Jordan Jam 2015: Freestylin’ in a Corn-ucopia

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Hardcore cornography. That’s what this year’s Jordan Jam was.

Actually, it’s almost always like that.

It’s a session of intense ski-swimming.

Skis swim, doncha know.

It’s kinda like powder skiing only it’s over the terrain not always down the slope. You ski along monitoring your center of gravity. You kick and glide, but not against anything firm. Your skis porpoise up to the top now and then when you lean back. A soft tip is a good idea. A little rocker in a BC ski might be good, too. Right now only pure tele boards might have rocker; and tip-splay is found only in soft-snow race skis: it’s time to give more love to allround BC.

But corn… corn is poetry. Of course, like all good things it’s nearly entirely ignored by The World. Corn is snow that has thawed and frozen a few times. The crystals become big, round and juicy. They sparkle in the sun. And they can take the heat. Corn is strong. On sunny, warm, late winter days it can be 50 degrees in the corn and your skis are still lovin’ it. It’s not sticky. As long as it freezes at night corn can last for weeks.

Skiing has two seasons, ya know. Winter and spring. Skiing isn’t just about the cold. It’s also about the corn.

All our skis worked great in the foot-deep corn. Sure, it’s “bottomless” but you DO get some nice control, performance and kick’n’glide!

The Jordan Jam is a wonderful grand finale. It’s our springtime sayanara to our ski season.

And it’s a real tear-jerker. It’s hard to let go. Maybe we should taper out our season instead of ending it with a bang. Because after each JJ I don’t want to quit.

The speed isn’t the thing at the JJ. It’s about wallowing in the experience. Literally.

So, the JJ is the last in the now six-part Michigan Backcountry Ski Series. We ski the Jordan River Pathway that’s just east of East Jordan. It’s a huge bowl of watersheds that drop down off a mid-state plateau. It’s a 19-mile loop with 4000 feet of elevation gain. It’s technically a hiking trail. Mtbikes aren’t allowed, supposedly (I don’t know how much summer pressure the trail gets). And the literature says “Highly NOT Recommended for Skiing.” Switchbacks, trees, steep descents, and no run-outs — that’s why the warning.

But we ski it anyway. We find, with the deep snow, that we can easily detour whenever needed off into the forest to scrub speed or find fresh lines for traversing.

It takes us from 5-10 hours, depending. …That’s a LOT of depending!

It’s a comical day for us down-staters in terms of the RadNord pace of life. We start at 5am, drive up 4 hrs, ski all day, have a beer, drive back — home by 10pm. Talk about roadbuzz! (We’re lucky the trail isn’t in the Porky Mountains! He’s done that before: drive 12 hrs on a Friday, BC ski the Porkies for 20 miles the next day, then drive back! Usually he adds another day or two and includes Bohemia, Valley Spur, Dunes, and Nubs.)

We start and end at Deadman’s Hill. The finale of the tour is a one-mile super-steep climb back to the top. That’s Deadman’s. It’s gorgeous.

So we started in near freezing weather under clouds. Perfect. The snow was a good one foot deep. Corned up but not firmed up.

Six of us, three newbies to the event. Rad, Dick, Dan, Marcus, Reinhold, and me.

Reinhold showed up out of the blue. That was nice. He’d heard about it then came. That’s how it works. Only a few are called. Even fewer answer.

We were using a wide range of gear, from skis suitable for groomed trails up to telemark width. All waxless. Only 2 skis used compatible bindings.

Our preferred pack set-up might be a narrow backpack plus a fannypack, since the fanny can be rotated around to the front for easy access, but many other variations work fine, too.

Our gear all worked great. It all worked about the same. A swimming ski in heavy corn is probably always a slow ski but it can still have a nice feel. We were all enjoying our setups. Nobody was suffering, nobody going off the front.

Well, Dick always goes off the front over the early ridges. He has a beautiful lively style for an ancient person. Even on his Rossi BC 90s and 75mm bindings!

He also knows some good Bob Dylan lyrics. …As our merry band marches along we sing songs, usually making up our own lyrics. But some lyrics are so good there’s no improving on them. This kind of outings is a time for enjoying such things.

I suppose the wider skis did better breaking trail.

It might’ve been neat to all have the same bindings, eh? That way we could’ve taken turns with the wide skis as we took turns breaking trail.

After 10 minutes of trail-breaking the leader would step aside and drop to the back which was nicely tracked in and easy, perfect skiing.

