With a Friday high expected to reach around 42 degrees, the snow at Frozen Thunder is transforming a bit, according to a Seder-Skier correspondent based in Canmore.

“Starting to get icy,” Dan Batwinas texted on Friday morning. “Today was quite a bit busier than it has been.” Batwinas, who spent the late fall rollerskiing in the region and was at Canmore Nordic Centre Provincial Park for the ‘Frozen Thunder’ opening last week, said large swaths of elite skaters on every trail forced him to jump into the classic track and “push like mad” up the hills.

“Right to the point you greatly fear your poles and arms might explode!” he continued. “It’s so ungraceful that nobody would ever want to ski like that except when there is absolutely no other choice.”

Actually, Batwinas’ strategy sounds essentially like the Gripwax Nation modus operandi: “Just Double-Pole it” (or, “Just double-pole it, for cryin out loud,” for Minnesota members).

The ‘Frozen Thunder’ concept consists of an early-season 2-kilometer ski track made of stored machine-made snow which allows for effective on-snow training in October.

“Snow made the previous winter is stored for the summer in protected locations covered in sawdust,” the Alberta Parks website states. “In the fall, the snow is spread onto the trail to create Frozen Thunder Loop.”

AlbertaParks.ca indicated that increased snow storage capacity has allowed for double the length of the project, which is financed and operated through a partnership agreement between Nordiq Canada, Biathlon Canada, Alberta World Cup Academy, Biathlon Alberta, Nordiq Alberta, a grant from Alberta Tourism and Sport and the Alberta Government, with support from the Canmore Nordic Centre.

Batwinas said he expected the 4-kilometer version to be “open any day,” thanks to Tuesday’s five inches of fresh snow.