JANUARY 21, 2020 – In ancient times I used to ski the American Birkebeiner Race, a 50-kilometer x-c ski marathon from Mt. Telemark to Hayward, Wisconsin. (For more about the race and its history, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Birkebeiner)
My best race qualified me the next year for the second of ten waves totaling 10,000 skiers. Theoretically, my “second wave” race should have been my best (conditions that year were excellent). Unfortunately, that was also the year that transportation to the starting point got hopelessly screwed up. Not only was my shuttle bus delayed, but a mile short of the starting area, we got stuck in a massive traffic jam. I wound up running (in my plastic-soled ski boots) that mile and reaching the starting gate just after the fifth wave had started. The race officials allowed me to smack my skis down and cross the starting line all by myself—an “in between wave” of one. It was all uphill from there.
My worst race was when the temperature was minus 10 degrees F at the start. My feet were ice cubes before the three-and-a-half-hour race even started. By the end, a lot of us had frozen eyeballs. Well, not exactly, but that’s what the medical corps at the finish line called our condition—frozen eyeballs. We hurt like hell, which is a little ironic given the heat produced by that nefariously hot region of self-indulgence.
After collecting eight racing bibs, a medal and a bunch of race pins, I “retired” from Birkebeiner races. Seventeen more and I would have qualified for my “birch-leggings” (the English translation for the Norwegian, “Birkebeiner”) bib, pin, and asterisk beside my name in the results book. But why fight for space with 10,000 skiers, 20,000 skis and 20,000 poles on what is probably the finest point-to-point x-c ski trail (for skating and classic styles) in North America?
Now I ski the “Birkie Trail” at my own pace, on my own terms, which most of time means in complete solitude. This past weekend I skied twice on the trail from a major trailhead an easy 10-minute drive from the back door of our cabin. Conditions were perfect: several inches of fresh, dry snow, groomed; another inch of the same delicate powder; temps in the high teens Fahrenheit; only one or two skiers coming the opposite direction every 15 or 20 minutes. A thick overcast remained in the aftermath of Friday’s storm, giving the deep, surrounding woods and undulating terrain a mysterious aspect. I felt as though I’d found my way into an old Norse tale of a winter woodland wonderland ruled by trolls.
On the downside of the bigger hills, my skis floated noiselessly through the wispy powder. As I zoomed faster and faster past the trees, I imagined their envy. They were stuck forever where they were rooted, watching me, unrooted, fly past as whimsy personified. Hidden were the trolls watching in wonderment—they knew their old boards were no match for mine.
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© 2020 by Eric Nilsson
