Jay Richards

The Utah trip was awesome. The weather was amazing. The Tuesday night trip to SLC to pick up Jonell and her parents was a little dicey but reminded me of the years we lived in Essex and that would be normal, and no troubles, so all good.

Uncle Tj and tanta Val and nephews Grant and Garrett along with Jonell's parents out to support. Nice for Jake to have the family.

Jake's best race was in the 15km skate where he placed 22nd and top 20 American. There were a few Canadian kids racing I never got the run down on but the competition was the best of the year and a solid week. The courses featured long big climbs and fast descents with a few technical sections. Spring conditions for the most part which meant good hard freeze at night setting up the evening groom and slowly softening as the day went on. The final sprint races got a bit sloppy in the afternoon but everyone was in the same boat and there was tons of man made snow so not worth making a deal about.


Cranking it on the classic. Just being at JR Nationals is a huge accomplishment and we were all proud of Jake and his results. Check out the full coverage on skinnyski.

Near the end of the week, the snowpack outside of the groomed course started to set up nicely for crust cruising. It was a great way to get around the course and see the action. Soldier Hollow was a great venue for spectating. Mid morning the sun would soften the surface making for some very fun skiing. I don't think I saw another person doing this. When I talked to some people about it they said they had race skis and didn't want to risk scratching their skis. Cars are meant to be driven, bikes meant to be ridden and skis meant to be skied on. Just ski.

Bruce is good friends with the Mattie Watts (female Lotvola Cup winner) family and they were staying just up the road from us with some friends of theirs. They told the Watts there was some good backcountry skiing off of a snowmobile trail. We didn't get a chance to check it out until the afternoon before we went home. It took a little exploring but we finally found the trailhead and skied on the snowmobile trail. It was pretty incredible skiing as the trail was bombi groomed with a powertiller and a corduroy finish. I check out snowmobile grooming setups whenever I can and have never seen a snowmobile trail groomed with a powertiller. It doesn't compact like the sled drags but wow, the finish. I wanted to go back up there Sat morning but was cooked from skiing three different times the day before.

There was quite a bit more snow up there with the snowpack 2-4 feet more than 1000' below.
Thursday was a off day from racing so we all went downhill skiing at Park City. I hadn't downhill skied since I went to school in Norway back in 1988-89. The spring of 89 I went up to Trysil, and learned how to tele ski and all lift service skiing since then was with a free heel. I didn't bring the tele gear out so I rented Alpine and having new equipment, I have to say it was a blast. It also made it easier to keep up with Jon, who having not skied alpine in two years, ripped apart the mountain, double blacks and all.


Getting ready to drop in. It was the first time Jon and I have skied together. We didn't look at any maps. We just went were the skis took us and skied most every run. Not stopping much, keeping good flow.

After Friday morning races, went back to PC for some more lift service. Jonell and Val skied together and I went with Uncle TJ, Jon and G2. Didn't rent this time but used the skate skis for some old school tele. It is a bit tricky but with softening snow some good fun.

Good times in the evening.



The cookies at this coffee shop barely the size of the ones at Maplelag. Can't imagine charging even a $1 per cookie.
Big thanks to my mom and dad, the staff and friends who covered and watched Jack and Jens.