South Trail Grooming
Grooming equipment on top of Benson
Forestville: Yesterday’s ‘Bully run has the classic tracks on all trails in excellent shape. Andy cleaned up the skate lane on the Noque and Animoosh to 17k as well as Chiwagi via the hill by pass. Skiing will be excellent
Fit Strip: Patricia skied the Fit Strip on February 16. She reported: “Much of the lighted loop had been groomed with fresh tracks. The north end is still without enough snow to track, but at least has a little more coverage. Full trees, clear skies, quarter moon, and the (very large-sounding) hooting owl (who owns the place) make a peaceful setting for an evening ski.”
Big Bay Pathway: The Big Bay Pathway was groomed on the 16th.
Meditation and Hidden Grin are groomed and in excellent condition 👍
Saux Head: Tim groomed and track set the 17th. I skied Saux Head yesterday and it was excellent.
Snow Bike Trails:
NORTH TRAILS
Last Groomed: 2/17/21: Base is solid and well packed with overall very good coverage; occasional rocks and roots showing through.
Current conditions are about as good as they get for winter biking and trail running.
Be prepared for ice where trails go under the penstock
South Trails Grooming: Groomed February 16. Trails in excellent shape.
WTLGR: This winter’s spectacular harbor ice had me going through my stuff yesterday. Hockey players of a certain age will see the modifier hockey as redundant. I remember finding myself in New York on business. With several evenings to kill I called my brother, living an hour away in Connecticut. On short notice I wasn’t sure he would have time to get together but gave it a shot. He said, “Did you bring your stuff?”. There was no context to the comment but I knew what he meant. Dick was a four letter athlete so it could have been skis, tennis or bike stuff, (who plays football in their 60s). Of course, I did not have my stuff but no problem. Dick lined up stuff and I joined his drop in league for a spirited night on the ice.
I’m not sure how much cross over we have into hockey. Do either of you play? Growing up in Marquette, hockey was the unifier. Regardless other sports, everyone skated. Rinks were within walking distance of everyone in town. Each grade school had two rinks; one for hockey and the other for figure skating. Everyone was in organized hockey because cost wasn’t a factor. I remember when organized hockey went from $2 per season to $5 because of the addition of dental insurance. This was at a time when a season’s ticket at Cliffs Ridge (now Marquette Mountain) was $50. We played our hockey games in the Palestra; a cold barn with poor lighting but the price was right. Originally in Calumet, it was taken apart and rebuilt in Marquette in 1921. It took less than two months and they were skating. It was a good sized building with an upstairs dance hall and room for 3,000 hockey fans. One can imagine how 9th century Europeans felt when pondering Roman aqueducts. Clearly man made, they had lost the technology. We have lost the ability to build a low cost ice rink. In the decades to follow, Marquette produced some of the world’s best hockey players with Olympic medals to prove it. In those days, NHL players were French Canadians; Americans need not apply.
I don’t wax nostalgic just for the sake of nostalgia but rather to point out what we have lost and what we could gain. We could actually turn Marquette into an engine for world class athlete creation. The Ethiopian town of Bekoji is the size of Marquette yet has produced dozens of Summer Olympic champions. The same is true of some small Norwegian towns for the Winter Olympics. We have world class Nordic skiing and weather that would allow five months of “barn ice” similar to the old Palestra. Wouldn’t it be cool to see Marquette as the place campions are made? We could make it happen.
See you out there,
Sondo