Pond hockey

The U.S. Pond Hockey Championships rolled into town this weekend and brought along some frigid temps for extra fun. With daily high temps struggling to get above zero, standing on a frozen lake is an interesting way to spend part of the day. The tournament includes former NHL and college players as well as a lot of players who are just there to drink a lot and play a little hockey. Most of them are better at drinking than hockey so it works out well.

We watched some of the quarterfinals and semifinals - it was fairly obvious within a few minutes which team would win even at this point in the tournament. I imagine the final was a better matchup but we left before then in order to keep our toes and noses from falling off.

There's also a kids division. Games mostly consist of a pack of players chasing the puck, with the occasional pile-up when one of them trips and the rest go down in a heap. Terp thought it looked like a bunch of puppies chasing a puck, and that's a pretty apt description. There were a couple kids who could really skate and handle the puck but mostly it was a lot of falling down. They did look like they were having lots of fun, and after the championship game there was even more of a puppy pile as all the kids took to the ice at once, flailing away at numerous pucks before finally being coaxed off the ice by their parents.

I couldn't help it, I had to read this sign.

Rest of the photos are here.

Museum of Russian Art

The Museum of Russian Art is the only museum in North America devoted solely to Russian art. Given it's name, I would find it odd if it were something other than a museum devoted to Russian art. In an attempt to get some Slavic culture, we made the short drive down there today to check it out. Unfortunately, photography is expressly banned so my pathetic description will have to do. I may get some exterior shots put up some day.

The building looks like an old church, inside and out - minus the pews and altars on the inside, of course. This fit nicely with the current exhibit, Transcendant Art: Icons of Yaroslavl, Russia. After viewing a bit of an educational display in a small room, we unleashed ourselves on the main exhibit. I promptly forgot everything I had just learned and just looked at the various pieces, which looked somewhat similar to the stained glass in my parents' church. Eventually all of the halos, clouds, pointed fingers, and colors blurred together. Very nicely done, but I reached my limit fairly quickly.

The downstairs was mercifully icon-free and full of paintings falling under the theme of darkness and shadows, in contrast to the official art of that time period which was required to be full of light and energy. I could identify with this stuff more readily - it was good to see something more solid than religious symbols and icons.

After maybe an hour total, we had our fill of Russian art and went to Perkins where we got out fill of unhealthy food. In a couple months, the museum will have 2 new exhibits and I plan to go back and see how I feel about more modern Russian art.

X-C skiing and winter camping

I picked up my ski rentals from REI and went over to Fort Snelling on Saturday. This would be my first time cross-country skiing. I've downhilled but it's been over 10 years since the last time I've had skinny boards on my feet. I was determined to stay upright the whole time, something which I never did in my previous career as a downhill skier. Unfortunately, I fell about 5 minutes into this new career, mainly because I thought I was doing so well I could just look around and not think about what I was doing.

But after that it was all good. Well, mostly all good. I skied about 8K at Fort Snelling, twice around the 2K loop on Picnic Island and then a 4K loop of sorts around Pike Island. There were a bunch of deer on Pike as usual. The skiing was relatively flat and easy and perfect for someone who doesn't know what he's doing. I don't think I looked any worse than some of the other people I saw. Of course, they were probably using my form to gauge how they were doing and undoubtedly felt good about themselves.

My clothing worked well - running tights under my nylon hiking pants, and a long sleeve shirt covered with a short sleeve shirt and a long sleeved fleece. The wind didn't cut through like I had feared and I was perfectly warm once I got moving. The new baclava and gloves were great too.

I drove to Wild River State Park on Sunday to camp overnight and ski some more. Wild River has 35 miles of X-C trails and supposedly some trumpeter swans that hang out on open water of the St. Croix River in winter. While paying for my campsite, a woman inquired about the best place to see otters, and from the ranger's response I deduced there must either be otters in the park or he was humoring her. Either way, I planned to look for 'em.

I also learned the shower building was still open - nice to know, even though I hadn't brought anything for a shower. At least I would have access to a warm bathroom close to my campsite. I chose a campsite which had recently been home to a partial snow shelter, so the snow was fairly well packed and it was easy to walk around. That was nice for moving around but not so nice for setting my stakes and anchors in the snow - they really need 6 inches or more of decent snow and I had maybe 2 inches, so I wound up shovelling snow over them and then waiting while it set up.

Campsite prior to setting up the tent



It took over an hour to get the tent up and I wound up only having about 1.5 hours of skiing on Sunday. My clothing worked out well again, even though I forget my running tights at home. I subbed in my fleece pants for the tights and was fine. Got to try out my goggles in the wind and they worked well, although they probably look like major overkill for X-C skiing. I didn't care.

Snow covered prairie along the trail



Back at the campsite I made some dinner and put all my gear in the tent while it was slowly getting dark. The clouds had cleared up after sunset and the stars were out, temps were still decent and all was well. I made a fire and read a book until about 8:30 or so, then got ready for bed. Temps were probably still close to 20 so it was still comfortable, although my toes were a bit cold as usual. Once in my sleeping bag, I read some more and tried to warm up my feet - they were cold for a few hours and finally warmed up after I fell asleep.

Around 3 am I woke up and remembered why I don't really like winter camping - aside from the long nights, extra time and effort to do almost anything, I really hate the way my breath condenses on my sleeping bag overnight. It's kind of disgusting to wake up and have this wet fabric right by my face.

At least it only got down to about 10 degrees or so - it wasn't too difficult to get up in the morning and get things started. I went over to the bathroom and let my extra clothes warm up, then dressed and got some warm water to boil for my breakfast. Once I got my fuel warm enough to light, it didn't take long before I was eating and then getting ready to go skiing again.

I skied down to the river and followed it for about 0.5 miles. No otters, but I did see 1 trumpeter swan. And I gave up on the one big uphill I had and just walked it up. Other than 3 fingertips being painfully cold at the start, the skiing went well. I opted out of the longer loop that continued along the river as I knew I didn't have enough food to make it without crashing on my way back to the campsite. I'll most likely go back this winter and take some extra food so I don't have to cut things short.

Frozen St. Croix River


Swan on the opposite side of the river



While skiing, I thought about what to do for my March vacation and mostly decided I wasn't all that interested in what I had planned to do: namely, drive to Voyageurs National Park and snowshoe for 3-4 days while winter camping. I discovered I like skiing more than snowshoeing, and camping just takes so much more effort in the winter. I'm leaning towards going up to the Gunflint Trail to ski during the day and stay in a cabin at night. I'll do some more research and figure out where I want to go and what I want to do for lodging.

Anyway, back to this weekend: once back at my campsite, I tore things down and packed up the Jeep. I briefly thought about getting a sandwich outside the park and and going back to hike the river trail but decided I'd rather just head home. I'll save that for another weekend when I'm a little more prepared and ready to spend most of the day out on the trail.

Pics from the Wild River are here, nothing from Fort Snelling this time.

Bloomington NWR

I spent a couple hours walking around at the wildlife refuge in Bloomington today. Mostly I just wanted to get out of the house, get some exercise and test out my brand new fleece pants to see if they'll be warm enough for snowshoeing and winter camping. I'm happy to report they are quite warm, maybe too warm if I'm going to be exerting myself very much.

I saw some woodpeckers, hawks and bald eagles. The eagles hang out near the river because it's reliably open water in winter. I didn't get any decent shots of the bigger birds but I got a relatively good shot of a woodpecker.


I only saw one other person out there, and that was as I was leaving. Sunset was not really this dramatic but it makes for a good picture.

More Fort Snelling