Anne and Bob's Birkie Ski Adventure

http://www.canadianbirkie.com/

We have had lots of club members hitting the road and then eventually the ski trails all across Western Canada! This is the first of a couple stories about our club members adventures. There are lots of great annual events that ski clubs around the country and province host! It is our goal to continue to grow the Yorkton Cross Country Ski Club to enable us to host an event  that attracts skiers from all across Saskatchewan and western side of Manitoba to our great facilities in Yorkton Deer Park.

Please visit the Canadian Birkie site link above to get a sense of how much fun hosting a large event would be!!!! We will never be as big as the Canadian Birkie but we do have the facility to host a great ski day in Yorkton - starting in 2014??

Back to our story of Anne and Bob's great adventure in Alberta. Over 1700 skiers laced up their boots and waxed their skis to ski distances from 13KM all the way up to 55KM (with a heavy pack)!

Anne completed the 55KM (with pack) distance in 6:49:55 and finished the ski 5th in her age group! yay great work Anne. This time was slightly slower than her best Birkie finish but with the heavy and difficult waxing conditions this was a great result.

Bob skied the 31KM distance in a time of 3:35:52 and was 34th in his age group! Another great result for a YCCSC member!

Bob stepping up to the starting line in the mass start with over 1700 skiing friends!

Anne ready to take off at the start of a 55KM ski with loaded up pack!

The very confusing wax chart at the start of the race! The conditions were very challenging and skiers tried everything to keep their skis moving from no wax, to waxless skis to and every colour of the rainbow attempted in the kick wax zone! Sound like a lot of fun!



Wouldn't it be great to see a long line like this at our event in the future!

This is the first in a series of stories about ski club members and their travels to exotic ski locations like Good Spirit Lake and Duck Mountain! Keep coming back the the site for regular updates and stories! And if you have pictures of your own adventures or ski tours or just good winter scenes then please email them to the club and we can get them posted for all to enjoy! Help us keep the site fresh and interesting.

The Yorkton Cross Country Ski Club is proud to present another great event on Sunday March 3rd!

The Ski Safari!

This is a great family event so please bring everyone along.

Susan, our great event planner, has sent the event details to the local media outlets to promote the event but we would also like everyones help promote the event to all your friends! This is a fun-filled event with lots of great prizes, a chance to ski on some wonderful groomed trails and the excitment of the hunt to spot creatures along the way!

Susan is looking for a couple of volunteers to help with the event - We need help getting all the animals places along the trail in "secret" hidden spots. If you can help out for a couple hours prior to the event getting started that would be great. Just email Susan at hurst@sasktel.net and she can give you the details.

Ski Safari at Deer Park Golf Course on Sunday, March 3rd

 The event starts at 2:00pm and should everyone should be back in the clubhouse for prizes and giveaways by 3:30. 

This event is FREE of charge

 

Participants will ski along our beautifully groomed trails, equipped with a safari map, hunting for stuffed giraffes, elephants, tigers, crocodiles etc.  When you spot an animal, mark it's location on the Safari Map. When you get back to our warm clubhouse, hand in your map and the person or persons that have spotted the most will be crowned Safari King or Safari Queen. 

 

Everyone welcome!  FREE refreshments.  Washroom available.

You never know what you will see along the trails at Deer Park!

 

The Yorkton Cross Country Ski Club highly recommends the  Duck Mountain Loppet being held this weekend!

This is one of the best events hosted in Saskatchewan every winter. For those who have never been to a Loppet this is not a "ski race but an organized "ski event" for everyone who loves to ski and socialize.

Here are some of the reasons why you should go!

-Lots of great ski trails with varied terrain for skiers of all levels

-Lots of nice people to chat with along the way

-There are 4 warmup shelters all stocked with snacks and warm drinks to enjoy (so you do not have to carry too much food and drink along with you)

-And a wonderful steak supper to finish off the day!

Attached are some of the details but also go to the links to see the Kamsack Ski Club website or the pdf copy of the registration form for more information. This is a well organized event and the trails at Duck Mountain are great!

Weather conditions predicted for this weekend are in the -5C to -7C range so it should be almost perfect.

You can pick a distance anywhere from 5K, 10K, 15K, 20K, 30K or 45K. There is a distance for everyone to ski!

34thAnnual Duck Mountain Loppet

Saturday, February 23, 2013

Duck Mountain Provincial Park

http://www.kamsackskiclub.ca/system/attachments/21/original/Loppet%20Registration%202013.pdf?1355371167

Hosted by the Kamsack Ski Club, registration takes place at the Madge Lake Golf Course parking lot from 8:30—11:30 AM. Pre-registration is preferred, with a Monday, February 18th deadline. The 45 km route will have a cut-off time. There is no mass start or timed events. Organizers reserve the right to cancel or alter any or all of the events at any time without notice or liability and the reserve the right to keep a portion of the fees to cover costs incurred. The club may retain a $5.00 per registration cancellation or no show fee. Meals are only guaranteed for the first 225 registrants.

Link to the Ski Club site
http://www.kamsackskiclub.ca/


Link to the trail map - feel free to contact either Barry or Anne if you would like a trail recommendation!
http://www.kamsackskiclub.ca/trails

Hope to see you there representing the Yorkton Cross Country Ski Club!



