The 2022-23 season Individual Challenges: We had 17 members taking on the Individual challenges this year. Well done everyone! Three club members completed all the challenges, five conquered the epic "Ski all the trails, no lift" (50 kms and 1000 metres of elevation gain in one day), six members skied over 1000 kms in the season, and another ten broke the 500 km barrier. Great to see people challenging themselves on skis!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Individual Challenges have been an annual club activity for many years. For this season, the Challenges will remain the same as last year, with the addition of cumulative distance achievements (Don't forget to check out the Team Distance Challenge as well!)
Note that the Individual Challenges can be done at any time during the ski season (they're not tied to specific dates like the the Team Challenge and there is no completion deadline). We have the same Challenges again this year, plus new for this year, cumulative distance achievements. Each event is independent and cannot be combined with another except the 2 events, Ski Your Age and Ski Every Trail. For example, if you are 40 and ski every trail in one day, you have also skied your age. Or, If you are 48 and ski every trail in one day you can top up your mileage to 48 and you will have skied your age.
Our tech guy Erik has created a spreadsheet where you can enter your completed challenges, and also see what the other individual challengers have been up to! To prevent errors, it's set up so that you can only check off items in your own line but not for anyone else, so everyone has to enter their own data. Those of you who were on the list last year are already on the spreadsheet. To add your name to the spreadsheet, email the club at sunpeaksnordicclub@gmail.com and tell us you want to be added. We have to do this manually for each member for now, so your name may not appear for a day or two. (Note that to access the spreadsheet you will need to be signed in to your Google Account. We will need the email address associated with your Google account, but that doesn't necessarily need to be a gmail address.) Go to the spreadsheet here.
THE CHALLENGES: 1. Holy Cow Ascent Ski from the Nordic Centreup Holy Cow to the top of the Morrisey lift and back down. You do not have to go around Pony Loop.
2. Twin Peaks Ski from the Nordic Centre to the top of Stellar Jay and to the top of Pony Loop in one trip. You do not have to go to the bottom in between summits and it doesn’t matter which peak you ascend first.
3. Ski Your Age Ski your age (as of Dec 31, 2021 ) in one day. If you are over 50 you may choose to either ski 100 minus your age in one day OR you may ski your actual age within 24 hours i.e. start the afternoon of one day, finish the next morning.
4. Cumulative Distance Achievements Starting with your very first ski of the year, keep track of your kilometres skied. The achievements are: Bronze: 250 kms Silver: 500 kms Gold: 1,000 kms
5. Ski Every Trail (three versions!) (a)Ski every trail in the Nordic Trail System in one day. You're allowed to take the chair for this one. You may set your own route but every inch of every trail in the system must be skied (approx 42 km). (b)Ski every trail in the Nordic Trail System in one day, without taking the chair. This one is a lot tougher of course. It works out to about 48-49 kms with more climbing. (c)Ski all the green trails. A much more friendly option. The greens obviously aren't all connected, in fact several are off by themselves, so you need to ski quite a bit of the network to cover them all. There are many ways to do this but it works out to a little over 20 kms. Don't forget to check the map thoroughly: short trails like Heinz's Way and the new WhiskeyJack Loop are easy to overlook!
Planning an efficient route to ski all the trails without repeating a lot of trails is harder than it looks. One of our members, Richard Taylor, designed a computer program to figure this out and he has posted the routes on his website. Note that the following applies to the original network and hasn't been updated because Richard has moved away, so you'll have to improvise a bit. There are 4 possible routes for Option (a) and one route for Option (b). And if you're keen, he has developed a system with which you can design your own custom-made route. You can also download and print his map with the junctions numbered. Check out his website here.