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Love this! Like a Norman Rockwell painting, the kid holding the sign, as they await Jessie's finish of the 10km, and in the midst of all this: the girl catching a snowflake on her tongue. So much joy in that single moment! |
It's the night before the night before
we're driving to Lake Placid, the week ahead of the World Cup cross-country ski
events at Lake Placid, and I’m unable to sleep for some reason, since I've been
gripped by some Field of Dreams like urge to see the cross-country
skiing, since it's in our backyard. It's not exactly in our backyard,
it's five hours away. Yes, but it's way closer than Milano Cortina, I say.
Besides, a five-hour drive to Lake Placid might be less stressful than a
one-hour drive around Boston most days.
Back to the cowbells.
I ask Susan, “do you think there will be cowbells?”
Yes.
“Do you think they'll be standing right behind us, clanging them?”
Probably.
Why all the cowbells, I wonder. Then it dawns on me. Stands full of people
clapping with their mittens on, is going to sound something like this: pat pat-pat-pat-pat.
It's just a whisper louder than one hand clapping. No wonder. That's why the
cowbells.
We walked around Mirror Lake that morning and it seemed pretty nice out, and they
were predicting just a coating to an inch of snow, and so we went with lined
pants instead of snow pants.
We park and get in line for the shuttle, as the first snowflakes start to gently fall. We stand there for an hour, waiting for the shuttle bus, all while the snow continues to come down, and the line has doubled, now snaking around the parking lot.
Once we get dropped off at Mt. Van Hoevenberg,
we have to walk a mile across snow-slicked ice surfaces, and then some weird artificial
quicksand-like snow beads, and the snow is really coming down. We get to the
grandstand seats, and our butts instantly freeze to the surface. Snow is
accumulating on Susan's hood. Flakes melt on contact soaking our mittens. Our
pants and boots are soaked. The boots are waterproof-ish, but not when you’ve
been thrown into a pool, which is how it feels.
We try to clap. It goes splat-splat-splat.
We have everything we need, just not with us:
Yak Trax in the garage
Bag of handwarmers in our laundry room
Snow pants in car
Here are a few pics from Friday’s 10km race, and Saturday’s 1.5km sprint.
We are lucky enough to get there to see the start of the Women’s 10km. It’s just like watching it from our couch, it’s up on the big screen, except a lot colder. The photos are like impressionist paintings because of the snow, kind of cool in a fun artsy way.
Just like being on our couch! Jessie takes the course!
 |
| Jessie just 75m from the 10km finish line |
Note that I tried taking more pics in between these two, but my finger was so cold, it wasn’t being detected by my phone screen. I’m not surprised that the camera screen can’t feel my finger; neither can I.
We go to EMS that night to get waterproof mittens. They’re having a half-price sale!
It’s hard to make out bib numbers because of the snow.
 |
| I think this is Katey Houser |
 |
| And pretty sure this is Ava Thurston |
We would've liked to stay for the men's 10km race, but even more so though, we would like not to have to get medevac'd off the mountain, or lose some toes, so we head back to get on a shuttle back in town.
Once in our seats, the mountain of snow on top of the woman’s hat in front of us threatens to avalanche off onto us; all it would take is a quick tilt.
After EMS (Eastern Mountain Sports, not Emergency Medical Services), we go back
to Smoke Signals for dinner, where there are plenty of tables, even
though it’s almost six o’clock. Where is everybody? Hmmm. If it took all day for
people to get shuttled up the mountain, it will take all night to bring them
back. They’re stuck up on the mountain. We get the BBQ nachos and they’re delicious.
We’d also gone there the previous night, and so we were recognized by the
servers. We are not embarrassed.
Five stars: the first thing you see is
the view, looking out at Mirror Lake, and then the people, they were so nice,
and gave us such good food recommendations, and last, the food was amazing: BBQ
tacos & BBQ nachos.
