Hi everyone – hope you’re all keeping warm this week.  As is usual when it’s this cold, the water pipe at the lodge is frozen solid.  So it’s a good idea to bring a thermos with a hot drink if you decide to venture out to the trails.  We stopped by last night at 7:30 when there’s usually 8 – 10 cars in the lot, and 1 solitary vehicle sat on its lonesome.  The occupants had had a wonderful ski but admitted it was darn cold!

A few things to think about if you decide to hit the trails in this weather:
1.  Dress in at least 3 layers, top and bottom.  One layer should be a wind breaker, top and bottom.
2.  Wear a hat that covers your ears and something around your neck.
3.  Wear mittens, not gloves, 2 layers unless they’re insulated.
4.  Wear warm socks – wool for choice.  2 pairs if necessary.
5.  Light the fire in the lodge before you go out if it’s not already lit.  That way if you need it, you’ll have a warm place to come back to.
6.  The pipes are frozen but filling a kettle with snow and turning it on before you go out means you’ll have hot water when you get back.  We seem to be low on hot Chocolate at the moment but hot Gatorade is wonderful after a cold ski.
7.  Ski with a friend and carry a cell phone.
The snow conditions are great, but that wind chill is seriously off-putting, if you ask me!

 

Coming Events:
Adult lessons happen on Saturdays @ 10:30 am.  Email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it to sign up.  They’re free for members, $10 for non-members.

There will be adult skate lessons on Wednesday nights at 6 pm as well.  Email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it so he knows you’re coming.

Rabbits continues every Saturday @ 10 am.

Saturday, January 28 is the Snow Valley Open!  This is a small race, and it’s fun (everyone wins a chocolate bar) but we run it exactly the way a proper, interval start, classic ski race is supposed to be run.  It gives people who haven’t done it before a chance to try it and see if they like it.  Come on out and give it a try!

Also, McBike & Sport (Smithers) will be at the race on January 28th to top up your supplies or replace the old faithfuls that aren’t working as well as they used to.  (Which you could now donate to the Club rental collection!)  If you want something specific, you can call Pete ahead of time and he will make sure to bring it with him.  (250-847-5009)

The Marathon will be held on Saturday, February 25, in case you were wondering.

Memberships:
Cathy tells me we’re up to 333 members!  This is an amazingly huge number for this club.  Welcome to all the newcomers! I encourage you all to visit our website, snowvalleynordics.com.  We’ve got a car pooling forum, a trail conditions forum (which isn’t working too well this year for some reason.  Come on skiers, post!) a buy and sell site, and much, much more.  I especially encourage newcomers to check the old newsletters starting last January 2011.  That’s when I twigged to the fact that this Club is growing like topsy and new members didn’t know things that old timers just take for granted.  So I’ve been trying to initiate folks into some of the arcane mysteries of Nordic Skiing.
For example:  Did you know that at -20, you need a polar wax on your skis in order to get a good glide?  When skis glide they do so on a very thin layer of water.  At -20, it’s too cold to melt the snow fast enough to glide and without polar wax, it’s like skiing in sand even if you use waxless skis.  Fortunately, Snow Valley gets -20 weather about once every 3 years, for about a week.  Most of us just put up with it.
Other things you might like to know are, the key for the water tap is on the floor under the stove, left hand side.  Pull the drawer out a bit and you should find it.  The reason we lock it is that from time to time, we do suffer from vandalism and we want to make it at least a little bit difficult for them to flood our kitchen.

Members are welcome to help themselves to food in the kitchen cupboards.  The deal is, at least once a year, you bring something to put in them.  No more sugar though.  We do NOT need more sugar!!  We seem to have OD'ed on sugar.  But tea bags, coffee, hot chocolate, soup mixes etc are very nice.  We’re a club and we all pitch in.  If you bring food for yourself and leave it in the kitchen, put your name on it.  No eating food with other people’s names on it.
Speaking of pitching in there’s a list of things anyone can do any time on the wall.  Feel free to help out.  We’re a club.  The wood shed is located out the back door of the lodge.   (hint)

The great thing about so many new members is that it helps us keep our prices down.  Believe it or not, we’re in the lower half of the pricing range in the province.  We can pay our day-to-day operation expenses out of our membership and day fees and various small fundraisers that we do.  However, our grooming machine (the Pisten Bulley, "PB" to his friends) is getting old and we need to start fundraising to replace it and that’s going to be major.  You’ll be hearing more on this as plans progress.

And since everyone else is talking about it why not us?  All the pipelines that may or may not be built, (6 if all the muttering comes to fruition) will cross our Dog Trail.  As we are in the process of expanding our trails on that side of the road, this is something of a concern for us.  Stand by for more on this in the future.  
At the AGM in October, it came out in discussion that I, as a private citizen, would be addressing the Enbridge hearings and speaking against the pipeline.  I was directed by a motion from the floor to speak on behalf of the Club.  My points will be: 1. If the pipeline goes through, the progress of alternative technologies will be frozen for the next 40 years until tar sand oil runs out.  They will be choosing an unsustainable way of life.  2.  If, as seems likely, the pipeline is approved, then we want a damage deposit.  $4 billion, and a $1 billion deductable seems reasonable.   3. If, as seems likely, the pipeline is approved, then why on earth don’t they refine it in Alberta, thus creating thousands of Canadian jobs and reducing the hazards of a spill?
If you as a Club member have a problem with me speaking on your behalf, please contact me at 632 6055 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .  I want to know.

The Executive of the Club meets on the second Tuesday of the month, at 7:30 p.m.   Feb. 14 is our next one.  Any club member is welcome to drop in and put your 2 cents worth on the table.  Only the executive members vote.  If you’d like to join the executive I’m always delighted to have member input and I need a secretary still.  It’s an easy job – keep the minutes of meetings and send them out the executive.  I take care of letters, etc.  

The most important thing about being a club member is to ski and have fun!

Cheers   Liz Thorne (prez –SVNSC)