Planning Your Winter Ski and Skate Party

The winter is over, none too soon for some, and ho-hum for others.  Naturally when something is over, the Rabett household turns to planning for the next.  Where shall we have our ski and skate party next winter, Ms. Rabett inquires in that start saving for the expedition voice of hers.  Ms. Rabett is quite fond of travel which she regards as the only up side, besides plumbing, of Eli's vocation.

What about visiting your sister in the far north of New England Eli replies in the fond hope of perhaps coming in under budget.  Too much snow she says and besides it is cold.  Well, the Rabett points out, we hear that that is not too much of a problem in Sweden.  Eli's friend RayP writes that Vasaloppet week is on life support with the 15,800 cross country skiers hot on the trail of  King Gustave Vasa dependent on artificial snow being trucked in, and it is getting too warm to make the snow.

Last year the race was nearly canceled because key parts of the track were too boggy to allow passage of the equipment used to deliver snow and maintain the track. The race was rescued only at the last minute through rescued only by artificial snow.
I was not one of those 15,800 lucky ones to get a bib and doubt if I could have finished the race if I did, but I did ski a considerable portion of the track back in February. 

It was a vacation—a quaint idea that still exists in Europe—and I was prompted to think of what the future holds for the course just as the temperature crept past the upper range of my “universal” silver  ski wax and I started sliding backward down the hills. By the time I was heading home, things were pushing the 12-degree C top range of the KR70 Aqua klister ski wax. (Any warmer than that and you’re not skiing, your waterskiing.)

Sounds good she said, Swedes are rich, they can afford the snow, but wait, I hear that Canada is the place to go.  Well, maybe Eli said, it's so warm there these winters (places in Eastern Canada may demur) that they took the outdoor skating rink off the fiver.  Future Canadians will say of the long winters that they lived in the school, the church and the indoor rink.  Outdoor rinks are disappearing earlier and earlier and in some cases never appearing.  Where will you skate young Wayne Gretsky is the question on all frozen lips? But the backyard rink ain't one of the places given current trends unless granddad is some sort of mining investor with big pockets for the cooler and a blog.

Simon Donner knows, and he is not happy.

in an understated Canadian sort of way.  Andy Skuce on Skeptical Science has a more complete discussion with a link to a Globe and Mail article on bill redesign with leaked documents.  In the discussion is a statement from the design consultants that anything with snow would be risky because global warming.  So they got the robot arm on the space station.

Well, Ms. Rabett said, there is always Alaska.  Bad news Eli said, Alaska is so warm that the Iditerod has to move considerably north to find enough snow and you can practically go out in shorts most populated places this January (Rabetts are tough beasts but maybe not that tough).

We could go to California said the apple of Eli's eye.  Well, if you want to broil in LA with nothing to drink that would be a good place.

The South Sea, the Antipodes, Ms. Rabett offered.  Big cyclones downered Eli

Ms. Rabett played here last card?  Well where can we go, Antarctica?  Stay away from the coast said Eli