ProSki Service/Life-Link Rando Rally

<br><br>Martin Volken and crew (actually, it seemed like his whole family) put on a great show and an impressive turnout of international and local competitors put the hammer down at the ProSki Service/Life-Link Randoneé Rally - it was quite a sight to see the chain of skiers winding their way up International today . . . TAY's own Matthaeus Zieger took second in the Men's Recreational Division, BTW. Pro Division winners were Chris Kroger (followed by Andy Traslin and Andrew McLean) and Petra Pirc, followed by Polly Samuels and Margaret Wheeler. I believe Gina Volken took second in Women's Rec. More pictures here . . . homepage.mac.com/mpobrien/randorally.htm

I entered on a whim, with the hope of scoring some free crap. I didn't get anything in the drawing but it was still totally worth it. The first hill was a bit of a mind f*&k but once I got in a solid pace it was really pretty good. I finished in 1:03<br><br>Fun Stuff, I would recommend doing it...

Just curious, did they re-route the course due to avalanche hazard? The photo looks like the upper part of International, which is not the usual course.<br><br>I wanted to enter but my wife was out of town and I didn't have a satisfactory way to look after my son. Maybe next year...

Yes, they rerouted the course because of the high winds & snow the day before. Ironically enough, things settled out enough that they opened the backcountry shortly after the race and there was great skiing to be had right where the course would have been. They also kept chair 2 closed until the racers had finished re-climbing up and over (the race division course climbed up upper nash down edelweiss and then back up and over) which allowed those of us in the rec division some really nice powder on the descent.<br><br>The powder was so nice in fact that I got a little distracted while crusing some high speed turns in the untracked that I went down a slightly different way, missing one of the checkpoint gates and effectively disqualifying myself. But all in all I was pretty happy with my performance - of the many times I've skinned to the top of Alpental I don't think I ever did it faster than an hour and 20 minutes and this time was up and down in just less than an hour. Plenty fast enough for me, but hopefully I can find a way to do better next year.<br><br>One of the really cool things about these events is the chance to meet like-minded folks from other places. I hosted a couple of Canadian brothers that I had met at previous races, Andy and Mike, who both did well in the race divison (Andy had a great race finishing 2nd overall!). They were great guys and if all goes well we'll hook up again for some spring trips. In a perfect world I'd have ski partners in every worthy range in the world.<br><br>Congratulations are also due to Mattaeus, excellent job man! I can't remember if I told this story here already but I was in the Paradise parking lot in October with Sky when a guy on a bike with a German accent came up to ask us some directions on possible alternate routes for riding back to Seattle. He saw our ski gear and mentioned that he was "very interested in doing some ski-touring". Figuring anyone who would ride a bike from Seattle to Paradise could also do just fine on a skin track, I gave him the URL for this website and my email address, and I guess the rest is history. He made the most of his time here, doing a few tours with me as well as lots of other people, most of which he met here at TAY. It's great that this site can be such an amazing resource, both for Mattaeus and for all of us that got to meet him and ski with him.

Congrats Matthaus. I'd hope our 10k plus days and 20+ mile tours helped. Ha. I'm glad I was able to ski with you. I know we showed you a few cascade slaughter fests.<br><br>I know who to hook up with now if I'm ever in Germany. <br>

Nice job, Matthaeus! I guess we are lucky Matthaeus has had to go back to Germany so our slopes will remain untracked and our medals in-country. But seriously, Matthaeus is a great skier and ski partner, and I'm glad I had a chance to ski with him.