The 2025-2026 Nordic Skiing Season Is Imminent

The Nordic season at Schweitzer might be underway in another month, depending on the snowfall between now and then. This photo of me lurking on Schweitzer's web site is from several years ago.

I would be surprised if Schweitzer made money on their Nordic trail offerings. Nevertheless, the grooming is just splendid - suggesting that the ski area may be losing money on the Nordic part of the operation. Grooming is expensive. Of course, alpine skiing is much more likely to make money.

At my age, the Nordic day ticket is free. Oddly, in past years there has been no price break for the over-80 Nordic season pass - unlike the price break for alpine skiers. It appears that this discrepancy will be rectified this coming season.

Nowadays, I only use classic skis; my skate skiing days are over. I struggled as a skate skier on Schweitzer's hilly Nordic trails. I never had the graceful style exhibited by the better skate skiers (like my wife) 

End of 2025 Kayak season

 

I call this photo "Lakehenge". Note that there are no boats on the water, now late October. In the Sandpoint area, the marinas are empty because the water level is drawn down by ~11 feet as winter approaches. People either store their boats on land or take them to a marina elsewhere on the lake where there is enough water to keep boats afloat during the cold months.

My final day trip was in the Clark Fork Delta, launching from the drift yard. My companions were Pam D. and Diane B. We saw herons, bald eagles, cormorants, Canada geese etc. There were no winds and the water was therefore unusually flat. We stopped at Old Icehouse Pizza in Hope on the way back to the Sandpoint Metroplex.

I had a variety of goals during the 2025 season. I don't believe I achieved any

My Favorite Kayak

 

 

 

I started kayaking about 18 years ago. Over those years I have had a fun hobby of buying used kayaks, refurbishing them as necessary, paddling them for some time, and then selling to try the next boat. I have paddled many different sea kayaks from manufacturers such as North Shore (before the Valley takeover), Mariner, Sterling, NDK/SKUK, Valley, Necky, P&H, Seaward, Current Designs, Boreal Design, etc.

No kayak is perfect for any user nor for every purpose. For example, a very nimble and maneuverable kayak could be perfect for rock gardening, but will likely be a poor choice for an expedition. Personally, I prefer a skeg to a rudder, but if I were into expedition journeys and camping along the way, I would opt for a rudder. The paddler’s skill level is also a crucial factor. For my skill level and choice of paddling location, I have a favorite – yet other kayaks I have owned (e.g. NDK Explorer) would come close.

I am not a highly skilled paddler, nor adventuresome. I am a small person, ~140 pounds and 5’ 5” in height ... continuing to shrink as appropriate for a person born in 1940. Nowadays I only take day trips and accrue merely 200 nautical miles each season. I have a favorite kayak from the long list of kayaks I have tried, not an overwhelming favorite, but nonetheless a favorite. It is the Boreal Design Ellesmere (red deck rather than that in the picture above). I have owned 2 of these over the years and currently have the Kevlar version. Its specifications:

• Bow, stern, and day hatch

• Skeg

• 17’ x 22”

• Depth 12”

• Weight 47 pounds

• Keyhole cockpit 16” x 30”

This kayak is similar to several of the kayaks I have owned. I am a bit small for this kayak, but have padded it with minicell foam to fit well.

The Ellesmere is reasonably fast and, since I am a slow paddler, it provides a nice compromise. The semi-useful and crude Sound Rowers Classification for the Ellesmere is 9.0. It seems to want at least a bit of skeg, which is deployed via a dial – which I rather like. Even with rolling practice, this kayak doesn’t seem to have leaks via the hatches nor the skeg box. My first Ellesmere had a rather intrusive skeg box, but this later version has a smaller skeg box which doesn’t take up nearly as much space in the stern hatch.

Among my least favorite kayaks, two stand out – a Sterling Ice Kap and a Boreal Design Pakesso. To be fair, the Sterling was a demo model perhaps prior to further development and ultimate release, but it was incredibly eager to weathercock. The Pakesso was the rudder version, and tracked very poorly – poor even for a short kayak.

Rolling Practice

I've tried rolling practice on 2 occasions this last week. Last year, I had zero luck reestablishing a decent roll. However, on today's practice I had modest luck and am inordinately encouraged. I had a decent roll, maybe 10 years ago for a season, but lost it. At age 84+, will I find it again? Maybe.

The kayak I have been using is the new-to-me Boreal Design Ellesmere, a model I used to roll consistently during that long ago season.  So far (including the occasional wet exit) the hatches do not leak water. I think I'll keep this kayak until I'm done with the sport. Note that it's difficult to find a nursing home that provides kayak storage. 

The Ellesmere Comes to Sandpoint

 

We brought the Boreal Design Ellesmere back from Plains, MT. The drive between Sandpoint and Plains is very pretty, following along the Clark Fork River. It takes a leisurely two-plus hours. There is a short stretch west of Plains where one must drive more slowly because of the occasional presence of bighorn mountain sheep. We did not see any on this trip, but have in the past. 

Initial questions to settle: 

Q1. Will I need to adjust the seat back, as I must often do?

