Cross Country Skiing

[roadie gal]

Striding (classic skiing) is easy to just pick up, especially if you're not planning on racing. At its most basic it's like walking on skis. If you're going to get aggressive or race then it's worth taking lessons because being efficient, with good technique, is much more important.

Skating is much more technique driven. If you're interested in that I would start with a lesson. Otherwise it can be EXTREMELY frustrating and tiring.

The colors do refer to the difficulty of the trails. Green is easiest, followed by blue and then black. Start with the green and see how it feels. Move up to harder stuff if the green seems easy or you want to challenge yourself. Each ski area rates its runs differently. There are no set standards (this applies to downhill areas, too). The ratings are a comparison of the runs at that resort to each other, not to other areas. A blue run at an "easier" area might just be a green at a "harder" one.