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Fasterskier.com
For a cross-country skier, there is nothing worse than the anxiety of waiting for that first snow to fall. The angst grows as deep as a bridled race horse waiting for the gates to open. All that we want to do is glide! Is it too much to ask that the weather reciprocate our enthusiasm?
My options are limited compared to previous years. In my final semester of college, I don’t have the luxury of escaping to higher altitudes or latitudes. Final exams, papers, and projects are only a month away. When I think about it, though, being limited to waiting for the snow to fall is much less stressful than what I went through in previous seasons. Last season might have been the worst.
Last year, I’m not sure that winter and I really met at all. After super conditions on the Dachstein Glacier in Austria in September and a week of skiing in the Torsby, Sweden ski tunnel in August, I had certainly been spoiled by the time November rolled around. The U.S. Biathlon Team convened
in Torsby once again in early November thanks to the foresight of our coaches Per Nilsson and Mikael Löfgren. (Somehow they knew that it was pointless to travel hours for a few inches; maybe the weather-maker sent them his plans for the winter.) After a week of tunnel training, though,
most of us were fried from the dozens of loops every day. It was time to move on, but to where?
We drove north to Sollefteå, Per’s hometown, where the snow was marginal, but better than most locations. In Kiruna, we heard that there were nearly a hundred athletes skiing around a 2.5 kilometer loop. And in Muonio, we heard it was cold, crowded, and of course perpetually night. Organizers for the first Biathlon World Cup in Östersund, Sweden, had snow, but the forecast
looked abysmal: heavy rain with warm temperatures. Eventually, the rain made it to Sollefteå, too, and the snow melted beneath our skis. I don’t have a fond memory of the four hour ski that I did in a heavy downpour in Sollefteå. I’m glad I had brought a rain jacket!
We moved south to Östersund, where it seemed many of the other teams were huddling, too. The organizers had saved tons of snow over the summer underneath thermal blankets. There was plenty of snow, but as the World Cup approached, the organizers realized that what they had on the ground was all that they would have for the competitions. Only on a few mornings were they able to make snow since it was so warm. They had to start prioritizing the races and preserve what they had. As I was not going to be racing in the World Cup, but rather in the European Cup in Austria, I left Sweden for the Alps.
Things were even worse on the continent. When I landed in Munich, Germany, the fields were green. A few weeks earlier, when I had flown from the U.S. on my way to Sweden, the first snow had actually fallen in Munich. We drove four hours into the Alps; I was shocked by what I saw. Mountain-tops that
should have been bright white were a repulsive brown. I just kept hoping that the micro-climate of Obertilliach would mean that there was a different situation there. But alas, the fields were green there, too, when we arrived.
In Obertilliach, I spent two weeks skiing around a one kilometer loop of man-made snow. As other teams arrived, the loop and shooting range became horrendously stressful. I can only imagine in retrospect what the organizers were going through. Afternoons that I had previously imagined filled with easy recovery classic ski tours ended up being runs through the browning fields. I just wanted to cry.
Meanwhile, the situation on the World Cup had not improved. The organizers in Östersund managed to pull off the races, but just barely. The circus moved south to Hochfilzen, Austria, just two hours away from Obertilliach. The situation there was worse than where we were. They began to bring in
truckloads of snow from a glacier on one of the highest peaks in Austria to build a course. I drove to Hochfilzen one day to pick up some equipment and stopped by the venue. A ribbon of white wound through brown fields.
It was depressing. It is amazing how strong of an effect the weather can have on a person. I nearly lost hope in winter.
But then on the eve of the first European Cup race, it dumped. So much snow fell that we were barely able to make the one kilometer drive across flat terrain to the venue for the race. The snow was pure white, wet, and accumulated to about a foot or more. It was like Christmas. Except that because of it, our wax technician wasn’t able to get out of the parking lot and bring my skis to the race start. I skied anyways on my training skis just because I was just so excited to finally ski on real snow. The results were obviously poor, but my hope in winter was finally reestablished, even if it was at the absolute last hour. I raced the next week in Hochfilzen at World Cup 3, this time with all of my equipment, and it finally felt as if everything was starting to be just as it should be.
Winter arrived, but it soon abandoned Europe. Temperatures warmed and the snow melted. While I was enjoying perfect conditions in Heber City, Utah, there was little snow left in central Europe by Christmas-time. When the World Cup reconvened in early January in Oberhof, Germany, the athletes
raced on chopped ice brought in from a fish-packing factory in northern Germany. When I returned to Europe to compete on the European Cup, there was very little left. In Cesana-San Sicario, Italy, the 2006 Olympic site for biathlon, the temperatures soared to nearly 60 F. It felt like spring. At the next host site, six hours to the east, in Forni Avoltri, there was again very little. But again and again the organizers magically came through and pulled off the races.
After the races in Forni Avoltri, I returned to the U.S. in order to go to Basic Training for the Army. When I awoke at 5 am to drive to Munich for my flight, winter came; one could say it came to say good bye. Such a friendly gesture, even if the snowstorm made the drive horrendous and nearly fatal.
Two weeks later, I arrived in Fort Sill, Oklahoma for my ten week camo adventure. It snowed the first week. Not much, but enough to scare the life out of all of the Georgians, Californians, and Puerto Ricans who had never seen such a thing. Well, for me, the snow was a friendly, familiar face in a place that I had expected to be terrifying and desolate.
Winter has stopped by Vermont a few times this fall to leave a dusting of snow on the higher peaks. But this season, necessity has dictated that I not worry about where I might travel to in order to get my first kilometers of skiing in. I have to wait like most everyone else. But it actually hasn’t been as stressful as years past, when I searched frantically for signs of better conditions elsewhere. You could argue that getting on snow a few weeks earlier than everyone else might give you a performance benefit, but if getting to that snow only happened because of hours spent looking at weather maps, ticket prices, and hotel availability, then maybe it isn’t worth the stress in the end.
Brian Olsen, 24, is a 2006 Olympian (Biathlon) competing for the Minnesota Army National Guard. He’s finishing up his last semester of college this fall at the University of Vermont before getting back to the racing circuit in December. Check out his website at www.frozenbullet.com.
Sponsors:
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Patagonia Clothing Co. (www.patagonia.com)
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Lactate Pro & Spirotiger (www.fact-canada.com)
MN Army National Guard (www.dma.state.mn.us)
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