World without winter - Minnesota edition

Our yearly nordic ski event has run aground. Today's City of Lakes Nordic Ski Foundation newsletter wins the brave face prize...

... With minimal snow and warm temperatures last week, today and more predicted for this week, the Loppet has moved all festival events to Theodore Wirth Park...

... Obviously, everyone involved wishes that this winter was more winter-like.  But we at the Nordic Ski Foundation are truly excited for this weekend.  With a shorter loop, spectators will have ample opportunity to cheer on their favorite skiers.  All the action will be in close walking distance - with all the things you love about the Loppet right at Wirth Park. This will be the one weekend when the community can celebrate a real Minnesota winter...

... a hiking Luminary Loppet allows for more interesting terrain and a more woodsy and intimate experience. Hikers will enjoy over one thousand ice luminaries, the Ice Pyramid, the enchanted forest, fire dancers, hot cocoa, maple leaf cookies from Canada, s’mores, and, new this year, a ten ounce pour of Surly beer...

I imagine weeping Loppeters pounding Surly while drafting this email.

Not coincidentally, NASA has released a wonderful and terrible animation of 130 years of global temperature variation. It's easy to see how I caught the Nordic bug in the 1970s -- a colder than average time in North America. Temperatures rise and fall around the world -- cold during WW I, warm during the Great Depression. Then, in the last 30 years, the world changes.

We'll still get snowy winters of course. Last year was fairly warm in The Twins, but it was wonderfully snowy. This year is warmer, and much drier. Maybe next year will be in between.

We'll be adapting in ways big and small. Last week my family took a 3 day Nordic ski vacation at Mogasheen Resort on Lake Namekagan near the home of the Birkebeiner and the resurrected Telemark Lodge. We picked the optimal date for snow cover -- and we got what might the only 4 days of top-grade skiing they'll have. This week it's melting.

So next year we'll look at making two reservations. One at Mogasheen, and a fallback near the Keweenaw Peninsula's Swedetown trails or up Minnesota's far Gunflint Trail. We're also going to have to learn how people in Iowa and Missouri make it through their long, dull winters. Tennis anyone?