Attacking an Epic Trail — Lessons Learned (or Not?)

More Photos Below!Gallery
(The pic is from a few years ago.)

Yesterday I seized the moment and went and skied a full Poto, wondering how I might do. I tried a few new things as tests. I made a lot of mistakes and had some bad luck and there ya have it.

Maybe someday I’ll learn! There are a lot of key details for doing a successful Poto or any other ski challenge. Will I ever read back on my notes to help me avoid pitfalls?

What I learned could help anyone attempting to ski a challenging epic trail really hard.

Or not… When you’re going hard, every one of your systems will be stressed to its breaking point. Well, especially if you’re trying to go your hardest. You may well be used to going hard. In that case it won’t be much stress.

But, guess what, if you’re just trying to ski an epic trail WITHOUT GOING HARDER THAN YOU’RE USED TO, *none* of your systems will be overly taxed or even stressed very hard. You’ll have a good time, in all likelihood. You can even go with friends! Eat a nice picnic!

Actually, we should all of us ski within ourselves. Champions do that. A special event is just an occasion to express themselves. Not to do something new. New is always very risky! OK, sure, try surpass your usual — by a bit.

If an elite athlete is used to averaging 190 beats per minute for an hour long race and decides to try to average 195, guess what? It’s likely that they’ll blow up and crash and totally fail. True! To achieve a new level, to get to 195, they would do it stepwise, a bit at a time under no-stress moments, throw in little spikes, do special 195 sessions, modestly, that fit in with their current plan for recovery and such. You don’t just go out and go faster all of a sudden! Do what you know! Don’t be a fool!

Or just kick back and have a nice day of challenge.

If you DO want to try something crazier than usual that lasts longer than usual, guess what: go easier than usual at first. Don’t try to go both harder AND farther the WHOLE time. Sure, go for it if it’s a modest thing you’re after: if you’re good for blazing a half hour, go monster for 45, big deal. But when you’re going into new territory, go for negative splits. Plan for your whole first half to be slower than usual then build up. That kind of thing. At least use your head.

If you bonk, you’ll hurt for days, beyond the bio recovery time. Efforts will be unappealing for awhile. Bonking hurts the head, too.

People who are used to hard work can do it every day and live pretty normally. If you’re not ready for a big deal there’s something else to consider: you’ll likely be flattened the next day. Or longer. You really might get hurt or sick. You can stress your system toward something like a heart attack or other metabolic or system failure, glitch or damage. You can easily catch a bug.

More on safety: Use the buddy system! Ski with a friend. This is your number 1 safety measure. Two are better than one.

Bring phones AND EXTERNAL BATTERIES. And keep them where it’s warm.

Bring a first aid kit — just some basics. Bandaids, moleskin, ibu, duct-tape, knife. Also a repair kit — zipties, leatherman, extra binding screws, extra pole basket, some wire, 2 hose-clamps and a thin metal scraper. Maybe an extra binding if you’re way in the bush.

Yesterday I used Strava for the first time. Now we have some data for pacing if anyone is interested. (Like, if you wanna do a 4-hr Poto, getting to the shortcut bench in 2 hrs is required.)

I used race skis for the first time. They worked. …But they were unstable in the many miles of northern-region unskied trail. And that fatigued my hip balancer muscles! (Only a walker went north of the shortcut bench.)

I used a helmet and padding for the first time. Seems smart for such a hazardous course and esp for by myself. …But they added thermal factor that I didn’t account for. And they slid a lot — sheesh, try things before a big event.

It was a beautiful sunny day. Zero in the morning, high of 20 supposedly. When I arrived (late) at 1pm, green was no longer gripping. Blue worked. By the end of the outing, purple was smart. These are typical wax changes for the Poto. I thought the snow would stay colder given the zero morning! (Also: give yourself plenty of time. If you’re late: do it another day.)

There were a couple inches of fresh over a semi-ice base. Perfect, really. There was a level tread under the new. One guy took off on a fatbike just before I left but his single track didn’t hurt me. Much. I got a bit of glide from it, and the temptation to use the track took some effort.

Untracked northern third meant that a fast time was out of the question but I had to give it a go. Anyone going for a time really MUST drive over to Doyle before starting the day to check for tracking. Of course, if you’re really serious, go the day before and track it yourself to be sure. An hour won’t hurt you. Too bad I live an hour away but whatever. I should do it next time, to be sure. At least CHECK the day before. If it’s untracked, then ski that sucka!

A couple big strapping young guys arrived as I was prepping. They asked if there was good skiing around. I said it’s good but dangerous and to do the inner shorter loop and be careful. Otherwise other trails in the area are much more sensible. I asked if they’d biked it. No but one had hiked it. OK… In the end they had a decent outing, a dozen crashes, no hurt. I think they wished they’d done DTE. I didn’t mention it earlier. I wasn’t in a day-planning mindset.

I should’ve glidewaxed my skis. I did kickwax em nice. But they weren’t fast. Just OK. I should’ve compared the racers to my Superlights for glide. Jeez. I should’ve started an hour or two earlier. Jeez.

