The Wisconsin Skier

Congratulations! You are about to take your first ski trip to an Olympic capable resort, but you never skied outside of Wisconsin, Michigan, or Minnesota and are worried about finding appropriate runs for your ability.

Do not worry, but understand a few things that I have noted in other posts. The key thing is — resorts grade their trails on a curve based solely on the runs at their own resort. The uber-tough runs are double-blacks, the tough ones are blacks, the intermediate ones are blues, and the easiest are greens. Do know, a black (or even a 2xblack) at your local Wisconsin ski area may be tagged as a green in Colorado or at Killington.
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Ski Brule March 6 & 7, 2010.

The sun was bright, the weather warm, and the snow melting. However, the children were focused (for the most part) on ski racing.

The skiing was fun to watch. On Saturday, the children successfully and slowly skied slalom, I expected faster times. I have skied at Ski Brule many times when the USSA races were on and am accustomed to a lot of zooming youngsters on all the ski runs. They fearlessly tuck and schuss, lay down incredible carves, and really work their skis; so I expected faster times.

To be fair, the weather made for slow snow and looking good free-skiing is easier than skiing fast and turning on another’s whim! Also, their courses were longer than the NASTAR course I am used to running, and most the extra length is on relatively flat terrain. They were also skiing a slalom course with more and tighter turning.

It was interesting watching the youngsters and no matter where I was watching, I could pick out the better skiers. No matter whether it was at the starting house, in the middle of the course, or at the finish line (however, by the finish line time it was obvious). Some of this is obviously related to the skier’s age, the older children are obviously more powerful and more experienced, still within age groups it was obvious.
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A young racer skids to a stop after crossing the finish line. This photo was taken at the USSA J4/J5/J6 Finale Races at Ski Brule on Sunday March, 7 2010.
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How long indeed?

Obviously, there is no statutory definition or some sort of arbitrary of Wisconsin’s ski season.

Short answer, it depends. For the long answer read on.
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My latest video on the slopes effort. I strapped the camera to my body again, but it came loose, so I ended up handholding the camera. The camera I am using here is my Panasonic Lumix at about 5 Mpixel, I should break out my dedicated video camera and see what I can do.

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A racer carves a turn around a slalom gate.

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Even after skiing all day long and skiing hard the children were still full of energy. Climbing up on the ramp and looking for others to play with.

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As you may have noted, I went skiing this last weekend.

Usually at this time of the year at the happy carving grounds it appears to be full on winter. However, this winter it appears to be full on spring up there. The snow is disappearing fast up there, at least in the woods and around the cabin. The drive in on Friday evening we could see exposed dirt and leaves on the road and when we got to the cabin, quite a bit of the driveway base was exposed. In addition, the snow on top of the cabin is mostly gone, ice on the decks is rapidly melting away too.

Saturday was brilliant sunshine and temperatures of around 50° F! Ski Brule knows how to take care of their snow, the very top of the hill and the very bottoms were very soft but the trails themselves were tolerable. If you did not mind somewhat reduced speeds the skiing was excellent. I only recall feeling the tug of mashed-potatoes grabbing at my skis once maybe twice the whole weekend.

Sunday was a repeat of Saturday except the sunshine was not so brilliant. Weather forecasts and reports have this pattern holding out throughout this week and one fellow mentioned some heavy rains are on the way. Alas, the end of the 2009-2010 ski season is nigh. Get your skiing in now before it is too late.

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Ski Brule hosted the United States Ski and Snowboard Association’s (Central Division Region II) Finale for J4/J5/J6 class skiers. I went there to ski and to photograph the youngsters skiing.

I enjoyed watching the skiing and I believe I obtained a number of good images I can use at this site. In addition, I learned a few things about capturing skiing on pixels, and I will share those.
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When many people think of skiing the first resorts that come to mind are usually Vail, Aspen, Breckenridge, etc. However, recently we have all become aware of Buck Hill where Olympic downhill gold medalist Lindsey Vonn learned to ski.

In addition, Ski Brule near Iron River Michigan sent a snowboarder to the Olympics.

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