Spring fever
Posted by Zach Johns on Thursday, March 14, 2013 Under: Down Hill Skiing
I
blacked out. Seriously, I blacked out! One moment I was flying down a
slushy ski slope at Giants Ridge, hurling toward a pool full of
floating ice chunks, and the next thing I knew I was struggling to
stand-up, body completely numb, water pouring from my sinuses. When I
finally got my senses about me I could hear the cheers and laughter of
my fellow skiers and snowboarders. Weakly, I managed a smile and bent
over to release my ski. Then I fell in again.
Say what you will about alpine skiing being a winter sport, but truthfully, the real fun starts in the spring. Moguls turn slushy, terrain park landings are soft, barbecues, outdoor music, goggle tans… It’s like the season just keeps getting better and better and better from November to March then, “boom!” It’s over.
Mother Nature is cruel.
Some years crueler than others. Last season, for example, we skied the last three weekends of the season in shorts - it was nearly 80 degrees!!! It was sunny! It was fun!
That is until the hill closed on March 18.
Every year we expect to ski at least one week in April - if not two or three. But closing in mid-March - it’s kind of heartbreaking.
But I didn’t plan on writing this week’s blog about the sadness of spring skiing - I want to focus on the revelry! Let’s talk about the good times, man!
So here we go again! March - my favorite month of the ski season! And this year we’re even getting snow! Yes, finally our powder prayers are being answered. It seems like we’ve gotten more snow this month than every other month of the season combined!
Plus, this March we’ve had SUNSHINE!!! Bluebird powder days! Life doesn’t get much better. After a winter of gray NONSNOW days, the sun just amps up the stoke-o-meter! With bright sunshine you can see everything - jumps no longer have blind landings - ruts and death cookies are visible - cheeks get brown. Life is good.
Back in college I LIVED for March. I would schedule my classes to make the most of my Spirit Mountain season pass and would pretty much be on the hill all day. Then, during spring break, while all the other kids would take-off to Cabo or Padre, I would stay at Spirit and would always have the deepest, darkest tan on campus.
Well, my face did, anyway.
People would come up to me and comment on my brown face. “Wow! Where did you go on your spring break? Florida?”
“No, Duluth.”
I’ve always said that we need to earn those wonderful sunny March days by enduring those -30 days in January. The more you ski in subzero conditions, the more days of spring skiing we will get. In fact, I kind of dislike seeing the local hill get so crowded on these warm spring days. Where were all these people during frostbite season?! They don’t deserve to be here!
Back in college, there was this guy Darryl, who would never show-up prior to St Patrick’s Day. And every year, he would arrive in the spring and be the best skier on the entire hill! It was so unfair! We would be there every day, paying our dues and Daryl shows-up and schools us all. He skied moguls like an Olympian, could do any trick in the terrain park, and all the cute skier chicks swooned over him! He would even win the barrel jumping competition at the Spring Carnival - and not by sucking his legs into his chest to achieve the maximum distance - he would make the crowd go nuts by floating a slow-motion helicopter over a line of about twenty barrels.
So unfair.
But I suppose there are fair-weather skiers just as there are fair-weather anything. I imagine that’s what people at Lutsen probably think of me when I make my annual trip there for the final day of the season. The annual tradition called “ski camp.”
Ski camp is the transition between seasons. It’s the last day of the ski season and the first day of North Shore camping/hiking season all at once. After Giants Ridge shuts down for the winter, Lutsen usually gives us an extra week or two. (Sometimes even more as they stockpile snow like Ebenezer Scrooge)
So I go over the Shore and spend the Saturday hiking the Superior Hiking Trail seeing what the snowmelt is doing to the waterfalls. Then I’ll set-up camp for the night - usually at the Caribou River backcountry site on the SHT or at Temperance River State Park. Sunday morning I ski for the last time. Speed runs down Moose Mountain with Lake Superior spread out in front of me. The slushy moguls of Hari Kari. Sunshine on my shoulder. Ahhh… Annually one of the best days of the season.
Then I drive home through the forest, tired, sunburnt and happy. With a great North Shore spring, summer and fall in front of me.
Yeah, Mother Nature is cruel!
Upcoming Spring Events:
March 16: Giants Ridge Annual Spring Carnival - slush cup, slope style competition, live outdoor music and barbecue. www.giantsridge.com
March 16: Spirit Mountain Spring Break Fiesta - Free NASTAR racing, rail jam, barrel jumping, water skipping, scavenger hunt and more… www.spiritmt.com
March 30: Lutsen Mountains Spring Carnival - Live music, family fun race/obstacle race, costume contest, fireworks. www.lutsen.com
Say what you will about alpine skiing being a winter sport, but truthfully, the real fun starts in the spring. Moguls turn slushy, terrain park landings are soft, barbecues, outdoor music, goggle tans… It’s like the season just keeps getting better and better and better from November to March then, “boom!” It’s over.
Mother Nature is cruel.
Some years crueler than others. Last season, for example, we skied the last three weekends of the season in shorts - it was nearly 80 degrees!!! It was sunny! It was fun!
That is until the hill closed on March 18.
Every year we expect to ski at least one week in April - if not two or three. But closing in mid-March - it’s kind of heartbreaking.
But I didn’t plan on writing this week’s blog about the sadness of spring skiing - I want to focus on the revelry! Let’s talk about the good times, man!
So here we go again! March - my favorite month of the ski season! And this year we’re even getting snow! Yes, finally our powder prayers are being answered. It seems like we’ve gotten more snow this month than every other month of the season combined!
Plus, this March we’ve had SUNSHINE!!! Bluebird powder days! Life doesn’t get much better. After a winter of gray NONSNOW days, the sun just amps up the stoke-o-meter! With bright sunshine you can see everything - jumps no longer have blind landings - ruts and death cookies are visible - cheeks get brown. Life is good.
