Vasalopp's winter week began with plus degrees and rain, making it a wet experience for those who skied the nine miles in Open Track.
Lars-Åke Dickfors, from Avesta, who has completed the distance 36 times, tells us:
Sunday was terrible. You arrived at the start and when you got out onto the starting grid, there were lakes. Every step you took, you stepped down into the water with your ski. When you then went up the hill, there was brown water in several places all the way to Smågan a bit later. Officials were already working with chainsaws and creating channels to lead the water away.
Water on the ice
In a text on their own website, Vasaloppet writes that "right now it's very wet in parts of the Vasaloppet arena".
The problems are greatest at the start in Berga By and parts of the stretch between Sälen and Mångsbodarna.
Parts of the track are closed for skiing and Vasaloppet has brought in extra staff to lead away water quantities and secure snow supply.
Vasaloppet's sports manager Tommy Höglund says that over the past weekend, the nine miles have been divided into two parts.
After Mångsbodarna, it's been really nice and no water. Of course, the skiers got wet feet since it was plus degrees and humid snow. But the tracks have surprisingly held up well. The problem has been on the marshes before Mångsbodarna.
He explains that water has been poured onto the marshes' ice, which then flowed over the ski tracks.
We're sawing ditches across the tracks at eight to ten places, on stretches from ten to 300 meters, so the water can flow through. Then we're putting snow on certain parts.
Drying snow
The weather forecast says it will be minus degrees on the nights from Friday to the start at 08 on Sunday.
Then it will be perfect conditions, says Tommy Höglund, dismissing the risk that recreational skiers will have to ski in icy slopes:
No, I don't think so. In the downhill and uphill slopes, there hasn't been any water. There's snow.
