Juneau Nordic Ski Club

This winter has to go down in the annals of history as one of the most perfect ever for Juneau skiers. And to top it off, we’ve been having a truly incredible streak of gorgeous spring weather for several weeks now. Best yet, there’s still great groomed skiing to be had at Eaglecrest, where our volunteer groomers are hard at work to offer us classic and skate skiing on the lower loop. With the warmer weather, it pays to watch the temperatures to pick the optimum time of day: the best is after a clear night when temperatures on the hill drop below freezing, but then thaw out as the sun comes out, so you can catch a soft surface layer of a half an inch or so with a firm base underneath. So give it a try, among all your other spring activities — it can truly be the most pleasant skiing of the year!

And whether you’re still at it or have hung up your boards till next season, please consider mailing in your JNSC membership dues of $25 for this 2011-2012 season. It’s what keeps us able to provide the great groomed conditions day after day. Just download the membership form on the “Become a Member” tab above. Or use the PayPal button here. And many thanks to those of you who have already joined up this year.

Also, please read about our special fundraiser below.

What a fantastic season! Thanks to our dedicated crew of volunteer groomers, we have had continuous great skiing at the campground, Mendenhall Lake, Montana Creek Road and Eaglecrest (even now in late April) for the past five months. These folks have shown up every day, in all weather, often in the dark, year after year, without a cent of pay, to make sure that we have fresh tracks to ski on. Thanks to the generosity of these volunteers, we have been able to offer all of this skiing, provide a website and be a strong advocate for nordic skiing for a (voluntary) annual membership of only $25!

To further our mission of providing great groomed skiing into the future, the Juneau Nordic Ski Club is launching a fundraising campaign for the purchase a new snow machine and grooming equipment. This is the time of year new orders have to be submitted to the manufacturer to have our new equipment ready for next ski season. While we have one snow machine that is good condition, a backup is critical for providing continuity during in-season maintenance, and the two machines are often essential to work together after deep fresh snowfalls. Our current backup is getting very long in the tooth, and we really need to acquire a new more reliable one. As a bonus, this new machine will free up one of the club’s machines for grooming different trails around the community (such as DZ, Salmon Creek, Basin Road, or Douglas roads) during snowy conditions at low elevations.

Our goal is to purchase a Ski-Doo Skandik snow machine. This machine (pictured here) has a four-stroke engine and is much quieter and cleaner than two-stroke machines. Juneau has a Ski-Doo certified mechanic which makes the machine a good choice for us in order to keep down-time for maintenance and repairs to a minimum. We are also planning on buying the state-of-the-art Yellowstone Track System grooming equipment pictured below to accompany the new machine.

Our fundraising goal for this equipment is $16,000. Reaching this goal will take generous donations from all of those who are regular users of our ski trails. Please consider how much it is worth to you and your family to have groomed nordic trails available nearly every day of the week during the winter. In kicking off this fundraising drive, we’ve already reached the $1,000 level with generous donations by Foggy Mountain Shop and several JNSC board members. Join us in giving generously to keep great skiing accessible to everyone in our community.

Please fill out this simple form to mail in with your donation and make checks payable to:

Juneau Nordic Ski Club
P.O. Box 21262
Juneau, AK 99802

Thanks!
Bart Watson
President
Juneau Nordic Ski Club

(Please note that contributions to JNSC are not tax-deductible to the donor, since as a sports club we exempt from paying income taxes but do not qualify as a 501c3 organization.)

In case you are not aware of it, our Trail Conditions Forum is a really useful tool for finding out how good the skiing is before you load your skis and hop into your car. Many JNSC members use this link (under “Featured Pages” on the righthand side of the page) nearly every time they plan to go skiing. It can help you decide whether to head for the campground or Eaglecrest or even out to Eagle Beach, and you may be amazed to find out how often the skiing is great when it doesn’t look like it out the window of your house.

Also, remember to post your own evaluation of the conditions as soon as you get back home after skiing, if no one has posted that information currently. This is a tremendous help to all the others who look to the forum before deciding on their day’s activities.

Most of our members are on our email list and get alerts for upcoming events and other significant news. Email, and this website, are the only ways we have of contacting you. But quite a few members didn’t supply email addresses on their applications. More commonly, we have an old email address that is no longer in use. And even if you’re not a member of JNSC, we can add your name to our email list if you want.

We seem to be in the good graces of the snow gods this year, with good skiing opportunities as early as most of us can remember. For a couple of weeks our dedicated JNSC volunteers were able to pack a beautifully groomed skating trail, even though the snow wasn’t quite deep enough to set classic tracks, snow was continuing to accumulate higher up on the rougher terrain at Eaglecrest.