Back in college I LIVED for March. I would schedule my classes to make the most of my Spirit Mountain season pass and would pretty much be on the hill all day. Then, during spring break, while all the other kids would take-off to Cabo or Padre, I would stay at Spirit and would always have the deepest, darkest tan on campus.
Well, my face did, anyway.
People would come up to me and comment on my brown face. “Wow! Where did you go on your spring break? Florida?”
“No, Duluth.”
I’ve always said that we need to earn those wonderful sunny March days by enduring those -30 days in January. The more you ski in subzero conditions, the more days of spring skiing we will get. In fact, I kind of dislike seeing the local hill get so crowded on these warm spring days. Where were all these people during frostbite season?! They don’t deserve to be here!
Back in college, there was this guy Darryl, who would never show-up prior to St Patrick’s Day. And every year, he would arrive in the spring and be the best skier on the entire hill! It was so unfair! We would be there every day, paying our dues and Daryl shows-up and schools us all. He skied moguls like an Olympian, could do any trick in the terrain park, and all the cute skier chicks swooned over him! He would even win the barrel jumping competition at the Spring Carnival - and not by sucking his legs into his chest to achieve the maximum distance - he would make the crowd go nuts by floating a slow-motion helicopter over a line of about twenty barrels.
So unfair.
But I suppose there are fair-weather skiers just as there are fair-weather anything. I imagine that’s what people at Lutsen probably think of me when I make my annual trip there for the final day of the season. The annual tradition called “ski camp.”
Ski camp is the transition between seasons. It’s the last day of the ski season and the first day of North Shore camping/hiking season all at once. After Giants Ridge shuts down for the winter, Lutsen usually gives us an extra week or two. (Sometimes even more as they stockpile snow like Ebenezer Scrooge)
So I go over the Shore and spend the Saturday hiking the Superior Hiking Trail seeing what the snowmelt is doing to the waterfalls. Then I’ll set-up camp for the night - usually at the Caribou River backcountry site on the SHT or at Temperance River State Park. Sunday morning I ski for the last time. Speed runs down Moose Mountain with Lake Superior spread out in front of me. The slushy moguls of Hari Kari. Sunshine on my shoulder. Ahhh… Annually one of the best days of the season.
Then I drive home through the forest, tired, sunburnt and happy. With a great North Shore spring, summer and fall in front of me.
Yeah, Mother Nature is cruel!
Upcoming Spring Events:
March 16: Giants Ridge Annual Spring Carnival - slush cup, slope style competition, live outdoor music and barbecue. www.giantsridge.com
March 16: Spirit Mountain Spring Break Fiesta - Free NASTAR racing, rail jam, barrel jumping, water skipping, scavenger hunt and more… www.spiritmt.com
March 30: Lutsen Mountains Spring Carnival - Live music, family fun race/obstacle race, costume contest, fireworks. www.lutsen.com
In : Down Hill Skiing
Tags: spring slush lutsen carnival "spirit mountain" march
Zach Johns is an alpine skier, backpacker, paddler and all-around nature lover who lives on Minnesota‘s Iron Range. Originally from Osceola, Wis., Johns attended the University of Minnesota-Duluth so he could ski every day and be close to the trails of his beloved North Shore. There, he earned a degree in Communication and was editor of the student newspaper. However, the real education he gained at UMD was in honing his outdoor skills. He took courses in subjects such as backpacking, winter camping, rock climbing and canoe tripping. By the time he graduated, that was all he wanted to do. In January of 1997, he moved to the Range where he met a group of die-hard skiers dedicated to making turns at Giants Ridge every single day of the winter (when they weren’t out skiing the big mountains of the west.) Throughout the late nineties he built a very impressive ski resume, taking several trips to Utah, Montana, Wyoming, California, British Columbia and Alaska. During the off-season, he took to the hiking trails. In 1997, he hiked the entire Superior Hiking Trail during the single season (what had been completed until that time) and in following years, took trips to Yosemite, Glacier and the Grand Canyon. He also made two attempts to climb King’s Peak, the highest mountain in Utah, but failed to summit both times. In 1999, he attempted the infamous 43-mile Kekekabic Trail through the heart of the BWCA and limped out after only ten miles with a hernia. He did finally complete the Kek in 2005, during one of the hottest weeks on record. Besides hiking, he also continued dabbling with paddling, making several canoe trips to the BWCA and became an enthusiastic (yet very novice) whitewater kayaker. He is now a father of two sons, Nick and Jackson, who accompany their father on nearly all his adventures. Both were skiing fairly soon after they could stand and from 2006-2011, the three hiked in every state park in Minnesota, 195 miles of hiking in 65 parks. Since becoming a dad, Johns has suddenly realized that you can’t just be out there skiing, hiking, paddling, etc. without also working to protect the very things you love. With that in mind, he founded an adventure club at work to get co-workers outside who might not otherwise be inspired to go. The club has gone on hiking, paddling, winter camping and cycling trips and annually go on a trash pick-up hike to celebrate Earth Day. He believes that once you get people out into beautiful wild places, the more likely they will be to protect them. He has also done a lot of volunteer work for the Superior Hiking Trail Association including adopting a backcountry campsite which he and the boys maintain twice a year. It is of extreme importance, he believes, to introduce children to the outdoors early. Not only is it good for them, but they will be the ones protecting these places once we are gone. Future plans? There are a few local goals to check-off including hiking the Border Route Trail in the BWCA and Isle Royale. Mostly, it’s just to take the boys hiking and camping in more of our national parks, skiing the big western mountains, and more of their usual seasonal cycle: Giants Ridge in the winter, Superior’s North Shore in the spring, South Shore in the summer and back to the North Shore in the fall.
