Futile battle with unceasing snow calls forth three snowcats
January 8, 2012
The ČSOB Pojišťovna Jizerská 50 offered some of the most demanding conditions of recent years for racers: a futile battle with the weather when 40 centimetres of snow fell in the Jizera Mountains between Thursday night and the Friday finish, necessitating the presence of three snowcats ahead of the race.
The widest snowcat started out on the main-race trail an hour before midnight on Saturday and arrived at the crossroads at Nová louka around 6:00 in the morning. An hour before the race, it passed over a several-kilometre-long section at the start so that the conditions would be as good as possible. The second snowcat spent three hours preparing the trail for the Intersport Jizerská 25. The third snowcat prepared the trail at Jizerka shortly before the race.
“This year we encountered demanding conditions and unfortunately it wasn’t possible to maintain the tracks because up to 15 centimetres of snow fell in some place on Sunday alone. We traversed the course for a whole week in order to ensure that the base was as hard as possible, but the trail was still soft because of the unceasing snow,” explains trail manager Radim Nyč. “On behalf of the whole organizing team, I can say that we did everything we could possibly do.”