Q2. Is it too big for me? Maybe I need to pad it.

Fresh Answers:

A1. I did need to adjust the seat back, using minicell foam so my back could be well supported when sitting erect. I crushed a disk in my lower back many years ago and a supportive seat back is crucial.

A2. It is a bit big for me, so I padded the hull interior at my hips.

What else did I find? I also padded the hull interior further forward, so my knees had enough contact to attempt rolling. And since I like a keel strip, I installed a 2" wide strip of EazyKeel. I've used this product before and have found it quite adequate for the kind of paddling I do e.g. no barnacle encrusted landings, rather on sand or non jagged stones.

The kayak behavior was more or less as expected. The Ellesmere seems to crave at least a wee bit of skeg. Perhaps I will load the stern more heavily to judge the effect. At slightly below 140 pounds, I may be lighter than the kayak expects. I do like the 'dial' used to deploy the rope skeg. 

I am no longer a camper, but the kayak has plenty of room for packing gear. In particular, unlike some of the skeg kayaks I have owned, this skeg box is quite small so the rear hatch has more usable room than I expected. My prior Ellesmere had a more intrusive skeg box.

How light is the kayak? Boreal Design specified this kevlar version at 46 pounds. I haven't actually weighed it, but probably will when the time comes to sell it.  Supposedly some vendors weigh a kayak without deck lines, seat & seat back, and hatch covers. I don't think that is true in this case. It feels to be somewhere in the 40 to 50 pound area.

Is the kayak fast? My prior Ellesmere provided my fastest time in the now defunct Sand Creek Challenge. That was 12 years ago and my paddling speed is significantly slower now.  Can I keep up with a group? Only when I am solo, a rather small group.

As of today I am precisely 84.5 years old. This is likely the last kayak I will buy as my primary kayak. However, I may want a wooden kayak so my wife can shoot flaming arrows at me to provide a Viking funeral. She is clearly motivated and her practice has been going well.

 

Boreal Design Ellesmere

In the last article, I related how I discovered that the Boreal Design Pakesso would happily leecock and was resistant to changing its ways - so I returned it to the seller. I had a Boreal Design Ellesmere when in my mid 70s and quite liked it. I was hoping that the Pakesso would be a smaller version of the Ellesmere - not so!

As it turns out, there was a Kevlar Ellesmere in Somers, MT. Rather far to drive, but the owner was willing to meet me in Plains, MT only a 2 hour drive. So on the day prior to kayak pick up, my wife and I will drive to Hot Springs, MT (near Plains) to stay at the Symes Hotel. We had stayed at Symes in the deep past, quite the funky establishment. The next day we will meet the Ellesmere seller in Plains.

So what will be my experience, returning to an Ellesmere? My current favorite kayak is my composite CD Squamish, essentially because of its light weight and good behavior. But the Squamish is slow. As a very crude measure of potential speed, I note that the Sound Rowers classification ranks the Squamish at 7.3 and the Ellesmere at 9.0. The Squamish does not weathercock at speeds below 10 knots, but my recollection of the Ellesmere is that it wants a bit of skeg. 

The adventure will continue. 

The Pakesso

On May 27, 2025 I purchased a used Boreal Design Pakesso. Pakesso is the Abenaki name for the partridge aka the ruffed grouse - not sure why a waterfowl was not chosen. Here are the specifications:

Length: 14' 6" (441.5 cm) - the shortest kayak I have used
Width: 21.6" (55 cm)
Height: 15.2" (38.7 cm) - hmm, room for big feet
Weight: 38.8 lbs (17.6 kg) 

Maximum capacity: 260 lbs (118 kg)
Outer cockpit dimensions: 16” x 30” (40.5 x 76 cm)

Serial No. QBOPK614M03J

The latter suggests that the kayak was born around 2003. It is swede form, rudder (not skeg), with fore and aft hatches. The less ancient Pakesso kayaks provide a skeg and day hatch by default. Although I like a day hatch, this kayak seems too short for that feature. In particular, it is trivial to stick my kayak cart in the rear hatch; otherwise with a skeg box that would be problematic. For its length, this kayak has quite a bit of water length.

The rudder control is via the justly derided sliding foot pegs. Yet the skeg deployment system is easily repaired in the field. Since this would be our guest kayak, I am unlikely to move to a Sea Dog system or some other fixed accelerator style foot peg - as I did for my wife's Necky IV Looksha.

My only other Boreal Design kayak was an Ellesmere, which was a splendid kayak. Nowadays kayak models come and go, also true of the original companies. This is true of Boreal Design in both cases.  

So, in an optimistic frame of mind, I took the Pakesso for a drive on Sand Creek. For starters, the skirt fit the boat ... but the tunnel was too narrow to fit me. I am not slender, but at 5' 5" and under 140 pounds, I am not plump. I should have checked the fit! No big deal, but how did the kayak behave? Yikes, it leecocked fiercely; so back to shore to load the kayak as stern heavy as I could. That helped marginally, but it remains a somewhat dangerous kayak. Well, back to the seller.