In town, the Palace Theater is showing Jessie Diggins’ movie, Threshold,
all weekend and the marquee is lit up. See my last post for the movie review:
https://www.gainline.com/2026/03/threshold-movie-review.html
The Hampton Inn is the nicest Hampton Inn, and in fact maybe even the
nicest hotel in general that I’ve ever stayed at. Breakfast and coffee can be
had in the main lodge like room overlooking Mirror Lake. They even had a good
dark roast coffee and real half and half! And the people were so nice! Rooms
quiet and comfortable. I left a couple of Easter eggs, a couple of signed copies
of my books in their little library. Go check it out, they’re yours for the
having if they’re still there.
Speaking of books, we also enjoyed our
stop in at The Bookstore Plus, right on Main Street.
We went back to Mt. Van Hoevenberg Saturday morning for the Sprint Qualification runs.
We arrive just in time to cheer for Jessie as she slices on by, too fast for my
camera! We cheer for all the racers.
This is (probably) Julia Kern, from Waltham!
With 3 to 6 inches more snow mixing
with frozen precipitation predicted for Sunday, we decided to “double pole” it
out of there, and head home. We picked up some new lingo along the way. If “a
coating to an inch” turns out to be 6 inches, who knows what "3 to 6
inches" might translate into? A foot or three? Lake Placid seems to be in
its very own meteorological province.
Finally: Congrats to Jessie on wrapping up her amazing career, on home snow,
and wishing her all the best as she double poles into whatever her next chapter
might look like. Guaranteed, she’ll bring her same joy to whatever comes next.
And she has inspired the next generation of cross-country skiers who will follow
in her tracks.
Upcoming:
The 20km Coop FIS Cross-Country World
Cup race in Lake Placid Sunday March 22, 2026 can be livestreamed on Outside TV.
Women’s race starts at 2:20 PM today.
https://watch.outsideonline.com/live-events/usss?utm_medium=referral&utm_source%E2%80%A6=
It will also be re-played 3/29 at 1PM on NBC!
RESULTS:
10km
Classic Women’s results:
1 Linn Svahn (bib #10) Sweden 29:04.4
2 Frida Karlsson (32) Sweden 29:05.8
3 Heidi Weng (54) Norway 29:26.5
4 Astrid Slind (50) Norway 29:33.4
5 Jessie Diggins (58) US 29:36.9
Other US Finishers:
19 Rosie Brennan (15) 31:08.9
25 Kendall Kramer (5) 31:35.5
28 Novie McCabe (59) 31:41.9
33 Ava Thurston (45) 32:07.2
34 Hailey Swirbul (57) 32:09.4
35 Alayna Sonnesyn (7) 32:10.9
47 Samantha Smith (47) 33:11.5
48 Emma Albrecht (41) 33:12.5
50 Renae Anderson (39) 33:19.3
53 Emma Reeder (33) 33:47.7
58 Katey Houser (37) 34:44.7
Sprint
(1.5km) results:
Women:
1 Linn Svahn SWE
2 Jonna Sundling
SWE
3 Maja Dahlquist
SWE
4 Nadine
Faehndrich SUI
5 Johanna
Hagstroem SWE
For full results:
Men:
1 Federico
Pellegrino ITA
2 Lars Heggen NOR
3 Anton Grahn SWE
4 Lucas Chanavat
ITA
5 Harald Oestberg Amundsen NOR
Books:
If
anyone wants copies of my books, they’re both on Amazon, but for the rugby
book, just reach out in a comment, and I’ll send you a copy. It will be
simpler.
The Happy Clam is available to bookstores via Ingram, and online also via Bookshop.org.
References:
The pics of Federico Pellegrino are from the TV, taken from our couch.
© 2026 Rosemary A. Schmidt
Rose Schmidt is the author of The Happy Clam (© 2020), and Go Forward, Support! The Rugby of Life
(© 2004), both published by Gainline Press. The views expressed herein are
solely those of the author, and do not represent the views of any other agency
or organization. Use of individual quotes with proper citation and attribution,
within the limits of fair use, is permitted. To request permission to re-use or
reprint any of the content on the site, please contact me.
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