top of the pass

My rental

Wow

I just returned from my trip to Stelvio.  We skied everday on the glacier and did dryland in the afternoon.  The glacier was full of skiers, Spanish national team, Italian national team, Norwegian national team, Italian carabinieri team (police), and a bunch of other clubs.  It made for a high energy place to do a camp.   Video below courtesy of Lanny Barnes and her helmet cam: