Outdoor Center News

A podium-full of 5-6 grade girls talent! Photo - Paul Bierman

CNSC's younger crowd turned in some impressive performances at the New England Bill Koch Festival in Great Glen, NH last weekend. The Festival again broke particpation records with over 575 kids this year! Craftsbury had 25 BKL skiers in attendence:

Orion Cenkl
Avery and Claire Ellis
Benjamin Gillott
Anders Hanson
Olivia Jones
Anica Koontz Miller
Matthew Lawlor
Cormac and Ani Leahy
Marika and Quincy Massey-Bierman
David and Alan Moody
Jacob Morse
Kestrel Owens
Adrienne and Maya Remick
Molly Stanciu
Finn and Phoebe Sweet
Kai and Max Wingensiefen
Callie and Jack Young

Quite a crew!

Saturday's classic relay competitions greeted all the skiers with some tricky wax conditions with windy weather and fresh snow. Coach ...

TGM finishes 18th in the youth sprint

In the final races of the Junior World Biathlon Championships in Kontiolahti, Finland, CNSC's Ethan Dreissigacker and Tara Geraghty Moats improved on their solid results earlier in the week to post exceptional finishes. 

Both Ethan and Tara led the American squad in 6km and 10km sprint races respectively. Tara finished 18th with 2 misses on the range, and Ethan had only a single miss to finish in 20th. 

“I was pretty excited that I held onto 20th because that was my best result at my first Junior Worlds in Ruhpolding, Germany” Dreissigacker told Fasterskier.com

While neither of the pair were able to match their performances in the pursuit (Ethan slipped to a respectable 30th with 6 misses and Tara to 52nd with 9), the sprint races capped a solid week of biathlon competition at the ...

A quick, but important clarification about dates for US Long Distance Nationals being held at the Craftsbury Nordic Center. The correct schedule for US Long Distance Nationals at Craftsbury is as follows:

Friday, March 30:  Women’s 30k skate mass start
Saturday, March 31:  Men’s 50k skate mass start
 
These dates were correctly published on the FIS website and in the USSA Competition Guide. However, we have recently discovered that conflicting dates were published in several other places. We wish we had caught this sooner, and we apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.
 
For the latest info about both SuperTour Finals and Long Distance Nationals, please visit

Kids scale the north face of the Eiger after a fresh batch of blown snow.

Check out this article from the Albany (NY) Times Union:  "Where Snow is still King". The author of the piece discovered what Craftsbury skiers, houseguests and members have known all this winter - we've consistently been the place for the most snow and terrain in '11-'12.

Despite a lack of cooperation from Mother Nature, we're still making our stand:  96k of trails open this morning and we blew snow all last night until mid-morning. Hopefully we're earning a nice, big storm from Ullr or whomever is in charge of winter these days! Think snow!

Albany Times Union Article,

Racers gut it out in the TD Bank EC Openers this past December. - Kris Dobie photo

Regrettably, there's not much snow in much of New England this winter. Wish everyone was skiing in the same conditions we've been fortunate enough to enjoy this winter, but many are not so lucky. Races have been moved all season - and this week is no different. We'll be hosting four races over the next four days:

Thursday, Feb 16 - North Country Twilight sprints, starting around 4pm. Watch tomorrow's stars rip it up tonight on the fields.

Saturday, Feb 18 - Williams College Carnival - enjoy watching some of the fastest college skiers in the country to our trails!

Saturday and Sunday, Feb 18-19 - TD Bank NENSA Eastern Cup Finals. The EC opened here last December, and now we're closing it down too. As we are only acting as host venue, go to NENSA's ...

March is coming up fast - and so is the SuperTour Finals! We've made limited mention of this event in the past, but now you can stay up on all the developments surrounding the SuperTour at Craftsbury this spring on its own dedicated website - www.2012supertourfinals.com. You can be sure you're getting the latest information on the event too, by following its Twitter stream, via the handle @2012STFinals.

Looking forward to some great racing!

Even after 31 iterations, there's always room for improvement. Want to help the Marathon function better next year? Please give us a moment of your time and complete this survey.

Did you order a 2012 Marathon tee shirt and forget to pick it up last weekend? You're in good company. If you're one of those skiers, drop the office a line, and they'll work out details of how to get it to you. Thanks!

Top to bottom: Clare bringing it home, skiers climbing, Nils leading Eli. Kris Dobie, photos.

Check out the complete 2012 Marathon results here. Our searchable results page will produce as specific of a results' set as you wish. For example, to view the Women's 25km, select "Race - 25km" for Event and "Female" for Gender, then click the Search button. 

Podiums:

Women's 25k
1- Julia Harrison 01:15:59.40
2- Karina Packer
3- Elise Seyferth

Men's 25k
1- Steven Mangan 01:02:47.00
2- Silas Talbot
3- Hans Halvorsen

Women's 50k
1- Clare Egan, 02:32:20.90
2- Robyn Anderson
3- Emily Blackmer

Men's 50k
1- Nils Koons, 02:06:57.80
2- Eli Enman
3- Scott Lacy

5:56pm - Still pretty warm out there.

