The City of Lakes Loppet

Posted Fri, February 12, 2010 - 8:45 PM
skiing, photography

Last weekend was the 2010 City of Lakes Loppet, a full two days of ski-related events and races. On Sunday, I went out to Wirth Park with the camera to catch some of the action.

Here are some of my favorite pictures; go to the gallery for the full collection.

I walked up the trail west from the aid station, to the turn in the southwestern corner of the park, and then north to the hill coming out of Quaking Bog. As I approached, I saw a couple of familiar faces - Molly, Jasper, and Rena were at the top of the hill, along with their friend Susan. I camped out and got some photos on the hill.

Not everybody was looking so happy by now, though.

After watching the classic skiers for about 45 minutes, the first skaters from the freestyle race started to come through. We climbed up a short hill to the skate trail to watch the action and ring the cowbells.

This guy wasn't quite the race leader, but I'd bet he was top 5 at the time.

We found a great spot in the narrow part of a loop, so we could see racers coming through on our left, and then, about 3 minutes later, coming through on the right. The first several people in the first wave came through solo, and then we started to see pairs and groups.

And eventually, packs...

Molly and Susan turned up the volume for the first wave 1 female racers as they came through.

Jerritt came through about halfway through the second wave. The kids were excited to see him.

Eventually, I moved on to the lakes area of the course. The last third of both courses followed a nice flat, packed route across Brownie, Cedar, and Isles, and with thick ice and plenty of room to manuever, there were lots of people out cheering on the racers. The ice candles from the Luminary Loppet were all still out, as well.

Oh, and the brass band, too.

The end of the race, going from the Calhoun-Isles pool up the center of the Mall to Hennepin, is flat for about the first third and gets progressively steeper up to the finish line. They made the racers work for the finish line, but Spidey seemed to have no problem.