What do you do when you can't ski?

[anrothar]

I'm in Anchorage, Athabascae. 'Big' city, but it backs up to 7.4 million + acres of uninhabited mountains, starting with the front range rising up on the east side of the city. I run singletrack from the house just for fitness and walking the dog, but I much prefer riding singletrack. The mountain running trails are generally much too steep to ride here, so the thought generally doesn't even occur to me. I also tend to like trail running in the alpine more than the trees. Trail running definitely fills a mostly practical niche for me. In addition to the general fitness and exercising the dog, it trains my legs to go faster when backpacking and keeps my skiing muscles functional in the off season.

I love mtb, and riding was almost exclusively my form of recreation from about 1991-2010. I decided to learn how to ski after pushing my bike for 110 miles in deep snow before scratching in the 2012 Iditarod Trail Invitational, which is a race a skier should have won(that year). I had debated showing up on the crappy set of fishscale nordic touring skis I had since I knew it was going to dump the first day of the race, but figured I would wear myself out and possibly injure myself due to lack of experience skiing. After a month of only skiing that spring, I realized I had been missing out on something exceptionally fun. I love the fact that I can ski the same trails I would have previously been fat biking and then just turn off the trail and ski off where ever I want. The next winter, I realized how horribly out of shape riding only had been keeping me when I felt like my chest was going to explode trying to move quickly on xc skis for a few miles. That's when I decided I needed to start running.

[anrothar]

....... If its raining too much, we been known to risk mud and rust gumming up expensive firearms. I kill a lot of beercans. Lately for some reason I bought a 12 pack of Tecates, so for a few seconds we had animated red fountain targets, I just don't know anybody willing to actually DRINK a Tecate any more... used to be a popular thing...

...

I'll drink those Tecates! I tend to like fancier beers, but I lived in Baja for about a year and a half and Tecate brings me back. I also shoot my share of 'stump squirrels'.

[The Lovely Bear]

[video][/video]

[Rokjox]

Very fun... good post. We'll be seeing that on FB by this evening. If that not where it came from already.

I have often heard of bears having twins, but never have I ever heard of triplets.

That is unusual extreme to my mind.

[MikeK]

Those bears are something. I don't think anything could be having more fun than they are!

Must be more fun when there are three!

[athabascae]

I'm in Anchorage, Athabascae.

Doesn't get much better. I get to Anchorage or the Kenai regularly and love it there.

Whitehorse, where I live, has some fantastic single track mountain biking (and trail running). Check it out next time you are driving through.

Tom