Cross-Country Skiing!

I don't remember what made Seth and I look into buying cross-country skis. It may have been after our one and only trip to Bolton Mountain's night time skiing, where they turn some lights on, sell cheap lift tickets and keep the lifts running til nine. Night time skiing didn't seem like anything extraordinary to us, coming from the midwest...most of the skiing we had done at home was done at night. 

We quickly discovered why skiing at night in the northeast is a bad idea. It was cold (frigid, actually), it was windy (gusting), and the wind howling up the frozen mountain had blown any loose snow off the trails leaving a single sheet of ice. It was not a pleasant evening of skiing, to say the least.

The first year we lived in Vermont, Seth said that for my birthday we were getting cross country skis. We went to the Outdoor Gear Exchange looking for used sets.They had some for Seth but not for me, so for my birthday I got a brand new pair of skis and Seth got a very used, purple pair. We both got poles, boots, and bindings, and we were all set for our most hilarious and fun adventures.

The cheapest bindings we could get are three pin bindings. Basically, your boots have a rubber tab on the front with three holes in them. You stick those holes into three metal pins sticking out of your bindings and clamp them on. That is your only connection to the ski: a rubber tab clamped down. The very thought of skiing with the toe of your boot clamped to the ski made us laugh and laugh, and we couldn't get wait to get started!

Cross-country skiing is the most fun at night. On our cross country skis we can go up and down hills by ourselves (we don't need the lifts) and we usually go on the same trails that we use in the summer for hiking and mountain biking.Since we're mostly in the woods, we're protected from the gusting wind, and since we're working our butts off, we don't have to worry about being cold! In fact, the best nights to go cross-country skiing are the absolute coldest!! (Or maybe our heads aren't screwed on just right) Anyway, at night we strap headlamps around our woolly hats and all of a sudden the whole world is sparkling. The several feet of snow beneath us are sparkling, the snow hanging in the boughs of the pine trees is sparkling, and if  we're lucky, the snow dancing through the air is sparkling too! (Anyone who was lucky enough to get my aunt Alex's Christmas card has an exact image of night time cross-country skiing!)

To add to the general hilarity of cross-country skiing created mostly by how bad we are at it, there is Thunder. Once we let him out of the car he is off! He doesn't stop moving until we manage to coral him back into the car again when we're done. He runs around in circles for a while sniffing all the potential animal tracks there are to follow while Seth and I get our skis on. Once we get our skis on and are ready to go, he bounds off towards the trail, occasionally stopping to make sure we are still going the same way as him. He runs up the trail until he catches a scent, then sticks his head into the ground to get a better whiff. He moves forward a few steps with his head still in the snow and stops to sniff some more. Usually he only takes a few steps off the trail, but occasionally he finds something REALLY interesting and takes off bounding through the snow.

With all this "Arctic Blast" air the weather channel has been throwing at us, Seth and I thought today would be a fantastic day to go cross-country skiing. We went up to Berlin Pond where there is an ancient road that goes up the mountain with trails branching off all over the place. In Vermont, we have "ancient roads" which are old roads that are no longer kept up and are really more like trails now, but that remain on the map, and until they are not published on the map they remain public domain. This particular ancient road and all the land around it has been bought by the state and turned into an awesome trail system. Today we stayed on the trails mostly by following other people's tracks, until they suddenly stopped where there was a big log across the trail. Hmmmm.

We decided to keep going and ended up skiing parallel to a little stream that for some reason hasn't frozen over yet. Eventually that became skiing on top of this little stream. It may not have been frozen over and the water was still running, but it seemed like (at this particular point) there was plenty of snow covering it up. It occurred to me as we were skiing down this creek that my skis could hit a rock or boulder at any time and send me flying into another rock or boulder in the creek bed. Or there could be a huge boulder ahead and where normally there would be a waterfall I would be flying off and landing on my head, on another rock. Surely I was going to be seriously hurt. I began grumbling and mumbling. Why can't Seth just stick to the trails? Why would we think it was a good idea to keep going when obviously everyone else had decided to turn back? Why does he make me ski down creek beds riddled with rocks and sticks and logs, and woah! why did we get this deranged dog running around and in front of me and around me and throwing me off balance!

Then a smile spread across my face. This is the fun of cross-country skiing! You can do silly things like ski down creek beds with crazy dogs running around and not really worry about anything because you really aren't going that fast. You can fall over into the snow and sink a few inches before you hit anything. We skied further down the creek and ended up in a beautiful pine forest. We came across a pretty well traveled trail. Seth turned around and said "I'll bet we're the first people to connect those trails this year!" with a huge smile on his face. I just started laughing and laughing! 

Then Seth said "you know what I'm thinking about when I'm going off the trail and blazing through like this?"

"What?" I could hardly guess.

"Some sucker's going to come across our tracks and think 'well, someone else has done it, it can't be that bad' and go for it! And then they'll get in deeper and think 'what is wrong with this guy? Why would anyone want to do this' he he he he he!" He giggled.

I don't know what made Seth and I think about getting cross-country skis, but I am glad that we did. It is the most fun outdoor activity that we do! We have fun while we're doing it, stay warm, and keep ourselves from watching too much TV in the dark northeastern winter. But most of all, we just laugh and laugh and laugh at the silliness of what we're doing.

None of these pictures are actually from today, but they are all of cross-country skiing. Except the first one, Thunder sticks his head in the snow to sniff things regardless of where he is. :)