The Three Rs
Rumford, Roxbury, and Rangeley. Those are the towns we’ve been spending time in since arriving in Maine on Friday for a week of racing at US National Championships. Rumford is, of course, home to Black Mountain and all of the racing action. Roxbury is about 20 minutes north of Rumford and it’s where we are staying. We have rented houses right on the shore of Ellis Pond, looking west over the lake to the Mahoosuc Mountains. The views are beautiful and hopefully the weather will cooperate one of these nights allowing us to catch a great sunset. In the meantime I’ve enjoyed walking out on the lake to get some photos and chat with the ice fishermen and women.
There was some heavy fog on Saturday during the warm weather.
The fog was actually moving pretty quickly and the glimpses over to the mountains kept changing.
Rangeley is the third R. As you probably know by now, Rumford (and most of the rest of New England) are short on snow. We went up to Rangeley yesterday to ski since the trails were closed at Rumford while they work hard to get ready for the next race. The drive to Rangeley may be a bit bumpy but the views from the Height of Land are well worth putting up with it and the skiing there was great. Today we got to ski at Rumford and oh man, what a difference a day makes! Now that it’s finally cold enough to blow snow they’ve had all their snow guns going full-bore. There was a HUGE green dump truck getting filled with snow from the piles and moving it around to different parts of the course. We weren’t able to ski the whole thing today but we walked/ran it after our ski and I was really impressed with how much snow they’re moving around. There’s a ton of work going into it and I’m really looking forward to seeing the 2.5 km loop tomorrow. Here’s a photo from today that Nat Herz took…
Snow getting moved and the dedicated shovelers moving it.
Today was sunnier than it has been, with no mist.
Actually an old fire station? Or just the sign?
Stay tuned for reports from the next three races! And many thanks to the parents and friends who are coming to cheer us on (and bring delicious food)!