Really, use Grip Tape for the Poto. If snow is thin, use nowax. Having to rewax wastes time.

I ended up stopping for TWENTY minutes overall. That’s lame. It’s smart to learn to use a sippy tube for energy drink. Drink on the move. Jeez.

Plan on 300 cal’s/hr. Learn it or stay home.

I brought some bars and 2 loaded bottles. …Then I lost a bottle. Doom. I should’ve taken the shortcut. I had never gone short on fuel before so I gave it a try. I bonked. Lesson learned. I hope! Remember!

I lost a bottle because I was taking my pack on and off. I didn’t crash. Why wasn’t I rotating my pack? Coz my strap was loosening and getting into the buckle. So I was taking it off to shorten it again. Bad. Pack needs to work or you’re doomed.

I overheated and stashed my hat’n’gloves. Which confused my ability to find wax and food. Cost a couple minutes.

Thick hat was too much w helmet.

And watch the weight. Jeez. 3 kinds of weight: *Pack weight. *Body weight — c’mon, be in fighting trim if you have any expectation and the weaker you are the less you should weigh. (I’m getting older, not as much pushups, so what’s with the belly?) *Clothes weight! Yeah, it CAN be a thing. Smart to wear modern light clothes. I wore vintage heavy wool — like a 7-lb outfit! Yeah, it’s my usual. But it’s heavy! C’mon!

And about the pack: it kept sliding down, strap kept loosening. But who needs a tight strap? Anything tight around waist seems bad. So prolly a shoulder pack or something hooked to suspenders. But for sure: nothing bad or lame. C’mon!

About the pads: I shouldn’t’ve tried a hard ski w/o testing them first. They slid down and got in my way. Never used em before. Seem good, though. Just gotta test and learn first. Geez.

Losing the bottle meant doom. Don’t lose a bottle. I usually bring 2 qts of supplemented gatorade and bars. And don’t drink it all. So I used 2 small bike bottles. They would’ve been enough. But not w losing one.

My pace was great up to the shortcut bench.

Actually, I was gliding good in the trail-breaking. Felt nice. Wasn’t fast.

Downhills were controllable. Use pole drag on the Poto to save your life.

It really helps to pre-ski the course another day slow. It really helps to ride the trail and somehow get to know it. It really helps to have the needed skills for fast descending.

A fast midlength ski might be the ultimate ticket. Like a red Action Evo. Or some short 195 extrastiff skin skis. To ski the downhills fast you’ll want a midlength. They will also great help your uphill scrambling!

The first sunny downhills of the trail will have shallow rocks. Not much you can do to avoid. The rocks get better after that. After 15 minutes no real rock bump.

You really need to be ready for a 3 hour hard ski. You need more intense arm work in the bank than usual. Not even just a lot of skiing and doublepoling. But dips. And it wd be smart to do a bunch of parking ramp 6-flight stair workouts. There is a lot of big-step vertical heaving for arms and legs. If you’re skilled you take smaller bites … where you can. Can’t avoid all the big steps.

Also if you’re aiming for a fast time, aim for negative splits: go moderately the first half. I was sweating and panting the first half. Sure, I was ready to romp. Well rested! I like to hustle. Yeah, I know what a fast Poto time pace feels like so I was just doing that but jeez: heart-rate is real. Listen to it! No way could I have made up for slower glide by skiing harder THAT FAR. When I noticed my glide was off, if I cared about a fast time I should’ve turned back and tested some other skis! You need happy-face free-speed glide to have a fast Poto time. Yeah, I had race skis and didn’t know if modest race-ski glide was faster than fast tour ski glide: it was probably slower. Yeah, I saved work scrambling with the lighter skis, but not that much work.

The Poto requires several unique skills. First timers must learn them and get good at them or they will suffer. You need the Skidaddle for the ups. And the side-scrape for the downs. You can’t herringbone ups and you can’t snowplow the downs. You need the 2 tricks to manage GULLIES both up and down. For the down-skid your tails go to the trail center! You ski down ONE SIDE of the gully. Just like you ski UP one side! Nothing else works. At some point, tho, gravity overtakes and you then just run with it and count on FAST FEET not skidding much. If you scrub the tops the rest is tolerable.

Lastly, you need to learn the Bridge Galumph. There is only ONE way to get over the tall bridge: poles off and in one hand. Do a half herringbone with one ski. Grab the chainlink fence with other hand and heave yourself up. That’s it. Otherwise you can spend 5 minutes on 30 feet.

Falling hurts and can injure due to the rocks and roots and harsh bank-edges. Don’t do it! KEEP GOOD POSITION! Do not let yourself flail. In this case, knees bent, ankles flexed, hands low and forward and shuffling feet are needed TO SURVIVE.

Anything else?

Oh, if you wanna beat Rad’s 2:58 record, here are your timechecks:

45 Hankerd

115 Crescent

120 Bridge

130 Shortcut

145 Doyle

220 Gosling lot

230 Crooked trail intersection

Go for it!