Super Swede Patrik serves up Ski-O

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Last Updated: Tuesday, 10 September 2013 14:54

Is there no end to Patrik Gunnarsson's talents?

Big Foot's Swedish star last month headed down to the snow to put on what we believe to be the first ski-O event in NSW for almost 30 years. Garingal member Peter Stevens has emailed to say he hosted two events in the 1980s at Perisher, and a photo of one of them graced the cover of the Australian Orienteer (right). The report from 1982 said winds were so strong that two flags were lost and four others damaged. 

Patrik's long-awaited return to the powder heralds a potential new outlet for orienteers.

He raced back to Sydney that night to run in the MetrOLeague finals the next day at Cataract, where he anchored the Feet to a fifth straight Division 1 title and also took out the individual medal. Read about Patrik's ski-O adventure... 

"Coming from Sweden with white winters and a lot of snow and being used to participate in a fair amount of ski-o event every winter, I just felt that I needed to go cross-country skiing again. I knew that it is possible to ski in Australia in winter time so I brought my pair of skis when we moved to Sydney. I had hoped that I would be able to participate in an event during the winters I have been here, but since we moved in the beginning of 2011 I hadn’t even skied once.

This winter I first planned to go to Lake Mountain in Victoria for a ski-o event organised by a club in Melbourne, but since the elevation is not high enough to keep the snow for a longer period of time the event didn’t happen. Instead Perisher had still a lot of snow, although some really hot days in the week before melted much of the snow away. So together with Jason Rutkowski we drove to Perisher on Friday for one day of cross-country training on Saturday August 31.

The road leading up to the resort at Perisher didn’t reveal any signs of snow. But after the last crest before Perisher resort a totally new landscape appeared. There was about a half-metre layer of snow in the area.

The temperature was 4C in the morning with a light breeze and during the night it had been below zero, making the tracks hard and good for skiing. Almost all of the tracks have been groomed, making the conditions perfect. During the day it got warmer and after lunch the tracks got slushy as the mercury climbed over 10C.

I organised a little ski-o competition (unofficial NSW ski-o championship) with an 11km course around the cross country trails at Perisher. I used a 1:25,000 topographic map but rescaled it to about 1:15,000 with the ski trails marked in various colours. There were plenty of trails which made for some interesting route choices on the course. The competition was run as a mass start and I took an early lead and finished first in 84 minutes. Jason had to put in his best effort to grab second place in 91 minutes.

For those who are familiar with MTBO, the concept of ski-o is quite similar with the controls located, on or next to, the ski trails and the main goal is to find the quickest trail to the controls. If the layer of snow allows it, the competitor is permitted to cross between tracks as well, in opposite to MTBO where it’s usually forbidden.

For next winter I hope we will be able to organise a small event at Perisher for all people who would like to try out ski-o and hopefully on a proper orienteering map this time."