GRAND MESA NORDIC COUNCIL RACE #4

MESA MELTDOWN

3/12/2006

SKYWAY

Another race, another blizzard. The jinx was on this year, it seems. The road was closed again Friday night but opened Saturday so the race happened as scheduled on Sunday. The early grooming and setup crew found the road through the avalanche area and the parking lot unplowed with over a foot of powder to contend with. By 9:30, though, the CDOT guys had done a masterful job ensuring the road and a very large parking area had been cleared. It seems as if a lot of the locals were intimidated by the looks of the weather but we had a nice contingent of out-of-towners. Skiers arrived from Crested Butte, Steamboat Springs, Basalt and Silt and Karl Newman made his annual visit from Couer D'Alene Idaho. It's actually all his fault since he always brings a storm with him. It was great to see him anyway.

Due to the big snow accumulation and the gusting winds, the groomers decided the only feasible race course was laps of Winslow and Sunset. There were mumblings at the starting line about doing five laps to make it an official 20K but, when the leader Joe Ramey came around after two, he suggested we poll those following to see if they would agree to just four. There was unanimous consensus as the racers came by that four was plenty and so it was. Joe held onto his lead and finished first with a sizeable cushion. Helen Carlsen was impressive as always finishing first for the women and second overall. Tom Lambert easily won the 5K and the mysterious Anky von Schnoplau was the first woman in that race. The real heroes, though, were the volunteers who again stood around in miserable conditions and made it all happen. Great thanks to Shirley Ela, Joyce Tanihara, Tom Fanticone, and Graham Stephenson. That concludes another season of fun racing on Grand Mesa. I hope to see everyone the first Saturday in December to do it all over again.

Thanks to our sponsors for this race:

CLIF BAR

R.E.I.

SUMMIT CANYON MOUNTAINEERING

ELA FAMILY FARMS

MESA MELTDOWN 20K FREESTYLE RESULTS

Place	Name	Age	Home	Time
1.	Joe Ramey	49	Grand Junction	1:28:51
2.	Helen Carlsen	45	Basalt	1:33:46
3.	Denny Hogan	56	Silt	1:34:27
4.	Steve Ela	42	Hotchkiss	1:39:08
5.	Richard Hypio	50	Hotchkiss	1:41:42
6.	Chuck Bodie	53	Grand Junction	1:41:46
7.	Beth Hurricane Carter	55	Crested Butte	1:46:34
8.	Dave Knutson	57	Paonia	2:13:29
9.	Virgil Carnage	45	Grand Junction	2:27:34
10.	Pam Hogan	53	Silt	2:33:38
11.	Marti Irish	56	Steamboat Spgs.	2:38:52
12.	Chris DePuy	50	Montrose	2:42:07

3 laps	Bob Carlson	56	Paonia
2 laps	Andy Martsolf	34	Grand Junction