Wonderful West

Well, maybe not as wonderful as last year, but West has more snow than Fort Kent did when I left so I can only complain so much. 

So far this year there is no (skiable) snow on the Rendezvous Trails in town so everyone is making the trek up to the plateau to ski. With so many people here for the Ski Festival the logistics of getting up there are complicated, complete with a driving schedule, shuttle buses, and one-direction traffic only according to where the shuttle buses are. So far we've been up twice and between waiting in line and driving up we have yet to make the 5 mile trek in under 45 minutes. Conveniently, we are staying within sight of the entrance to the road up to the plateau so it's easy to keep track of when the line is getting long. This morning we had cars backed up to our house for the 8 o'clock drive up...probably close to a half mile's worth of sitting traffic. 

The skiing up on the plateau is remarkably good considering what the roadsides look like as you're driving up. Today I broke out my three new pairs of race skis for their inaugural run. So far so good but I have a few more layers of wax to put in them before they're ready for any racing action. We're all waiting to see what will happen with the first races of the Supertour that are supposed to be here. Saturday's distance skate race has been moved up to Friday and will be a point to point 9k race. Should be interesting! 

In other exciting news, Raleigh and Emily are getting ready to make their fashion debuts in tonight's nordic wear Fashion Show at the Ski Festival expo. I will bring a camera and be sure to share any exiting photos soon. They will be modeling the latest and hottest nordic apparel available from none other than our sponsor, Mt. Borah. Our new suits and vests are awesome...photos of those coming soon as well. 

Now I know I always put pictures in my blog entries because I believe a photo-less blog entry is boring so you're probably wondering why this entry is sooooo boring. I'm sorry. The fan in my computer (OLD iBook G4) stopped working shortly before I left for my current four-week adventure so I didn't bring. Thus, I am left to mooch computer time from my teammates when available. But I do promise to post pictures as soon as I get some worth posting. 

That's all for now from very brown West Yellowstone....Please keep snow dancing...it's time for WINTER!