Minimum altitude: 1,606 meters
Distance: 20.2 km
Slope Aspect: North-East
Vertical Climbed: 450 meters (1,476 feet)
Vertical Descended: 445 meters
Back for the Etoile des Saisies 2023, my last and only race of a season truncated by lack of snow in the Nordic areas. Again ice on the road from Crest Voland made the finaly climb a bit tricky but new snow tires this winter did the trick.
The start is early 9am so I arrived in good time and did a few K warmup this year. A good idea. The start, like all course populaire is a bit Ben Hur with lots of stamping and broken ski poles but this year I was to see broken poles all around the course as well as one pair of broken skis - quite a lot of passive aggression in the world of amateur cross country skiing. I twisted my back near the start, on the first climb someone skied on my pole and blocked it causing me to twist around, so I did the race with a painful back. I was also underskied having had a month off due to lack of snow I had trouble on the warm up with the conditions - which were far from difficult - but all was okay on the race.
I find les Saisies really hard, lots of up and downs and the climbs are sometimes nasty, steep little ramps. Up on the plateau it is ok with rolling terrain but getting there is hard work. The descent is quite technical but better prepared this year. Although I improved my time by over a minute over the same course I should have been able to go a lot quicker, given the conditions. Under 1h20 for sure. Maybe next year?
Fresh snow on the Saturday, good skiing today