We're a go!
We closed down for the day to let the rain drain out, and any appreciable rain pretty well finished for us around mid-day. The groomers went out in the mid-afternoon and reported that things look good. Things will freeze up overnight and the groomers will resume their labors in the morning.

Change to High School Awards
High School awards will take place at 11:15, in front of the garage.

Stadium Map
Wondering where the facilities will be on race day? Want to take a look at the stadium layout? What about food? Wax testing? Warmup? Answers to these questions and more can be found on the stadium map.

See you ...

The PistenBully leaves a nice track.

Entrant Instructions Now Online
Go here for full details - parking, bib pickup, DOR registration - you name it, the Entrant Instructions has it.

Bib Pickup
Two options:
Friday night, 6-8pm in the basement of the Church on the Common.
Saturday morning, Craftsbury Academy Gym, 7-8:30am.

Friday's bib pickup is way more relaxed, with great food available at the pasta feed, plus wax clinics from our sponsors. All in all, a lovely atmosphere. Save race day for things like wax adjustments and using the portajon one more time.

Friday Night Pasta Feed
Friday, 6-8pm, in the basement of the Craftsbury United Church, the Craftsbury Outdoor ...

Course Map
We have posted a map of the ~11k lap course in our maps section. While we'd prefer to be on the point to point course, this layout has a lot to recommend it. Racers will be well-tested. Some highlights:

-Start/Finish/Lap on lower soccer field
-Course primarily uses Lemon's Haunt, Bailey Hazen, Ruthie's and Race Loop.
-Two feeds:  stadium and at Sam's/Ruthie's junction out by Creek Road.

Conditions
Yes, we did get some rain last night, and in order to ensure good conditions later in the week, we asked skiers to stay on a select 10k. Stay tuned to see if we get any snow out of the tail end of the warm/moist system we suffered last night. Keep tabs on ...

Our testbed for a new snow-farming technique.

As promised, we have an update on the 2012 Marathon.

Course:  We met on Thursday and and our plan remains to try the point to point course. The primary course is quite close to being adequately snow covered, and we have a forecast for more snow coming in over the weekend. We will revisit the question early next week after we see what emerges from the weekend weather.

We are discussing several backup loop courses on the core trails at this time as well, should the weather not pan out the way we anticipate. Stay tuned for which variety of course we'll race.

Registration deadline:  Lastly, don't forget:  if you haven't registered yet, do so before midnight tomorrow to save $20. Registration is on

We've been getting some questions about the plans for the 2012 marathon. Given we're a bit over two weeks out, now seems like a good time to address the discussions and plans.

Marathon is ON!
While we cannot guarantee what course we will be using for this year, we can say that we will have a marathon on the 28th thanks to our snowmaking system. Our intention remains to run on the point to point course from Greensboro to the Center, ending on the Common for the 50k. Having said that, we must allow that if the Marathon were being held today, we'd be running some variety of lap course on the Center premises (though the fresh snow is beginning to pile up nicely!). We presently have a loop of 3.5k of ...

6 Jan 11 Update:  Ida 2nd in 20k classic mass start! Unofficial results.

Wondering where the GRP have been this week? The whole crew went to Rumford, Maine for the 2012 US Cross Country Championships. After a slow start due to poor conditions, racing is in full swing!

Following a canceled day of competiton, Tuesday saw the tracks groomed back up and ready to go for the freestyle sprints. After qualifying, the GRP was sitting pretty:

GRP Women, FS sprint qualifier:
Ida Sargent - 3rd
Maria Stuber - 4th
Hannah Dreissigacker - 8th
Clare Egan - 19th

GRP Men, FS sprint qualifier:
Tim ...

A HS competitor during the 2011 Vermont State Championships at Craftsbury.

Just a heads up for day skiers planning on enjoying Craftsbury this weekend:  we are acting as an alternate venue for a U-32 high school race from noon to 2:00pm on Saturday the 7th. This is a great opportunity to watch some of the young talent from Vermont high schools duke it out on a spectator friendly course.

Not interested in spectating? If you are a confident skier, it may also be a perfect time to explore some of our more adventurous ski opportunities we have available. Another option suitable to all skiers would be the trail around Big Hosmer Pond, since our main snowmaking loop will be in full use by the racers. (Big Hosmer will require a short walk to access the trail). Thanks for your understanding and flexibility. Lemon's Haunt and the soccer fields should be available for all users by 2:00pm.

TGM showing some of her ski speed - photo Judy Geer.

Beyond the great competition going on here at the Center this past weekend with the Classic, there were other results to note (even if a bit belatedly).

Last week, Craftsbury biathletes Ethan Dreissigacker and Tara Geraghty-Moats headed off to the great white north of Alaska for US Junior Biathlon Trials in Anchorage - and made the end of 2011 a very successful one!

The racing opened on Wednesday, the 28th with a 7.5/10k spring competition. Ethan kicked things off in fine style, missing only one shot en route to a 1:17 win. Tara took a more dramatic path to a clear and decisive win, missing half of the day's targets, but still winning by 1:03 on the strength of her ski speed. In fact, when looking at the ...

