I agree, great to see you guys out gettin' after it @Slim and @charlier! And, being that the days are now getting shorter, I'm going to start pulling out some pics from the archives. Here are a few shots from a lift assisted solo tour back on March 7th.Great stuff and stoke as we are now in summertime! Jealous of some you guys bagging these great spring lines. Well done!
I keep meaning to write you about locations for a 2024 trip, but maybe I should just go to Planica and call it good.At least 2 weeks later then normally nowadays, but finally it got cold enough they spread last years snow and made some 2.5km loop, so my xc skiing season (and with current status of glaciers around here, any kind of skiing season) is finally open And what's even nicer, they are promising some 60-70cm of snow for Tuesday, so lets hope they are right
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Few more months and it will be pretty busy on these tracks... also for me as it looks at the moment But hopefully with way more snow that time
Do they preserve the snow in place or pile it up somewhere and re-distribute it to make the track? I'm impressed by how clean and uniform it is.At least 2 weeks later then normally nowadays, but finally it got cold enough they spread last years snow and made some 2.5km loop, so my xc skiing season (and with current status of glaciers around here, any kind of skiing season) is finally open And what's even nicer, they are promising some 60-70cm of snow for Tuesday, so lets hope they are right
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Few more months and it will be pretty busy on these tracks... also for me as it looks at the moment But hopefully with way more snow that time
Do they preserve the snow in place or pile it up somewhere and re-distribute it to make the track? I'm impressed by how clean and uniform it is.
@Doug Briggs they do the same thing at Craftsbury in Vermont now. It's a science.@Doug Briggs they made huge pile of it last winter, then it's covered with some sort of canvas and "sawdust". Well it's not really proper sawdust but slightly bigger one. This then remains outside through the summer (normally you try to find as cold place as possible, but in Planica pretty much everything is on sun in summer so it's straight there About 20% of snow is lost through the summer but rest is pretty good quality. After that it's question how you transport it to track. In Planica they have pretty good system (and plenty of asphalt roller ski tracks with bridges and tunnels help with this) where to start, where to drive and how to proceed with loop extension, so trucks driving snow to track never cross track and never drive on snow, so snow is really clean. In some other places they do it more like "oh well it will do" so snow looks more like mud soup then snow.