What happened to winter?

I got back to no snow in MN, so it was a rough week of running until the snow came, then back onto the skis.  I skied about 5 hours at 3 different venues on the first day the snow fell.  Hyland downhill for hill repeats on good snow in the morning, Hyland nordic trails for some slow going in very soft snow after that, and a couple easy loops at Como in the afternoon with Annie and Andrea.  Then I went to visit Allie at Finn Sisu and try out my skis on the CXC super flex tester.  Turns out my red cheetahs are a bit soft for me, which means they will drag in cold snow and also not be very stable when snow is hard packed.  This matches exactly with what I've observed about the skis, so now that I know they are warm soft snow skis I should be much happier with them.

Sunday I met up with Jim and Mike at Cleary and put in a solid classic ski.  I took a saw and modified the bindings on my Fischer SCS classics so they will work with my pilot classic boots.  These skis are surprisingly fast, although quite heavy compared to my Atomic World Cups, so they might make good Mora skis, since the Atomics are kind of soft for double pole heavy races.

The rest of the week it was skiing at the Carleton Arboretum (aka the arb).  The upper arb was all rolled and groomed, and in decent shape, but the real gem was the lower arb.  The trails had been groomed and a track set, and then it got cold and the track was rock solid.  The kick wax was working great and it was a few days of great skiing before the snow came again.