The mad genius behind the 2012 COC Winter Triathlon finishes at the 2010 US National Masters.

Craftsbury groomer and triathlete extraordinaire, Keith Woodward is making lemonade from meteorological lemons. He is organizing a low-key winter triathlon for this Sunday, January 8, at 11am.

Long Course (in order of event):
~4k Run
~7k Bike
~6k ski

Short course is half that distance for each discipline. Both courses start and finish on the lower soccer field behind Cedar (transition is there too).

Registration is DOR only, starting at 9:30am (location TBD). Entry is FREE for Craftsbury members, $5 for non-members (both must sign a waiver available that morning).

Helmets are mandatory during the bike leg, studded tires are advisable, studded/Yaktrax'd shoes aren't a bad idea ...

The groomers worked all morning to connect Lemon's Haunt to the lower soccer field.

Thanks to everyone for coming out today. Great as always to see some many friendly faces.

Results are presently available in .pdf format here. We'll be posting them in our searchable database in the coming days, but wanted to get them out.

Happy 2012!

Craftsbury Classic 2012 - Full Results

Winter Trails Day is a nationwide event, organized to offer those new to snow sports an opportunity to try snowshoeing and cross country skiing for free, and to discover the great fitness and social benefits with these  winter sports.

Join Craftsbury Outdoor Center in its celebration of the 17th annual Winter Trails Day is on January 7, 2012. All Saturday, the Center will offer Complimentary trail use and rental equipment for snowshoeing and cross-country skiing for folks who are trying these activities for the first time. In addition, an introductory XC skiing group lesson at 1:30pm will be offered. (While free, we ask that you register your interest in the intro group lesson when you grab your gear from the Touring Center please).

Hope you'll join us!

Read more at the

Day 2 opened clear and cold, with over 400 racers competing on the 1.5k loop. The cold was welcome however, as it allowed our snowmaking team to make two additional mounds of fresh snow to augment the existing coverage.

Sophie Caldwell picked up right where she left off on Saturday, posting an 11 second win over Craftsbury Green Racing Project's own Maria Stuber who herself bested UNH's Elizabeth Guiney by 4 seconds.

After Saturday's double duplicate podium, the men's field was ready to shake up the results - and change it did, as none of Saturday's top three appeared on Sunday's podium. The GRP's Bryan Cook led a Craftsbury podium sweep, with teammates Dylan McGuffin and Nils Koons completing the all green victory party.

Check out NENSA for

Updates for Sunday's Eastern Cup races

Update - 20:51 - START LIST - Here.

Start Interval - All classes will have 30 second start intervals.

Start times - J2 boys 9:30; J2 girls women 10:00; Men 11:45

Distances - J2 boys 3 laps; J2 girls and women 3 laps; Men 6 laps

Podium Ceremony - Awards will be at 2:30. Top three winners in the open men and open women will need to be present to fill out the paperwork to collect their prize money.

Course Preview - Course will be open from 8:30 AM to 9:20 AM and will remain closed for the duration of the day.

Information posting - ...

Sophie Caldwell won this afternoon, after a 3rd this AM. Tim Reynolds took both wins for the men.

Day 1 of the TD Bank Eastern Cup Openers is in the books. We hosted over 300 racers today, on our 1.5k loop. We even got a bit of snow this morning to make things look more wintry (and make coach lives harder!).

The day started especially well for Corey Stock of CSU who posted a 6.5s win (in one k!) over the Green Racing Project's Clare Egan, with Dartmouth's Sophie Caldwell. Egan and Caldwell repeated their podium in the afternoon's prologue, with Sophie taking the win over another Green Racing Project skier - Maria Stuber. Egan claimed the last step of the podium for a fine start to the NENSA EC season.

The men's podium was a perfect duplicate between the two races:  Craftsbury's GRP skier Tim Reynolds on the top step, teammate Patrick O'Brien close at hand in second, UVM skier Alex Howe in third both ...

Start Intervals - IMPORTANT: We will be changing back to 15 sec start intervals for afternoon Prologue – all classes. First starter remains 1:30pm.

Prologue Bib Pickup - 12:30-1:30pm at Competition Office.

Sunday Men's Start - Sunday's mens’ race start has been pushed back to 11:45am, still 30 sec intervals for the Sunday racing, for all classes.

And check out our on-site facilities map.

Coverage on the training hill this AM is still good - strong work by snowmakers. Temps are dropping!

Friday course availability - We will be opening part of the course at noon. The only access will be from the Tamarack parking lot, via a carpet strip. Please ski downhill to the lower field, bearing right, where you'll then pick up the course climbing up chip hill. Keep your eyes open - there will be workers and machinery at various points around the course. Classic track will be set and available. Traffic is counter clockwise on the loop. Signage should be in place to make this easy to follow.

Wax Testing - No wax testing during the competitions. A white board will be posted, listing testing times on race day.

Spectators - All spectators are asked to cross at designated areas to minimize dirt being tracked onto the course.