YCCSC Sponsors - A big thanks to all!

Sponsors are very important to our growth!

This post is all about a big thank you to all of our great sponsors who have assisted with event sponsorship this year. Some of the donations have also been directed towards future purchase of new snow grooming equipment and general club operations.

We are very thankful to each and every local business who has commited support for the growth of the club.

This support enables us to run events free of charge or for low, low fees!

The support helps us to acquire grooming equipment needed to continue to provide a top class facility to all us! And we are continuing to look for additional support to assist us with the purchase of new grooming equipment.

If you have a chance to say a personal thanks to any of our sponsors then please do so.

Cross Country Ski Saskatchewan

Sask Lotteries



Harvest Meats

Marlin Travel

SaskTel

SecurTek Monitoring Solutions

Lucianna Litwin RMT - Massage Therapy

Yorkton Memorial Gardens

Yorkton Coop

City of Yorkton

Sunshine and Ski

Wow - Did we ever have a great turnout at the Learn to Ski event

Many thanks have to go out to all of people for helping out at the Yorkton Cross Country Ski Club event today!

The "Learn to Ski" and Snowshoe event was a great success. Likely this was due to all the hardwork done to promote the event this past week.

Roy Lanaway and Donna Rogers were front and center on CTV and on The Rock radio on Friday and we also lots of great promos on the air from GX94 and The Fox.  The local papers also have to get thanks for their promotions.

Thanks to these two media stars we had lots and lots and lots of people attend. Starting at 11:30 they were lined up outside the door to get access to Sunshine and Ski stock of free boots, skis and poles.

We always had people ready to take boots and skis off the returning skiers to head out themselves.

We had great support from Sunshine and Ski in Regina who brought out lots of skis and showshoes to enable people to try out the sport for the first time. It was a challenge to keep them coming and going but we were successful getting everyone a turn at the trails.

Again many thanks to Ken for his great grooming. He was finished grooming the trails at 10:00am and with all the snow and high winds the trails were almost invisible by noon. Yikes - we had some fun trying to learn to ski when the trails were blown almost immediately.

But that was just a minor inconvenience! We are a tough bunch and a little bit of snow and a lot of wind is not going to slow us down. Maybe the weather can slow us down but never stop us from enjoying the great facility that we have in Yorkton.

Susan did a great job again organizing the event along with lots of help from Roy who did a grand job working with our great sponsors (Sunshine and Ski) to get all the equipment for folks to use and Roy also did a great job promoting the event.

We had lots of support from club members who helped the newbies to learn to ski and also make sure that they did not get lost on the blown in trails. I bet Mike and Heather did not know that they would be Olympic calibre coaches after just joining the sport themselves several weeks ago. Also Ray did a great job getting people into and out of their bindings and likely did not even get a chance to ski himself!

Bill and Ken also made sure that people were able to get some basic instruction and most importantly - not lost!

We had lots of newcomers to both the sport and also to winter in Canada who embraced the chance to get out in cold windy Saskatchewan.

We will upload lots more pictures over the next few days so please check back to the blog often for updates and news.

The challenge of getting everyone to have access to equipment was lots of fun to manage but it was a great problem to have.

Thanks again to all those who helped out today (sorry for those who I miss because I am sure I will).

Ken, Susan, Roy, Donna, Barry, Ray, Mike, Heather, Bill, and all the club members who helped out the new skiers!

Sunshine and Ski from Regina also have to get a big thanks for lending all their gear to us for our use today!

Trails have been freshly groomed and are ready for action at Deer Park GC.

Many thanks to Ken Gedak for all his volunteer hours to help keep our trails top notch under very challenging conditions this year. Lots of snow to work with this season!

A reminder about our event on Sunday Feb 10th! Here is a copy of a poster that was distributed to all of the schools and throughout all of our local media outlets to help to promote the event. Many thanks to Susan Hurst and Roy Lanaway for all their help organizing this event.

This is a great opportunity for all club members to drag out one of their friends who has always shown an interest in trying out this skiing thing but without equipment they always had an excuse!!

Well with the assistance of Sunshine and Ski they not longer have any excuses! For no charge they can borrow equipment for the day, and get a quick learn to ski lesson and also get a waxing lesson - Yes even those of you skiing on waxless skis should be maintaining your skis for best performance and glide!

Please help us out by promoting this event to all your friends and neighbors and save them from another Sunday afternoon spent on the couch or even worse cleaning their basement! They can join us - get some great exercize, get out in the fresh air and chat with some great people!

LEARN TO SKI or SNOWSHOE

with the

YORKTON CROSS COUNTRY SKI CLUB

AND

SUNSHINE & SKI of Regina

DEER PARK GOLF COURSE

SUNDAY, FEB. 10

Starting 12 Noon – 4:00 pm

Arrive Anytime

FREE Equipment & Instruction

FREE Waxing Clinic at 2:30 pm

*Warm Clubhouse   *Washroom Available

*Free Refreshments (donations accepted)

SPONSORED BY:

 Sunshine and Ski 

4430 Albert Street

Regina, SK.

306-584-2255

Sunshineandski.ca