Jay Richards

A busy busy past three weeks. Always goes by super fast. Lots of stories. Lots of grooming. After today, close to 1000k on both sleds and Pisten Bully combined. Not surprising I only managed about 10km of skiing the past three weeks. Its all good. Nice to have lots of white to work with. Probably the two things that stick out the most is the night a guest caught his napkin on fire, burned his hand putting it out, knew he had to get it cooled down so seeing the water pitcher with ice was too far down the table, stuck his hand in the fruit salad. The second was when I was up on one of the cabins, cleaning out frost and snow on the sewer vents and a guest comes in the lodge "jay is up on the roof with no safety line". He thought walking on the ridge was like a tightrope and if I fell, I would be in trouble but lots of snow on the roof so no worries.
Seems like Christmas was just the other day. Usually we get our Christmas cards out in May so until then, Merry Christmas.




Our neighbor TJ has been helping out. He cut a real nice hole and within minutes, the water was filling up around the hole. He said the ice was beautiful. Looked like he was walking on water. There is so much weight on the lake with all the snow, it is compressing the ice and lakes are getting slushy now. We can't complain with the awesome skating we had in November.




For the first time ever, I have someone helping out with the grooming. Earlier this week TJ was working the skate loops. Part of North Loup goes on his Dad's land so he knows the flow of the trails and has been doing a good job.
Yesterday we had the DL invite and it was an incredible day, couldn't ask for a nice day for the meet. We had the boys stay home in the morning so they could watch Jake who placed 3rd on the day. Jon got out on the skis and went around with me to catch Jake in a few spots. Jake is pumped for the big Messabi race, the largest HS Nordic race in North America, as he starts 30 seconds in front of Erik Fagerstrom, #1 ranked skier in state and will most likely get passed and he can try to hang on. The Classic race is stacked with a lot of good skiers and with Joe Dubay back home for a few weeks and skiing classic as well, should be an awesome race. Anyways, after last weekends games, Jon has 41 goals. Probably the highlight was the Fergus Falls game where the team was down 0-1 after the 1st period and the start of the 2nd, Jon scored three goals in 19 seconds and ended up with five on the night. Not bragging about Jon. We are just very proud of him. He is doing his best to move the puck to his team mates. Jon has a deep passion for the game and loves to play. When he is not practicing or playing in town, he is on the rink here playing on the tight and bumpy surface. Jonell and I are doing our best to manage the hockey parent life.
I'll take the environment of a ski meet any day. Ellefeson and Roberts family enjoying the day. Here you have parents from opposing "teams" having fun together. Shoot, in hockey, you are lucky if you have a team where the parents on the same team all get along. I like Jack's comment when he realized were were standing in probably the worse place possible on the trails. At the bottom of a tricky downhill.
DL is the orginal school to do the continuous pursuit. I always miss the transition area as I am out on Suicide Hill but Dave Harrington of Bemidji caught the action. Just like Nascar, coming in for a different pair of skis and some fuel and back out on course.
Conrad and Wynn Roberts. Conrad is really coming along this year. I am always pulling for the big guns in Section 8. Wynn is home before heading back over to Europe and World Cup in Canada. Last time I saw Wynn was up on the plateau in West Yellowstone. Skied a half lap of skate course with him yesterday. I hadn't seen the Madshus poles before. They have this funky curve on the grip. Said he likes them.



Jake spent a lot of the break skiing with Zigs which was awesome. Zigs heads back to VT tomorrow and races at Jackson Touring Center in NH on the weekend.


Jonell waving the flag in the office.
Wayzata coach Brad Erickson at the Pre-Loppet.
"Silvio." Mike and his family spending a few days at Maplelag over the Holidays.

Orono skiers at Irondale back 40. Skinnyski pics above.
Pat Gramatka at Maplelag a few days over break, helping out the Alex team which had a ski camp. Pat is one of those wild and crazy type of guys. Super high energy. Skiing at UWGB.
Stuchy and the Wenzel chicos.


But if you want to talk about waving the flag for the home team.....no one has done it so nicely like our staff member Luaro from Brazil who was waving the flag for at least two hours New Years Eve. It took the edge off of being up for 21 hours, seeing him have a good time. Brazil would be very proud. I thought for sure he would be sore the next day but he was up and at em bright eye and bushy the next morning. Like the past years, the foreign staff are doing awesome and learning the ropes nicely. There is always staff drama but nothing like the years at Essex, MT where you would have 14 staffers in one housing unit and the groomguy waking up at 4am and the night staff coming in at midnight and everyone trying to get along. A continuous soap it was.



Happy New Year!