Beaver Tails Nordic Ski Club

To wax or not to wax, that was the question I asked myself as I arrived in the parking lot.  Confident that having brought 2 set of ski’s (regular and waxless) along with  an assortment of waxes, a solution would be at hand.  A quick assessment of the parking lot and I quickly realized one fact;  I had left my ski jacket, hat and gloves at home.  Oh well I still had my regular winter coat, hat and gloves with me.  So I sweat a bit more.  Ok, so lets grab the waxless and head to the center and register.  No salle de fartage for me!  Well it seemed as though our fellow Beaver Tails thought waxless were a mistake as the snow was pretty dry.  Ok, back to car for a quick change of skis and off to the salle de fartage.  The sign said blue extra am, violet pm.  I opted for the violet since I hate waxing on the trail.  Off we went,  for about a kilometer of so.  A sudden stop and out came the waxes.  Those who chose blue extra grabbed their violet and practiced on trail waxing.  To little avail I might add.  Grip was no where to be found.  No big deal since it wasn’t too hilly at Far Hills: yet.  Eventually we crossed the road into the dreaded hill.  Ok time to get some climbing  in.  Up near the top and out came the maps.  Alright, we’ll continue on do the loop and head back across the road.  As I recalled from a couple of years ago, there are some really down, down hills in this part of Far Hills.  Best to take it easy.  So down I went, bringing up the rear.  Ok around a corner and there at the mid-point of a steep decent l spotted two large trees with bright red padding surrounding them.  I made a quick decision to snowplow into the loose snow on the left before tackling the decent.  Well deep, loose snow has excellent braking properties. I came to an almost immediate stop, almost doing a face plant into the powder.  Left ski stayed level but I didn’t.   Fortunately the binding stayed on my ski as my toe took the shock as I pitched forward.  Ouch.  Well it took a couple of minutes to get my ski on (I had to remove it to get out of the snow bank).  Snow kept jamming in the binding.  Ok lets get a move on and catch up to the rest of the group.  So up and up (and down and down) I went.  Eventually we made it back down and back across the road.  No problem, a few kilometers and were done.  By now my left toe was complaining every time I moved it.  But no, the group headed off to the 15.  Ok I can mange.  Well the 15 is one large never ending climb.  By now my toe was throbbing on the flats, my heart and lungs on the climbs.   As all stories end, so did Sundays ski.  No sure how many calories I burned, but Far Hills has something for everybody.  I got a purple toe 🙂