Devil's Thumb Ranch Report

Although this is a few days old I wanted to do a quick update on the 15km race at Devil's Thumb.

It was fairly warm, 22˚F, and snowing lightly when we arrived. DTR staff had groomed the race course but hadn't marked it when we arrived but started doing so a little after many of our athletes started warming up. We gave out a few maps to those who asked but many of the athletes just didn't get it done so never got to ski the loop before the race. No worries though, they would learn it during the race since it was a 5km loop!

The most interested problem we faced was the fact that the course crossed the road 3 times! On two of the crossing Rachel, Brian and the Lewis parents were able to shovel enough snow to ski across with no danger to the ski. For the 3rd road crossing there was nothing to be done, DTR had pushed snow across the road when they groomed but the county snow plow had destroyed that so the racers had to take off their skis and run across the road! It turned out to be pretty fun and everyone seemed to enjoy it, except Kinner who had trouble getting his skis on!

The race went amazingly well with Eliah and Tom skiing together for the entire race and Eliah dropping Tom at the end of the last loop. The women, Gwynn, Kari, Gracie, Britanie skied together for one loop and then started to separate out. Gwynn and Gracie skied together with Gwynn being slightly stronger at the end and Britanie leading Kari for most of the race but she never took a feed and Kari took two so she ended up catching and dropping her on the last lap. Everyone else skied well and had a good time. It was a brutal 15km course so it was great to have an idea of how it works. Hopefully the stars will align and this will be the course for Nationals.

The forecast for Sunday was a low at night of 5˚F and a high of 26˚F so we base waxed with Fast Wax Blue and put Fast Wax Tan on top. Our skis were rocking on Saturday and it seemed it would be the same on Sunday. However, by race time it was about 25˚F which is really not Tan's best range. We were waxed a little cold for the conditions but only Kinner had better skis so it didn't have an enormous impact.

We're extremely proud of everyone! What a great race!