We chugged along at a modest semi-slow pace yet it was still an athletic achievement. You’d do your work then take a break. Over and over. At the top of pitches your heart-rate is up there. In the back and on downhills you can focus in on technique all you like. …The JJ has it all.

Sometimes I’ve questioned the JJ: it’s not even skiing. It’s tromping. How much fun is that? Well, it is that, but it’s so much more.

It’s true that I’d like to explore new places and add new elements to the puzzle and see what happens but the JJ is a solid day that delivers some reliable goods.

The views, the little scenes as you swing around a headline or go winding up a valley. The snacking. The basking at the main bridge.

I like how our adventure skiing systems are of a piece. It’s not a question of which wax is working but more how does the whole thing work. Ski, binding, boot, pole, pack, gloves, camera, food, drink, brain…

…And don’t forget your repair and emergency gear.

The trail passes over a half dozen ridges then drops into as many deep creek watersheds, changing from hardwoods up top to cedars and hemlocks down by the waters. What a delight!

It’s a watery, watery day.

The sun came out now and then as the day warmed. When it did the snowpack would quickly become less stable. Then, whew, we’d get shade again. A flurry of wintry mix came and went.

We crossed the Jordan itself twice. Flowing water in winter is so beautiful. We don’t get to see it much here in the Lansing area. Probably in most lower mid-Michigan the gradients aren’t enough to keep rivers and streams open very often, though it’s around if you look. Even when we ski down our local river when it’s frozen there will be occasional open places with flowing water — which I always love to see.

It’s also a delight to smell the water in the air.

We all wipe out a few times — but this last chance to lay in the glittery, juicy corn snow is more a chance to laugh than a time to get wet.

On southern slopes we’ll tramp through brief snowless areas where pine needles are damp but already being baked by the sun. That smells great, too.

Every hour we’d stop for a snack. These are snacks to relish. I should’ve brought white wine, even a little whisky. Heck, where was my dried fish and cheese? We do savor our snacks but we stick mostly to pizza. I think I’ll branch out more next time. This is an outing to savor. And savor it we do.

High tech makes itself known now. …I kept getting dropped when I’d stop to take a photo. It was my first time using my iPhone. I’d see something astonishing but instead of whipping out my cam I’d end up struggling, floundering then often tipping over. Ha ha. Yeah, right.

Marcus is a whiz with his iPhone. He’s made quite a few Vimeo ski videos that are a joy to behold. He edits only using the phone! No laptop or anything.

RadNord enjoyed dictating a little blurb about the Jordan Jam into his phone then using his Songify app to turn it into a cosmic ditty on par with Mr. Double Rainbow Across the Sky.

Several will track what we’re doing on various devices and services.

I’ll include links to the two videos to come from the day. M’s smooth one and my rough one.

We had a little joke that stuck in some of our heads. The day before the Lansing Bike Party had its first ride of the season. 30 of us cruised around. We went by the Hall of Justice, too. In front of it was a sign that said “No Freestyle.” We laughed and took a picture. Had lawyers been getting too loose with their presentations? Was the problem with judges not following precedent? “OK, we haven’t seen a case like this before so I’m going to do a little freestylin’ right now. See what you think…” Of course, under the sign it said “no skates, bikes or boards” or something. …So we adopted the concept for our skiing. When one of us did something a little goofy we’d holler “Watch it with that freestylin’!” Or on a tricky descent someone might say “I don’t care about the rules right now. It’s time for a little freestylin’…” I guess you had to be there.

We elected to skip a distant section of trail when we finally got to it, in favor of a snowmobile trail, for variety mostly. Variety is good. We enjoyed that mile of easy skiing along old farmland. Lines of big old derelict maples along the snowed-over dirt road.

If we’d skied the entire trail we would’ve climbed 4000 feet. Whoa. We’ve done it before. This time we climbed 2600 feet. Once around the Poto is 1000 ft of climbing. The distance is similar but the elevation difference is why it takes twice as long. …Though one early year it was perfect corn over crust and it only took a little longer than it takes to ski the Poto — with four times the climbing! It was a big skateboard park then … with herringbone.

For our grand finale we also missed Deadman’s Hill because of bridgework being done below. Instead we enjoyed a steady one-mile ski up a snowmobile trail at a shallow incline. But we were kicking out the stride and glide the whole way. Great glide, great kick, all the way up, up, up.

The rest of the day whenever we climbed it was herringbone. Probably a mile of it, all told. I love herringbone.

If you can’t get enough herringbone, the JJ is for you. …See you next year.

Here are our little videos…

Marcus’s: